Week 7: When You Stop Walking

A permanent storm rages across a planet. The only inhabitants are nomads who constantly travel inside the eye of the storm.

When I was a child, I would ask why we would always walk with the storm. It was never ending, a speck on the horizon in every direction, dark, black clouds that rumbled and flashed lightening. I would ask, innocent and wide eyed, why we wouldn't just stop, and let the storm pass over us. My father, skin weathered and cracking from the dry air, shook his head. 

"We walk to survive."

There were legends, of course, of people who refused to keep walking, to stop and set up camp and let the storm approach them. Those people were never heard from again, and it is assumed they are dead, killed by the deadly storm that has defined my entire existence. I can't imagine a life without the wall of clouds, of the sound of rumbling and crash of lightening. I dream sometimes, of it clearing up and dying, but the storm weathers on beyond comprehension, so we keep walking, always staying in the eye of the storm, surviving. 

Until one day, my mother decided she wanted to stop. 

"We can't stop. It's not a topic for debate," my father bit out, his mouth set to a permanent frown, the lines folding across his face. His blue eyes were bloodshot, the red veins spidering across the once white surface. 

"It is for me. I'm tired. I've walked for thirty five years, Gerald. I'm ready to be done and find out what happens when you stop walking." 

He shook his head. I could see his hands clenching as he looked behind him, as he always did, watching the approaching storm. 

"No. No we are not, and will not."

"Well I am, and frankly, you can't do anything about it." 

He opened his mouth and shut it again, rubbing his hands over his face. "We can't. We'll die." He paused. "You'll die." 

"You don't know that. Nobody knows that. We could die any day anyway," she replied, waving her hands around her. I've never seen her this animated, the quiet mother I once knew disappearing in favor of this desperate woman. "I'm ready to find out!" 

"It's suicide. Everyone knows that. Even if you stay..." His voice trailed on, and we all knew what it meant. Even if she survived, we would never see each other again. He would continue walking for the rest of his life, until he died in the eye of the storm. 

"I have to," she said, the pleading gone out of her voice, replaced by the tired resolution of certainty, of a decision that's already made. "I'm going to." 

He shrugged, then rubbed his hands over his face again. "Then you have to." 

"I want to stay with you," I said, my voice cracking. They both looked up sharply, unaware I was observing their conversation. My father's eyes widened as he realized I was looking at my mother, the deserter. 

"No, you can't-" 

"Yes, he can," my mother objected. "He's a grown boy. He can decide whether he wants to spend his life walking or not." 

"Fine! Leave me. Leave us," he said, swinging his arms towards the sleeping camp, the dim fire lighting the closest twenty yards. "You're giving this all up."

"You can stay with us too, Gerald. You can stay," she said softly, reaching out for one of his hands, but he pulled away, visibly shaking. 

"No, no. I'll be walking. And you can stay with the boy." He got up and stalked away, and we watched him leave and enter the darkness, the night engulfing his body.  

The word spread the next morning that we were staying, and one by one people came up to say goodbye. There were tears and desperate pleas to keep walking, to avoid the storm, death, but time was on our side and eventually they had to pack up and move, the edge approaching. 

The storm was nearing. 

My father came up to me and hugged me, hard, rubbing my scrawny back. He pulled back and looked at me. I stared up at him and realized I was a stranger to him now, and I'll be just a memory. I could feel the tears burning the backs of my eyes as he turned to my mother, and kissed her once, twice, and turned his back to us.

He walked away with the rest of the group, never once glancing back at our lonely camp. I looked over at my mother and she sighed. 

"And now we wait."

I had never, in all my sixteen years, been this close to the edge. The wind was ferocious, whipping our hair and clothing, making the tent flaps snap and flick. The sky was dark green and the lightening was so bright I could see the reflection of the strikes in my mother's eyes as I watched her, hoping she was right. That we would be able to live through this, that we didn't have to walk anymore. 

But as the wall neared the temperature dropped, and the green light turned into blackness, and the static from the lightening caused our hairs to stand up on the back of our necks, and she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me in impossibly tight, and that's when I knew. I looked up at her and she knew too. 

There was a reason people walked.