Number Twenty Three ©

Sa was standing on the beach looking out over the sea. He felt so alone. Everybody was alive on the other side, the city was bouncing with activity. The beach was vacant, desolate.

A small boat was sailing across. Just the boat, nobody was in it.

The sky was grey above the beach; rainbows and birds danced over the city.

Sa dug his toes into the sand. He dug his feet into the sand. The sand wasn't grainy but smooth and silky, like round pearls. He continued to slip his shins into the sand.


Sa lifted a shovel out of the sand and began digging with it. The sand kept sliding back into this hole. He imagined this hole to contain a treasure chest.

He lifted the treasure chest out. He dropped it beside the pile.

The treasure box opened, nothing was inside. Sa crawled inside and let it shut, let it move back into the hole, let the sand fill the hole, let the shovel disappear.

Sa layed in that treasure chest so long that he lost track of time. He was living another life, by this time. Before long, that life had evolved into two lives. Again it split, into four lives. At each decision the life would split.

It grew exponentially. Sa was alive in uncountable lives. Uncountable families, memories and sensations. Sa no idea he was still in the treasure chest buried beneath the sand.

Sa was so many places at once. Slowly, but surely, his lives began to simplify themselves. Some light had been shown, many problems were peeled away. Confusions were being lifted and things and situations began to line up. Through millions of lives, this light was bringing clarity. Everything began making sense. His problems were silly. All of the trillions of conflicts were being resolved, all of complications just drifted away.

All of his lives were so vivid and fulfilling. Each one compelled more of his attention than the other. Sa disrupted the balance and put a tad more attention to just one. Instantaneously, one life dropped.

Sa scrambled to save it but several other lived were lost in the process. As he rushed to catch a few of those, they only vanished upon touch, they disappeared right before his eyes. Many more lived dropped away.

He didn't even try to save them. He whispered goodbye to all of the families, all of the friends and lovers he was yet to meet. He whispered goodbye to all of his mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.

Lives fell all around him. He wanted to cry, but couldn't, not in front of all these memories. He didn't want them to see him this way. Just as everything was turning bright, he began crying.

The lives fell into piles all around him. The piles stacked so high, they formed walls. Sa couldn't even see above them.

He was surrounded by walls growing even taller and thicker. He stopped wanting to cry. He began feeling claustrophobic. There wasn't anywhere to escape to, his hands were gone, his feet were gone. He couldn't find them, he couldn't even find his eyes, or his mind. Everything was lost, even his life had fallen, even his dreams had fallen away. Sa tried to fall asleep but he was already sleeping.

Whatever compelled Sa to climb out of the treasure chest, would baffle him forever. It must have been his utter hopelessness, his complete lack of all freedom of action. That was the last time he ever got lost beneath the sand.