A Hero's Journey

11:55 pm

In the mess his wristwatch was the only semblance of order, the only way he could keep track of the time - the hours and minutes that passed from journey to journey, the knowledge of days, weeks or months now a relic he could only yearn to be blessed with. He didn't know how long he had been a vagrant, and right now it no longer mattered to him; however long it was it had grown amorphous and into a nagging reminder of his transient lifestyle, and now he found it all but inconsequential. He couldn't go back now - back to the hometown in which he once resided, back to the life he once lived; it was but a figment of imagination now - a nostalgic theatre so ingrained in the past it took upon an almost fictional form, like an old painting

He had gone through the place in the light of daytime, salvaging whatever resources that could be of use to him, but in the days and nights that followed only the barren house stayed with him. It mattered none - his solace came in a more permanent form. Reaching into his satchel again he took out a little box of mementos - a photograph of his family, a letter from his wife, a little ragdoll belonging to his daughter that he had salvaged from the ruins. Cast in the light of the candle their faces were ever so dear to him, and, delicately placing the items on the floor in a circle he allowed his eyes to become moist and tears to run down his cheeks as he was overcome with sentiment; he was hardened from conflict and despair, but never would his heart mute the aches of longing and love he had for his family. And these were tears mixed with sorrow - there was no reason to believe they had perished in the fire or had been killed by their attackers; rather it was likely that they had been taken away or had gone on the run, as had he, and now he had no solace in the knowledge that they were well, or even that they were dead. Every moment spent thinking of them was appended with the paranoia that they may be imprisoned or even tortured. Such was the norm for his pursuers - merciless even to the defenceless. He wished that one day he would see them again; indeed he allowed himself to be enraptured by fantasies of happy endings, or reuniting with them and kissing his wife and daughter one again, and inadvertently he allowed himself to be tortured by the reality of its improbability. They were god-knew-where; he did not know and he would not know. Through his tears he saw a single moth fluttering about. It circled around the naked flame, until at long last it collided with it and fell to the floor beneath, unmoving. Another rumble of thunder echoed through the