Canyon

by Sadig Gasim Mukhayer

Are you comfortable? Well lets begin. Let me paint a picture.

You are seated in your favourite chair in the home of your dreams, comfort at its epitome. You have all that can come to mind and all that you desire is at your fingertips. You are happy. But fatefully you happen to glance out your window and you see the most beautiful fruit hanging from the highest branch of the most magnificent tree you have ever seen. The tree itself is painted most pleasingly, the brown of the trunk complementing the green of the leaves as they are highlighted from behind by the Sun.

You feel an insatiable desire to obtain this fruit, and it seems that all the comforts that you have cannot quell your pursuit, yet in your chair you remain till Sun sets hoping that your cravings fade with time. You sleep and you awaken & your desire grows only stronger.

You decide to step outside your door, and as you trek towards your goal, the weather is pleasant and the grass shines beneath your feet, clouds form a thin coat across the sky taming the bright sunshine and everything seems to complement the beauty of your desired fruit.

You walk and as you approach you notice an area you hadn’t seen where the grass turns to dessert, it is only about two meters wide, you approach this strip of dry lang and again you are struck by another realisation. A realisation that beyond this miniature desert lies a canyon and on the other side of this canyon another strip of desert before the heavenly gardens continue.

You stand, with this canyon afoot, knowing that your legs cannot carry you across and that there seems to be no end to its length. You sit at this canyon for hours until the sun sets and remain in the desert till it rises again. Morning comes and you decide to jump, the beauty of the fruit and the tree from which it hangs does not fade, alas it grows more profound with every passing second.

You step back, you walk back and you run forward, gathering as much speed as you can and you jump! You fall, you fail and you plummet. A branch snares you, and you hang for a while before being able to comprehend a way to climb back up.

Back at the edge of your canyon, you stare at your tree, gaze upon that which has become your only desire and knowing that you cannot reach it as you are, you walk away. You have no choice but to walk away.