Chapter II

Brushing aside thoughts of the supernatural from his mind, he decided instead, to return to the tent and the fire. Half-expecting them both to have disappeared along with the nomad, when he found that they were indeed still there, he felt reassured that the nomad was simply insane.

The nomad was still nowhere to be found, but he did not give much thought to his absence. Instead, he entered the tent and poured himself a cup of tea to enjoy with the bread that the nomad had left behind. He looked down at the soft sand beneath him, and thought about his conversation with the nomad. He then lay down, and, using one of the cushions as a pillow, fell asleep.

When he awoke, he stepped outside of the tent only to be greeted by the peculiar sight of an unmoved night sky. He was sure that he had gotten plenty of sleep, but it was still, clearly, the middle of the night. He looked up at the night sky and his eyes fell onto Orion’s belt. “Follow them”, he recalled.

He rationalized to an imaginary mental audience that he would only follow them, because he had nowhere else to go.

It seemed like he had walked for days. Time had lost all value since the sun stopped rising. In addition, the desert had the strange quality of making him feel like he was not moving forward, nor making any progress at all. He knew that he could walk for at least two hours before needing to stop and rest. So, using a small stone he had acquired, he placed upon it a single mark, to represent every time he had stopped to rest. He had marked six since he had begun his venture, and was beginning to despair. He questioned the sanity behind following a star that an old and questionable nomad had told him to follow.

“Hello, Demon!” he screamed to an empty desert, just before falling to his knees, and laughing in ridicule, at his current circumstance.

He felt a distinct, and dark chill run down his spine, as the notes of a voice penetrated the air far too close to the back of his neck.

“Hello, wanderer”, announced the voice, in an eerily soft tone.

His body jolted forwards involuntarily and he lost balance, stumbling onto the sand.

He turned around to face the voice, which had terrified him a moment ago, only to greet the familiar face of the nomad from the tent.

“Have you been following me this entire time?!” he demanded, outraged at the surprise.

“Well”, said the nomad. “Have you met her yet?”

“Met who”, he replied somewhat less angrily, brushing off the sand from his arms.

“The girl, obviously. The name-giver.”

“I’ve met no such person. Only a crazy old man claiming to be of supernatural origin.”

It had not occurred to him until now that he had no name. Seeing as he had never needed one, he hadn’t paid much attention to the matter. However, now that he found himself, in fact, lacking a name of his own, he was overcome with a surprisingly urgent desire to have one.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“I lost my name a long time ago” the nomad responded, in a tone which could easily have been interpreted as being devoid of emotion, had it not been for the slight, but unmistakable hint of defeated sadness in the old man’s dark, wrinkled eyes. This was an expression that he had not seen the nomad wear before, but oddly, it seemed to suit him well. It was almost as if, he had worn it all his life.

He allowed his mind to wander for a moment. He would have asked the nomad about how he had lost his name, had it not been for his newfound and burning greed for a name of his own. So instead, he wondered what his own name might be, before moving his attention to the stone that he was still carrying, which he had used to mark the passing of time.

“The sun never rises. What is this place?” he demanded.

“This, wanderer, is your Place” the nomad replied. “Everyone gets a Place. It’s different every time. Some get a sandy beach; some get entire cities as their Place. But there are always stars. Always. This Place, is yours” he added.

“This desert. This…nothing” he replied.

“Far from nothing. The desert is a fine Place. The sole reason for your discontent is your own lack of a destination. You think there’s nowhere to go - that in all directions exists nothing but more of the same. It’s not all the same, you just have to pay attention when it does eventually decide to be different”

“And where exactly is that?”

“Whom, wanderer. Not where”

“Fine. The name-giver. Where am I supposed to find her?”

“Have you not been listening, wanderer? You’re already here. You really ought to start paying attention”, replied the nomad, pointing.

He turned around and saw that, indeed not too far from where he was standing, was a rather beautiful lake that he had somehow entirely failed to notice. On the opposite side of which could be seen, the curious figure of a young woman, lounging on the sand and gazing up at the stars in a splendidly carefree manner. He wondered how he could have missed something so obvious – something that so abruptly and unapologetically interrupted the tediously monotonous familiarity of the desert.

“How did you do that?” he turned to ask the nomad, whose unsurprising absence he now considered customary.

He approached the woman with the dark auburn hair, who, rather than react to his presence, instead lazily gestured for him to lie down beside her, and so he did, which made him realize how tired he had been from walking for so long.

“I want a name”, he stated demandingly.

“Such a curious one you are.” she said, gazing up at the sky. “The stars, aren’t they beautiful”

“I thought all Places had stars.”

“And aren’t they marvellous, strange one! In every Place, it always seems like I’m seeing them for the first time”

“You’ve been to many Places?”

“Too many”

“I want a name”, he repeated.

“Why? Why do you want one? Take mine”, she said. “Take it and give it to someone else who could make better use of it. People spend their whole lives trying to become their names, obligated to something they never even chose.”

She then turned her head to face him for the first time, and his burning desire for a name was, for a moment, suddenly and violently extinguished by how mesmerizingly beautiful he found her to be. Her eyes, which captured every wonderful shade of autumn, seemed to suffocate all of his desires into submission. But, the unconquerable need for a name, persevered.

“I still want a name”, he said, yawning.

I must not fall asleep, he thought. Not now. I must have a name.

She lightly touched his arm, and he felt the warmth of her fingers, which he found profoundly soothing, and he allowed it to distract his mind for a moment.

“Be patient, wanderer. Everything holds purpose. Such a strange one you are. Such a strange Place you live in. I wish I could stay to experience this strange Place. I wish I could stay to experience the strange you.”

It may have been her soft voice, or perhaps he was simply overcome with exhaustion. Nevertheless, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and surrendered his soul to the comfortable blanket of sleep.