Waiting

The bleached bones of my past lovers lie scattered across the dry creek bed. Some are entangled in the majestic, exposed roots of stoic trees, while others have been trapped in barely discernible crevices that pocket the path of the dried-up waterway and its barren banks. Caressed and carried there by the most recent flooding that rushed through the landscape in a frenzy of furious white water before the rage and energy was absorbed by the earth and the sun returned once more to bake it dry.

   It amuses me at times to let the elements play with my bones, do with them what they will, take them where they may. Other times I am filled with an all-consuming sense of possession. They are mine! I will gather them into a pile and lie down beside them and curl myself around my precious collection and hum and coo to them as if they are still alive. They are my loverlies.

    I am not bound to this place. For now, I merely choose to reside here. Maybe I will stay for another century, perhaps longer… I am uncertain, and do not have to decide today. Whether I continue to stay or drift away to somewhere else tomorrow, this place will always be mine, and it will always belong to my loverlies that I made here for as long as they resist the final disintegration of time. When that happens, when they finally succumb and become no more than dust that blends with the red earth, I will be sad, because they will be gone. But that is the way of things, and I will take new lovers and make new loverlies. When I do that, I will not be sad anymore. That is also the way of things.  

   It is not safe for me to be around humans, for many reasons that I will not go into here, and it is not safe for humans to be around me, because I am not safe to be around. I love humans. I love them so much. They fascinate me. I find their wants and desires and infinitesimally small spans of life intriguing, and I ponder on it deeply when the fancy takes me. I love humans so much that once I have fallen in love, I can’t bear to let them go. So, I don’t. And I add more loverlies to my collection. I am very proud of my collection, and take pride in rearranging it often as most discerning collectors are wont to do.

   How long have I been here? Well, I am very old. Older than most things, excepting Mother Earth. She came first, but I was a near second, as were my siblings. Yes, I have siblings, beings like me scattered across the world, residing in their own places of nature and energy. We draw sustenance from the nature we surround ourselves in.

   We are elemental. We are spirit. We are intrinsic to creation.

   There were times, long in the past, when I visited my brothers and sisters, but I have not done so for many centuries now and none have come to visit me. I can feel them though, where they are on this planet, where they dwell and the loverlies they keep, though they give their collections different names.

   We, each of us, are waiting. It is part of our purpose, to wait, to watch, to pass the ages, and be ready. You might wish to know what we are waiting for. Well, that is a secret and I cannot tell you. I am not being facetious. I do not know. My brothers and sisters do not know. It is a secret of such magnitude that I believe Mother Earth is the only entity who knows and she is not inclined to confide in us. We know only that this obligation, this duty that weighs heavy in the essence of our being, is a compulsion that cannot be denied. We are meant for something that is yet to come, and so we wait. How long will we continue to wait? It has already been millennia, and there has been nothing, neither a feeling inside myself nor an external sign in the world around me that gives me any indication our wait will be over soon. And I am fine with that. I cannot speak for my brothers and sisters though, simply because we have not spoken on such matters.

   I like it here. And I like waiting here. I like my solitude in this place, watching the elements both ravage and nurture the landscape and its inhabitants around me. I like that it keeps my loverlies safe and that it plays with them when it suits me. I have found that here, in particular, to hold significant power and serenity. It is a place of importance. It is perhaps why I have stayed so long. I feel a connection here stronger than any other place where I have dwelled and of those, they have been many. Something about here feels special, like me. It feels wise and knowing. It is a comfort for one who has waited for so long. This place feels like it waits with me and understands my path. It nourishes me as it is meant to do. I am home here. And when it happens that a mood of boredom overtakes me, or when I am overcome with a feeling close to what humans might recognise as loneliness, I go wandering. I find myself a new lover or this place attracts one for me; a camper, a prospector, tourist, or fellow wanderer. And I fall in love with them and we spend my waiting time for a brief moment, together, and then, they join my loverlies, and I gather them all up – the new and the older – into a pile and lie down beside them and curl myself around my precious collection and hum and coo to them as if they are still alive. And I wait…