Their Days Are Numbered is a new year-long project authored by the collective Entropy community. It is a collaborative online novel written by the Entropy community on a weekly basis. A different author will write the next “chapter” each week, to be posted every Tuesday, following the previous post from the previous week, and following a very limited set of guidelines (that each author has one week to write the next piece after the previous week’s installment goes up, that installments should range between 150-1500 words, and that pieces should somehow incorporate a real-life occurrence, current event, news item, or other happening from that week).
Follow the entire “novel” here: Their Days Are Numbered.
The forty-eight installment is presented this week by William Lessard.
XLVIII.
You awaken in a field, the sun in your eyes.
You do not know your name. You do not know where you come from. You do not know the origin of this bitten, bloody cross. Its wooden mystery encircles your neck.
You think of Jesus. You think of the wounds of his hands and feet, the thrust of sword into his dying side.
You know everything that happened before this moment has been a lie.
You watch the trees. All the birds are gone. All the branches empty. Not a single, blowing leaf.
You search your pockets for clues. Your wallet is a folded yellow sheet. A path of words trails down the middle. Your eyes squint at a language you have never seen.
The sun bleeds. You gather your robes about your frame. The trees become blackened hands.
You have been walking for hours. No sign of farmhouse. No tent with open flap. You do not wish to spend the night.
A hooded figure hunches before a fire on a far hill.
You ask for place of rest. He responds with a voice of birds.
