The Beyond Trilogy by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2015-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

A Man and His Arduous Journey

Having made my way through the city from one end to the other, I left it from the opposite end.

Spreading out before me was the mountain range I had noticed when standing before the fork at the two signposts. In their midst, though a long way off, I saw a man coming toward me. My eyesight must have improved far beyond 20/20. Though I could faintly make him out, he was a great distance from me . . . miles away—perhaps hundreds of miles. Steep hills, valleys, ravines, and treacherous pits of unfathomable depth extended between us. The mountainous rocky desert was altogether forbidding. I had seen nothing like it in all my time here. Smoke trailed up from several open canyons. The fissures appeared volcanic, extending deep into the bowels of the earth, like burning sores on the landscape.

I shuddered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep on in this direction. No hint of green was visible. Unconsciously my steps slowed.

I continued to eye the man. I couldn’t be sure from such a distance, but he was apparently attempting to hail me. How he would succeed in traversing the dangerous terrain between us, I could not imagine. I felt like Lazarus gazing upon the rich man with an impassable gulf between them.

Whoever he was, he kept bravely on. As I watched, over and over he disappeared behind a cliff or deep into a ravine, then reemerged. This went on again and again. Each time by degrees he drew a little nearer, before disappearing again, then yet again coming back into sight—walking, climbing, occasionally falling, but always picking himself up and trudging on. I could see that his hands and knees and elbows were bruised, skinned, and bleeding, and his clothes tattered from what must have been a lengthy journey.

As I watched, my heart went out to the man. If he was trying so hard to reach me, struggling mightily against all the odds that would prevent him, the least I could do was make it easier by shortening the distance.

I began walking again, hurrying now in my desire to help the poor fellow.

I set out across what had appeared such impassably precipitous terrain. The moment I stepped forward into it, however, the ground beneath my feet changed into gently rolling grassland. The change continued with every step. The inhospitable desert gave way at the touch of my feet, and was transformed into the rich panorama I had become accustomed to since my waking. I found myself walking along at the moving vanguard of an amazing transmutation—behind me the lush landscape of heaven, in front of me and gradually being swallowed up as I went, the wasteland.

I hurried on, anxious now to reduce the rocky distance between myself and the man.

He saw me trying to ease his arduous journey. He must have been aware of the transformation of the land resulting from my approach. He began running even faster, as he was able. Boulders, gorges, and steep climbs still separated us, however, and prevented him making as much progress as I did.

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