- 2026-02-16
- Writing - vignettes
- Previous - 15. Burn
Ten long years, a lifetime. Innumerable faces and places.
I thought it right to forsake it all, for I discovered my quest. I found a crack in my heart, and knew it must be mended.
Life became about the mending. I cast aside my previous life, a gradual disrobing, the less to carry, the further I’d travel.
There’s a mountain to climb. There’s a dragon to slay. I can’t see either yet, but I will look to the distance and march.
No pausing, no rest. This scenery means nothing; I have a dragon to slay. Beauty, friendship, love; things for those with unbroken hearts.
And when I succeed, I will possess more than any other, and it will have been worth it. The quest that beguiled them will come into brilliant focus, I will have renown, slayer of the dragon, champion. Perhaps I will teach others to slay dragons, and we will be a freer people. I will be part of the tapestry of saviours, and they will write songs about me.
You taught me on the French riverbank, two years ago now, in my exhaustion from the marching, my confusion, my misery, that the quest is my prison. I dropped my sword, looked down from the imagined mountain, and was awake. Vividness in every detail, and not a care in the world. Earthly perfection, here and now.
I was stunned for weeks, joyous and resplendent.
But of course, as time passed, my thoughts returned to that dragon. Witness again to my own imperfection, my foolishness, mistakes. I rediscovered the fault lines of my heart. I vowed again to kill the dragon, to climb the mountain. I cursed my self-indulgent resting.
Two years passed. Foolishness and folly, ever seeking that imagined mountain. This time, a different sage shook me to my senses.
The seeker is the sought.
Lower your gaze from that imagined mountain.
We are here now.
I know your heart is broken; so is mine.
There’s nothing to fix. You knew this. Remember now.
- Next - 17. Horns