SCHRITTE

I walk. I run. I place one foot in front of the other. Left and right and right and left. The heel touches down, across the sole, to the ball of the foot, until each toe digs deep into the dry earth. The rolling motion of my foot satisfies me in its perpetual monotony. A routine that holds me captive in its ritualistic flow and has long since made me forget why I run. Today I’ve been running for an eternity, yet today is yesterday, and yesterday is the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday is every day I know.

My eyes haven’t been open in a long time. In the universal, paralyzing fear of seeing where I am right now. Of seeing what lies ahead. The destination? What would it look like? The unimaginable keeps my eyes closed, and the mere thought of it pulls me out of my shamanic gait, briefly making me feel as if I’ve forgotten how to walk properly. And so it happens, as chance seems to inevitably do in such situations: I step on a stone. I stop. It’s not the pain that brings me to a halt, not the unusualness of stepping on a stone, for I’ve stepped on so many stones, and it wouldn’t be surprising if I’d already stepped on every stone in the world. It’s the shape that astonishes me. Slowly, I feel my way with my toes, exploring this entirely new form. Rounded, with a delicate grain. And, what amazes me even more, it feels strangely alive. At the same time, it’s still just a stone. And so it happens that, for the first time in what seems like an eternity of my journey, I find myself on my knees, which groan and creak and squeak with every degree I move closer to the ground. I stumble heavily down the last few centimeters. My trembling hands feel for the stone. But even my rusty fingers don’t allow me to recognize what this special thing is. So what is it that has mercilessly torn me from my ritual, my steady, unwavering step?

I think. Silence. My heavy breathing dictates the rhythm of my exploding thoughts. Should I open my eyes to try and identify what this unusual thing is? I hold the stone, the object, close to my squinting eyes and blink as little as possible. I run my fingertips over the grain, which I can still make out with my strained eyes, and after a few seconds I’m reasonably certain. It’s a fossil. But not just any fossil, an animal. A dead, petrified animal. Even so, I can’t guess what it is. Perhaps a snail? An old, very old, tired, slow snail that may have lain here for millennia, even millions of years, waiting and waiting, as these slow snails do, to break my tireless pace. To make me not only stop walking, but also lie down, dig my hands into the earth, and try, like a blind man, to make out the shape. And much worse, it forces me to open my eyes. My eyes, which remained closed for so long, and which, as long as my legs carried me, were never open.

Fueled with anger, I clutch the fossil in my hand and, with a loud cry, hurl it as far away as earthly as I possibly can. I collapse, exhausted. My feet, my knees, my hands, my eyes… my routine. My eternal ritual. All gone. All over. Lying on my side, I laboriously open my eyes. It is bright. Blinding rays pierce me, as does extreme heat that consumes everything in its power. Every breath is fire, every perception infinite. I stare into the abyss of the unchanging, merciless, and relentless light and melt in the glory of its never-shifting radiance.

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