The desert sun was unrelenting. Though he didn’t find it oppressive or unbearable—this was his home after all—each successive footfall felt more leaden that the last, the hunger and thirst sapping what was left of his strength. As if to spite his chapped lips, his mouth salivated as he conjured up his last meal from his memory; succulent meat with some dried fruits, all washed down with some local firewater, followed by a palette cleanse of crisp clear water plucked from the nearby stream.
The meal was a deliberate choice—a favourite, just one last time—and though tears were shed for his upcoming departure, there were also many bouts of laughter, brought on by fond memories and the exaggerations of elaborate storytelling. Before dawn the following morning, he slipped out the door. He had no need for any possessions other than the clothes on his back where he was going. These last couple of years, old age had seemed to weigh heavier on him—his eyesight had worsened, his body more frail, climbing hills he had previously strode up easily now sucked the breath from his lungs. His time was near, and he knew it was time to go.
Despite now three days of non-stop walking, if there was one thing he still had in abundance, it was endurance. The scorching sands warmed his soles. At this time of the year, he would usually travel at night to avoid the worst of the heat, though now he so desired to experience the sun, witness the azure sky, the wisps of clouds languid overhead. Hour after hour he kept a steady pace, pausing only every now and then to admire the pristine desert landscape—its crimson and ochre otherworldly rock formations, coarse beige sand, clusters of straggly and spiky bushes, blue sky so vast it resembled an inverted ocean. With moonrise, he lay down to rest; he was in awe at both the beauty and the boundlessness of the night sky.
Several days later, he crested the ridge. It was much like he remembered, though with maybe a few more straggly and spiky bushes, and as he slowly raised his gaze, he saw it—the infinite ocean. Stretching all the way to where it meets the setting sun. This was the perfect spot; he longed to hear the waves rush up on the beach, washing away his thoughts, drowning him in mindfulness. Just him, and the waves, and the moment. Or perhaps, just the moment.
Navigating a narrow track, he wound his way down from the ridge to the shore. The sun was slung low in the late afternoon, casting long shadows on the arid hills. Folding his legs up he sat quietly on the sand, just out of reach of the waves that crashed in, propelled by energies harnessed far out to sea. He let his mind wander. It invariably turned to what dim memories still remained. He pondered how moments of his life—both the profound and the mundane—might have been different if he went left instead of right, said yes instead of no. He concluded it didn’t matter anyway; these ‘what ifs’ were like sea mist on the hills, no more solid that the memories triggering the thoughts in the first place. And besides, there were many threads of these potential lives of his—all the ‘maybes’—that were cut short much before the age he was now. He was in no position—no one was—to evaluate what is better or worse over the length of a lifetime, the infinite strands of cause and effect much too interwoven for the human mind to unravel.
It was in this moment he realised that time can only exist through change—without change, there is no time. Without thought, there is no cognitive compulsion to measure; without measurement, there is no change to mark time. Mindfulness is timelessness, a deathless death itself. It seemed to him that a sliver of awareness between thoughts could live the lifetimes of the stars above.
His eyes grew heavy, both with physical exhaustion and hunger-induced fatigue. As his eyelids flickered—reminiscent of the flickering stars above—he smiled in a moment of contentment, suspended in the deathless death. And then his eyes closed for the last time.
The sound of waves charging up on the steep beach echoed in the evening air.
