Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

4

Weeks later we catch up with the young wayfarer. He seems to have lost his bearings in the desert. In all directions, there is nothing but sand—flat desert and sand all the way to the horizon. And there's no shadow. Well, there is a shadow, but it's the shadow of the noonday sun.

We've happened on our traveller just as he is frantically going through all of his pockets and all of his belongings in search of—

Must be a compass he's looking for. He's standing dead centre of a circle of footprints that look to have been made by someone me-thodically scanning the horizon from every point in the circle's 360

degrees.

Ah! There it is! He's located his compass.

With compass in hand, he faces north, in line with the compass needle and then turns sharply to the right, looks off into the endless sand and shoulders his pack and resumes his journey eastward.

He's back on track, reinvigorated by the thought that he hasn't lost his way and that through perseverance he has triumphed. Having lightened his load again, he marches forward, confident that he has all that is needed to come out of this OK on his own.

The cart is gone, left behind on the craggy rocks of some distant mountain pass a lifetime ago. All that remains of its contents are the small volume on surviving in remote and desolate conditions and the second volume of the first edition O. Henry. Also left behind—miles back on the desert plain—are the dinghy, the boat paddle, the life preserver, the fishing rod and the snowshoes.

After briefly checking in on our young traveller, we again take our leave. As we zoom out, we halt momentarily to take in the bird's eye view of the desert. Off to the east, the desert ends abruptly.