Storyteller's Universe // Cloud Pilgrim
Bizarre Adventure



I am the grains of sand.

Not all of them, just one. But moving from grain to grain, constantly, without rest, that is all I have left. My mind in darkness, with no company but other sand grains rubbing against me. I feel the warmth of the sun, blanketing me from above, how much I would give to see the light however.

And so I am the grains of sand. I pick a direction and I go. I have no idea how much distance I cover, but I don’t think it matters. Any gust of wind can pick me up and fling me into the unknown. But once again I pick a direction and I go.

A day passes and I do not find anything of note. No civilization, nothing to break the monotony.

A week passes, I consider giving up, I feel broken, but when I do so — I am just a bored grain of sand. I keep moving, as nothing else is left to do.

A month passes, and I have mulled over my actions several times over. I have not brought this terrible fate upon myself, but I am stuck thinking about those who did. Did they deserve death? Every time I think about it I draw a different conclusion. I am truly miserable.

A year passes. I have encountered a scarab once. Very briefly. I could not become a scarab. I am a tortured soul.

Another year, and another one after that. Soon I lose track. Sometimes I find a bigger pebble but it serves me not. A plant here and there, unable to become one, I seem not allowed to be alive again. Sand is all that remains.

Tens of years. Hundreds maybe? I no longer know. I no longer think either. I am just a soul, wandering from a grain of sand to a grain of sand. There is no purpose to me. I just wander.

One day my mind comes back to me, jolted awake by an unusual sensation. Camel’s hoof. Another one! And another! Disturbed sand, I feel movement. It’s a caravan! I can’t become a camel, for it is living. Please, don’t leave me here, please don’t go away! I need to hold onto something from the caravan. And then I feel it — Sharp movement.

I am a rope, dragging in the sand as it hangs out of the goods on a camel’s back, unbeknownst to the caravanner who owns it.

Who I used to be is a distant echo to me, Khalfani no longer exists and for a long time now has not mattered to anyone, me included.

I am just happy to be a rope.

---

I am a spear.

I leave the hands of an experienced hunter, I make myself bend just the right way to fly true and meet its mark. The last mammoths hunted to extinction, and my sharpened end is coated with their blood.

I am a chisel.

I chip away at stone, which now holds the first alphabets of the world. And with nothing better to do, I memorize the motion, I memorize the symbols, I spend months discerning their meaning.

I am a lyre.

Songs and rhythms were always part of being human, yet these instruments bring both to new heights. By the hands of the first musicians, I produce the first music the world can hear. My strings vibrate true, producing beautiful sounds.

I am a coin.

Jingling in merchants’ sacks and purses, exchanging hands, appreciated for their value. I witness the birth of commerce as trading becomes both easy and lucrative.

I am weapons of bronze and iron.

In fear I jump from weapon to armor, from armor to weapon, as they produce metallic shrieks bouncing off of each other. Efficient murder brings with it the risk of being left alone, within the silent remains of a battlefield, stuck on a corpse of an unlucky soldier.

I am a compass.

Pointing north, even when I feel a rogue pull I hold on fast and point true. I am the captain’s most cherished possession, besides a bottle of rum. When not in use, I travel the boards of the ship and admire how traveling the world becomes easier with every century.

I am gunpowder.

I am lying, I would never allow myself to move into anything smaller than a pebble ever again, however I am a hollowed out bamboo, just a mere moment ago filled to the brim with gunpowder and a rock capping it off. And as my insides got singed and the rock propelled through me, I realized I am a horrifying upgrade from a bow.

I am a printing press.

New methods of conveying information, speech turned into symbols, faster to produce than ever before. I spit out entire books and newspapers, and becoming those lets me explore the world described, old and new, imagined and true. The speed at which I learn makes me realize how far the world has come since my times and it’s only speeding up.

I am steam engines.

I am hydraulic presses.

I am combustion engines.

I am electric lamps.

I am mechanical computers.

The machines serving humanity with time become smaller, more fragile, more willing to accept errors caused by me. I can make a gear click a tooth over, a latch will not close, a string won’t pull fully, a dial will lock where I want it to. I gain more and more fine control over the things I am becoming; and the things I am becoming gain more things that I can exert this control over.

It is exciting, for soon enough I may be able to communicate with humanity — in a way that can no longer be ignored as faultiness or error.

I am still human.

Thousands of years have not stripped away my human desire of being seen and heard.

However, what is gone is my old identity. Khalfani no longer has a meaning in this world, he died millennia ago. I am no longer Khalfani. I need a new name.

I am Haji, born anew during my pilgrimage — pilgrimage through the world, as the world.