My Father is Dying in the Desert

The Stone Emperor is dying. It was just the two of us now, wandering across the burning expanse of desert, towards the far-off dream of the ocean. I stagger along in his shadow as he towers over me. The sand trembles as he walked—one step for every fifty of my own.

“I must stop.” He sinks slowly onto the sand. More rocky scales fall from his skin; more of his molten blood oozes out.

“We are almost to the ocean, Father!” I shout up to him. Ever since he adopted me when I was little, I rode on his high, craggy shoulder, but not now. Now he literally glows as his life’s magma seeps out through a thousand cracks. Humans cannot know the diseases that afflict a rock giant.

“This is the end,” he rumbles. “You have been a good son, more faithful than any of my own stratum. Stay with me, until the end.”

The sun goes down slowly and although the air is cold, the escaping life of my father keeps me warm.

“God in heaven,” I pray. “Get us to the ocean. Keep him alive until then.”

During the night, I awake to rain falling, hissing and spitting as it cools and heals the Stone Emperor’s skin, sealing in his heat and preserving his life. God has not brought us to the ocean; he has brought the ocean to us here in the desert.