Up The Draw

What compelled Luis to the spot, he never quite knew. It wasn’t beauty that called him there, at least not in the ordinary sense.

The place itself was harsh and narrow, a shallow gully hemmed in by walls of sandstone that twisted upward into a pale, sloping V. Yet every day, as the sun reached its late-morning height, Luis found his feet carrying him up the rocky path, as if pulled by an unseen hand.

By the time he reached his special place, his thoughts often blurred, fading like footprints in shifting sand. He would sit on a flat rock near the top, gazing down at the valley below, the wind whispering through the cracks. He felt an ache of peace there, as though something in the stillness was remembering him.

Seasons passed unnoticed. Rain pooled in the hollows; snow dusted the ridges white. Summer came with its shimmering heat and humming silence.

Through it all, Luis continued his daily climb. Sometimes he wondered why he returned. Sometimes he forgot to wonder at all.

He began to notice changes, not in the land, but in himself. His clothing grew thin, the fabric pale and ragged at the seams.

His hands looked older than he remembered, skin translucent, veins like faint rivers. He could feel the roughness of the rocks, yet not their warmth. The sun, once comforting, had no real heat.

Then, one morning, the gully was wet. It had rained through the night, and the air was cold and heavy with the scent of damp stone.

Luis trudged up the slope as always, his shoes soaking through. The pools of water reflected the sky in trembling mirrors.

When he reached his usual seat, he let out a long, weary breath. It felt strange in his chest, shallow and echoing.

A flicker caught his eye, a small puddle nearby, perfectly still despite the wind. It glimmered, sunlight dancing through the clouds.

Luis smiled faintly and leaned over to peer into it. What he saw made his breath stop altogether.

The reflection was not his, not truly. The face staring back looked hollow and pale, eyes sunken deep into shadow, mouth open as if mid-plea.

He flinched back, scraping his hands on the rock. Pain, sharp, immediate, flashed through him, and with it came a rush of memory, wild and merciless.

The sound of stones breaking loose beneath his boots. The tumble.

The crack of his head on cold earth and the stillness that followed. He tried to stand, but his legs gave way, and he fell hard against the ground, the same ground that had claimed him long ago.

The chill seeped into his bones. He reached for his knee, but his hand met nothing soft, only a hard and unyielding shape beneath the remnants of his sleeve.

Bones.

Luis lay still, the truth rising slow and terrible. He was not living.

He had not been living for years. His daily pilgrimages, his silent meditations, the strange peace he felt, it had all been the restless wandering of something left unfinished, a soul circling the place where its story ended.

The clouds shifted, dimming the last trace of light. Wind sighed through the gully, carrying the sound of distant thunder. The puddle rippled once, then stilled again, empty.

And when the next morning came, no footprints marked the path up the draw, only the whisper of wind, and a single hollow echo fading into the stone.