The next day, Philo woke up with the dawn, slightly sleepy and yawning, yet still ready to face the unknown with his blossoming exuberance and curiosity. He positioned that same heavy book that he’s been lugging around since arriving at the library on his head, and then stood up and stretched, wiping the sand from his lids. Noticing Albert toppled over on his side, he crouched down and fixed the blue bear upright, and began peering into his silent black eyes that vacantly took in the boy and the room.
“Okay, Albert. I’m going to be leaving now. I’ll sure miss you when I’m gone, but I have to go. I hope you understand...”
The boy picked up the bear, gave him a hug, and placed him back down.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine while I’m gone.” Philo said, turning around and making his way to the door, “I wish I could take you with me… but I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone for. And I wouldn’t want to keep you away from the library for too long… Alright, Albert. Goodbye!”
Before Philo headed off towards where he saw the moon disappear the previous night, he just couldn’t start his journey without seeing his herd one last time, hugging them and helping himself to quarter bucket of milk to keep him going throughout the day. After this, he descended down the knoll that contained the basin, and headed past the library, into the wide open field behind the building, leading into the wilderness. Right before entering though, he turned around and took in the landscape and the library one last time, seeing it from an angle he had yet to see from before. He imagined his cows nestled up there in the hills, peacefully eating grass, and he somewhat missed them already. But, putting these feelings aside, and he turned back around and headed down.
Philo really wasn’t sure what to expect as he continued to push up against the unknown–that other side of life the world seemingly tried to hide, but he knew he had done it before and he felt confident he could do it again.
All morning and into the afternoon he gradually descended below.
There seemed to be a trail of some sort Philo could make out on the ground, perhaps made by the animals over time, that led down the slopes and eventually into a densely wooded area. However, when he became surrounded by the many clustering trees that blocked out the sun’s light, casting a cool shade on the forest floor, the trail began to disappear in the overgrown bush, forcing Philo to improvise. He gradually trudged over the shrubby with thick scratchy leaves that clung to his tunic afterwards and fought his way through the untamed brush.
Eventually, he found a small dried-out streambed where plant life didn’t seem to grow, and so, jumped onto the loose sand and progressed forward with ease, leaving deep imprints in the sediment from his footwear. After some time, Philo came onto a clearing where the blue sky was exposed by the increasing amount of charred, black limbs of deadening trees that had been consumed by flame some time ago. The dried-out streambed Philo was following finally began to die out, but by then the woodland had thinned out as well. The ancient desert that had been hidden beneath by the fleeting flora gradually became revealed and offered a new way for the boy to follow.
At his feet, a rat scampered on by, and headed off in the same direction Philo was going. He watched its tiny feet move swiftly through the ashy dirt and down over the precipice ahead. When the boy came to the edge, he peered down at the long, steep spine of the mountain that led into another canyon way below and became hidden, looking to see where the rat went.
Feeling dizzy and exhausted, Philo stepped back and turned around to take in his immediate surroundings. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw what looked like a huge crowd of people encompassing him from both sides of the trail. But on further inspection, his mind’s eye quickly adjusted the mob of people with arms lifted in rage, to the huge motionless gathering of a family of cacti that he so happened to have stumbled upon. As his nerves were still loosening, Philo picked himself onto the ledge of the plain, climbing up the upland, and approached a dark green, healthy-looking cactus with hundreds of sharp, intimidating needles protruding from its body, carrying proudly its large, bulbous prickly pears ripe with vitality.
The bookheaded boy picked up a large rock the size of his head nearby and squatted down next to the cactus. He looked at the desert plant that was about the same height as himself and silently gave it thanks for what he was about to do. With as much force as Philo could generate, he slammed the rock with both hands at the base of the cactus, causing it fall over backwards, though not completely. Four or five more whacks from his rock severed the rest of its spiny body, and green ooze seeped from its vegetable wounds as it laid there dying on that hill, soon to be a dried out husk. Quickly, Philo hacked out what was left out of its poisonous pulp and made a concave structure just above the roots. He stood up and waited. Within seconds, fresh, cool water bubbled up from under the ground and soon the succulent bowl was filled to the brim. Squatting again, he plopped onto the ground, carefully wrapping his legs around this fresh spring and leaned over to quench his thirst.
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Freshened and renewed by Nature’s sacrifice, Philo rose with vigor, composed with a new confidence that was ready to travel on further and meet any challenge that may arise head-on. Though the slope was steep at the edge of the trailhead, it wasn’t steep enough to deter Philo from its course, though it did take some effort. Placing his steps down diligently, one after the other, with complete control, he made his descent below fairly easily and very shortly the hilly path flattened out and he walked into the entrance of the canyon with ease.
More cactuses were spread out and hung over like sentries on the walls of the rocky crevice as Philo entered and followed. The slither of a canyon curved and meandered like a large snake and consumed him for some time, but eventually opened up onto another precipice.
At the mouth of the canyon, Philo gazed out onto sights of things he was not expecting to see and stood there shocked. Rows and rows of huge, dilapidated structures as far as the boy could perceive, neatly aligned all down the hill and beyond.
Before thinking twice, he made his final forced-sprint down the last rocky slope of the desert and landed on the ground of a thick, black flooring he had never seen before, made of some sort of rock that had lots of open cracks running through it. Philo picked up a disjointed piece from the crust and examined the brittle black rock in his hand. It had a strange shine to it, though not like the black stones back home.
Without further inspiration from the rock, he threw it backwards behind him into the desert’s clutches and didn’t look back.
Taking slow steps onto this new territory, Philo mechanically adjusted himself and the book on his head as he took in with hungry eyes the long, black pathway he was on with two rows of the large structures on either sides. Each building resembled the other, minus the differing decay and neglect from obvious abandonment, but still he wondered if anyone lived in them. He approached the closest one and studied its appearance, which he thought kind of resembled the features of a man's face, with two see-through wall eyes above and a large wall-mouth below. Looking for a way to enter the building, Philo circled around back, and yet, still could not find access.
Beyond the fencing behind the structure, he perceived dozens and dozens of the same buildings leading down the hill and his eyes followed their rows until they merged, and then followed his gaze up even further. Crowning the valleys in the distance, Philo recognized the same sloping summits he witnessed the previous night consume his luminous emissary, except this time they were much closer and more distinct in detail, and he realized how much smaller they actually were compared to the mountains he had descended from.
This reassured and reminded the boy of his journey, and so, deciding to ignore these strange, identical buildings for now, he continued on down the black pathway.
Philo tried to keep the distant crests where he was going in his mind, but several times came close to losing that feeling of direction from all the novel things he kept encountering. At the end of the two rows of buildings, he came across what appeared to be a leafless tree, but on further inspection, perceived it was a large pole with words written at the top of it. He felt a pang of regret for not bringing Albert and wished he understood what the pole said, though, he didn’t dwell on it for too long. When he came to the bottom the hill where the black-rock path led, which was much easier to descend than the desert slopes, he passed by even more words, except this time they were displayed on the front of buildings that didn’t look exactly like the ones from before, though they were still huge, especially compared to the old hut Philo used to call home. Everywhere there were more poles, some much taller, that hung over and carried more silent words above.
The sun had reached its zenith in the sky and was beginning to make its descent when the boy had taken notice and remembered the promise he made to himself the previous night and felt the satisfaction of keeping to his word. He was now completely surrounded by an unknown environment that wrapped around him even more indifferently than Nature herself, yet, never was Philo perturbed in the slightest. However, he did feel a little overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar stimuli and didn’t register much of what he passed. Plus, his stomach increasingly became emptier and soon needed to find some food. That posed a problem for him though, being in a strange domain he was almost alien to. But before Philo could recognize that, he noticed some tall trees off in the distance and decided to make a detour.
Right in the middle of all the big buildings erected in their neat patterns, and all the thick, black flooring that covered the ground, a section of the earth that was left unharmed, and growing, and actually seemed to resemble the canyon Philo was from sort of, except there were a lot more trees. Not only was this a safe refugee from the wilderness of abstract geometries Philo had wandered into, but he also found a whole big bush of blackberries and fallen acorns that he feasted upon as the sun disappeared and night fell. Feeling exhausted from a long day of traveling and processing everything he had seen, he was satisfied enough to sleep right there on the overgrown lawn in that twilit park.