If ever there was needed a reminder of how brutal life is, none is needed now. Blood in the sands, falling from the skies, obscuring the seas. That there is a wound is obvious. Where it is... less so. There's a ridge just up ahead; perhaps the view from it will reveal all. Wise men are found on mountains, yes? Perhaps there is wisdom to found.
There's blood under fingernails, and legs can't be felt, but survival requires movement and becoming a feast for carrion is not yet a given. There are wings circling overhead. Manmade? Or feathered? One could be rescue. Both could be death.
Streets in the desert don't care what they're called, for they're still desert. The mountains ahead have a name, surely, but they don't seem to mind their own namelessness. They are and will be for some time; it is a crawling man who is in danger of fading. But nature designed him resilient, and feral thought will not allow surrender. Even if conscience does.
An inch at a time eventually becomes miles, and distance is ultimately crossed. Knowing how far would be desirable and, likely, responsible. But greed felt in lungs struggling to breathe spreads to hands grasping at purchases to pull them along in a desire to be defined by living.
This is not a summit's peak, but a cliff's edge, and the difference is unimportant. Get up. If you're going to fall, do it here, do it now. There's still air beneath you.
