Michael Scott Hand

Scott runs like he did when he was young.

He springs, he bounds over a rustling green sea. Wildflowers cluster amongst the foliage; the pollen tickles his nose. Ahead: a ringlet of dark brown hair drifts through the forest like smoke—a trail for him to follow.

He calls out, but he doesn’t know her name.

Now: he can see her.

She’s climbing over a boulder and pushing through a dense wall of vines. She does not look back, but he can tell she knows he is there.

Sunlight diffuses the forest; glittering motes dance in the air. But as Scott draws closer to her, each one is snuffed out. With every step the forest grows darker.

The darkness closes in around the edges of Scott’s vision. At first he does not pay attention. His focus narrows: he studies the girl and the dancing undulations of her hair. He watches her trip on a twisted tree root and go sprawling, face-first into the dirt.

Around them: the forest has descended into full darkness. A delicate glowing ember drifts past, caught in a breeze that carries the hint of distant fire.

Scott pounces. He grabs the girl by the shoulders and turns her over. And then, as he finally looks upon her face: he starts to scream.

The girl is pale as death. Her features are contorted into disturbing, inhuman proportions. She stares up at him, dark red lips peeling back to reveal a pair of fangs.

The sky thunders.

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Cliffs and rocks and grey dirt and dark green plants that burst out from between the rocks and cling there. The roar, the drone of the engine of the bus as it rattles, rattles, barely holding together, or–perhaps–held together by our faith.

Believe. Believe. BELIEVE.

I think I can. I think I can. The bus rounds a bend and for a single dizzying second there is  nothing between me and the plunging ravine except a pane of dirty, cracked glass and the reflection of the pilgrims’ faces looking through me like ghosts.

Their faces are also my face, impassive as the mountains and the jungle trees and the rocks and the sand on the tracks that wind back and forth as the path snakes higher–wraps tighter–like Vasuki around Shiva’s neck.

And I am certain now that faith alone is what is holding this bus together. It sounds crazy, I know, to whoever is reading this: sitting wherever you are on some lazy, comfortable day,  in some stolen, fleeting moment, eyes glancing across these words.

But here, on this bus, joints straining and rattling as it sways and bounces above great gulf of plunging, deadly rocks; here amongst the overwhelming smell of bodies and dirt and petrol, I can believe it.

I have to believe it.