The Strenuous Path

A short story about adventure and hell.

The cobble stone path arched around the bend like a spiraling lunge. Twelve foot trees aligned the path like a muddy green drape with sticklers pointing every which way. The tops of the trees , from our perspective, formed a river of a sky that was limpid azure blue. A floating H-bomb shed temperamental light, bathing us with a blanket of heat. Our skin was dripping with vitriol shine as we walked for hours down the cobble stone path. Our knee caps began to sag and pinch at our heels after each drooping step until we came to a halt where the path divided two ways. We wobble on our flimsy legs. The path to the left steered off into a another land of trees that stretched to the horizon. The path to the right, well, it was the same show as the previous hours of my life. The man beside me; tall, six-eight, and lean.  We stared at each other with our faces combed with stupefaction. 

"Well..." the man said leering of to the left. "Which way?" 

There was a pause of silence. We could hear chirping birds lilt in our surroundings. He stood their with a hill billy look of a face plastered on, a white t-shirt with too short of sleeves, which was torn at the bottom, revealing his belly. Old stained Levis wrapped his legs, and neither of us had shoes. 

I broke the silence."Before we make any decisions, we need to think for a second. What's your name?" I crouched onto a rock off to the side, peering up at him with curiosity like a kindergarten kid sitting on a rug. He stared off into the trees in reverie for a second and snapped his neck back at me. 

"Hold on a second! First; what the hell is your name and how did you get here? Where are we?" 

"For all i know, i'm just as puzzled as you are." 

It was strange how we never thought to ask these questions the previous hours, but we felt a sense of obligation and deep reverie as if we were in a lucid dream, prancing around hypnotically. After a few hours of deep thought, we came to the conclusion that the path to the left was to throw us off track like a trick, So we continued to slither down to the depths of hell on the same path. We looked like a snake on a monstrous pole as our scales glistened with vitriol sweat, slithering down and down, descending in to a pyre.  

The sun has not moved for the past fourteen hours. It stayed hinged in the sky dressing us with 90 degrees. There's no shade or shrinkage of the sun, no sleep or you'll slowly cook to death. We thought about going back to the fork in the road to take the other path, but we felt a magnetic pull since we pleaded in this direction, and a sense that we were getting close to our destiny. We traipsed down the path, searching... searching, blindly. 

Part 2 

"Hey Billy..." I questioned, wiping sweat from my caterpillar eye brow. " Does it seem a little cooler than last year?" 

"Oh it's the same as all the other years!" He pitched back. "You're just custom to this heat since you've been walking in it for the past ten tuh seven years." 

"But what i duhn understa..." I was interrupted. 

"Don't start this again, please don..." 

"... WHY HAVE WE BEEN ABLE TO WALK FOR SO LONG WITH OUT ANY CRAVE FOR FOOD OR WATER!?" i barked. 

"Just face it." he said. "We're in hell and we'll be walking this path for ever!" 

"But i haven't done anything bad in my life!" 

"How do you know? You can't even remember your own name!" 

"Ohhhh." I a moaned with a sigh." Yes I do, it's..." 

I came to a halt and Billy kept striding along with his open mouth until he realized i was not aside him any longer. He dug his toe in the ground and whipped around. 

"What are you doing now?" he nagged with the back of his head weighing down and mouth ajar.

I stared in silence at the rock that sat off to the side. Is that it, the very rock i sat on years ago? i stood zombiefied. 

Billy continued." what's the matter wit..." he paused. "Is that, no... it can't be." His fists looked like stones.   

Everything poised around us, including our sweat, frozen. Time seized to exist. We stared at the rock with deep contemplation. I walked over and crouched onto the rock, studying it's surroundings. 

"Yes, this is the rock, the very same spot." i said.

He sagged to his knees and began to beat the ground with slugging fists. "Did you notice that before? Has it been there all these years? Have we been walking in circles all this time!?" His voice was laced with pity. Spit and tears began to drool from his face as he wilted over his enveloped knee caps. He was finished, done, dead.  

From my position you could see the very same landscape as ten years ago, except there was a wall of trees where the path branched off to. I sat there visualizing the path divide through the trees while a check mark eye brow raised on my four head, simultaneously twirling my tongue. Forever sitting there, I felt...i don't know what i felt; i was dead, rotting away in hell, wrapped in humid skin with no soul. 

We both fell asleep.