He’d made sure to give each of the green almost-orbs a good squeeze before departing three days prior, to number them in silver paint so he knew which order to eat them in. The sun was punishing, despite the cold air, as he strode down the cobblestone mountain road.
Each part of his kit was perfect, refined through trial and error and countless hours spent traipsing among the villages, delivering poorly written letters and meager flagons of milk.
Bedroll tight tucked and fastened with care, dagger strapped within a wrist flick.
These mountain roads were a second home, or perhaps his first, more familiar than his own rough-hewn bed, the clammoring birds more welcome than sidelong glances from neighbors he pretended to know.
As his shadow stretched in the waning hours of the day, toes pulsing with the constant thrum of his heart, he realized he’d never walked this far, had never been this far from home – a word that carried little significance to a man of nomadic sensibilities, born mute, always the outsider.
Still, that shack, that grove, that so-called community that took wide steps around him and neglected eye contact at every turn, were all further away than they ever had been, and Kalai felt a growing knot of angst in his stomach.
His pack was heavy, drawn earthward by the muslin-wrapped rock. Beneath the remaining avocados, the lumpy hunk seemed both stone and ore, fossil and gem, a mishapen mystery he’d barely glanced as his mother shoved it into his bag and uttered the name of a place miles away.
Kalai stopped and dropped his kit, the frame clanking against the cobblestone. He sat with his back against the remains of a retaining wall and caught his breath, basking in the view of the valley. Avocado number five. He tossed the skin and pit into the ravine and resumed his journey.
Inevitable rest consisted of a tiny fire, a scratchy blanket, a few uncomfortable hours spent tossing and turning under the moonlight. After two more nights of this cycle, the water was running low. At sunrise, he cut open the eighth avocado.
With each descending mile, the air around the mountain grew warmer. Each craggy bend in the road revealed new foliage, overgrowth sprouting between the bricks. As the road crossed a precipice, rapids roared below the bridge’s aging mortar. The water, unreachable. The plants, inedible.
Kalai didn’t remember tasting the last of his food, and with every footfall, the road seemed to sway beneath him. He’d lost any sense of direction but forward, and prayed in silent mantras that his destination would be around the next bend, or the next.
He could feel a bloody squish in his boots as he trudged onward, the cobblestones each growing more meaningless with every passing step. A wingspan silhouette passed overhead as he stumbled, staggered, and as Kalai fell to his knees on the weed-riddled bricks, a buzzard perched in the crook of a tree long ago scorched by lighting.
He locked his blurry gaze upon the bird and rummaged through his pack, extracting the stone and unraveling the cloth around it. In a moment of muscle memory, he raked his dagger around its edge, the blade bouncing across protruding bits of glassy purple and jade.
Without looking down, he dropped the dagger at his side and gave the stone a twist, hunger’s delirium imagining a tenth avocado in his hands. An errant bit of iron slit his palm and Kalai winced, but never took his eyes from the buzzard.
Kneeling on the bricks, their rough edges digging into his shins, Kalai stared at the creature, its unflinching response devouring his attention, a bit of gristle dangling from its beak.
He formed words with his mind, and moved his lips in soundless conversation.
“I’ve never met a vulture before.”
Ruffling feathers and eyes of obsidian black. The bird craned its neck and unfolded wings peppered with scars and missing plumage.
“I am sorry you suffer. This road is long and your burdens are many.”
Kalai cradled the stone in his lap. It felt warm against his growling belly. The voices of the villagers ricocheted through his head. Quiet Kalai, they called him, the errand boy with no voice to protest the demands of others.
The vulture, now approaching him on the road with char on its talons, was the first thing he’d ever spoken to.
“How much further? I don’t even know what I’m carrying. Or why.”
The bird took brooding steps forward, clawed feet clickclacking against the cobbles, and nudged the stone from Kalai’s hand, smearing his blood across its beak.
“You, sweet child, are carrying everything. Every last thing there is. And you, brave one, have traveled a path that leads only to me.”
He slumped forward in defeat, sensing a chasm of meaninglessness in his voyage. In anger, he bellowed a silent scream and swatted at the vulture.
Upon contact with Kalai’s shredded palm, the bird burst into a cloud of black flies, the vague sound of laughter echoing against the cliffs.
Kalai scooped the stone into the hook of his elbow and began to crawl down the sloping mountain road, leaving his precious pack behind, and knew the vulture would soon return.