The Stranger - Michael Schulman
Deserts can make dust that travels a long way, even across oceans. That great body of water touched the plains running from a high plateau to the river. Across the ocean came a man—a stranger. He brought a message.
The stranger, covered in a layer of chalky gypsum powder, passed through a landscape dotted with cacti, wildflowers in occasional clumps, and rolling tumbleweed. The sun in the liquid blue sky beat the rocks and pebbles mercilessly with surges of light and heat.
The stranger was a young man, so young he didn’t need to shave. He had a crew cut over which he put a beret sloping to one side. A Khaki jacket and trousers hung loosely over his limbs. Worn through strife and struggle, his clothes were his only companion. He knew he’d wear these clothes for the rest of his life.
A cabin made of blocks of clay, sand, and straw stood alone in a dusty terrain otherwise empty of the manufactured. The stranger stopped. In front of him, a set of boot prints led to the door—his boot prints. They came around and went back to him. He eyed the door again, uncertain. Should he go again? Did he have the courage? He went forward.
“Can I help you?” the fading voice at the door said. The man was invisible in the darkness of daytime shadows.
The stranger had so much to say yet said nothing. His silent breath and perplexity lingered.
“I don’t have all day, mister, so please—”
“It’s about your son,” the stranger said.
“Come in.”
Led into a clean, bare home, the stranger sat at a table with two simple opposing wooden seats. The house was so absent of ornament that it looked like he was just moving in.
“Did you know my son? Were you in the same unit?” the old man asked.
The stranger looked at the table. The table was crowded with reading material and magazines from the same month exactly two years ago—the time of the war.
“I’m not from here.” The stranger stroked the back of his neck.
The man tugged at his gray mustache, and his large, curious blue eyes blinked once, like an owl’s.
“You speak with a strange accent. Where are you from?” the old man said.
“I have come a long way,” the stranger found himself saying.
He lowered his gaze and, with resolve, looked into the old man’s blue eyes. “I’m here to apologize.”
From below his perspective crawled a girl at his knees. She rose. About four years old, the girl had the same large blue eyes that watched the stranger. She wore a cotton dress and carried a doll. Her eyes perceived but didn’t judge.
“There’s a high wind coming. You better stay here for the night. There’s a cot in one of the back rooms.”
The girl’s eyes appeared in the stranger’s dream that night. The same eyes floated into a man’s face, dirty and bruised. Mud streaked his cheeks, and he lay in a ditch, disemboweled. The blue in his eyes—electric and pulsating—was, with one stroke of a bayonet, removed along with the life from him. From his stomach came a bloody river mixing with the mud of the trench. How sweet is the smell of fresh earth.
The stranger awoke to the dead, dry air of the desert mixed with dust in the room he had slept. Coming out, he saw the old man. Reading a book but focused on his thoughts, the old man watched the stranger come into the corridor. The girl talked with herself, immersed in a play world. Her dolls lined the floor, and they had a conversation over a tea set.
The old man said, “The storm is gone. You have done what you came for.”
The stranger bowed his head in thanks and left the cabin with the possible thought of finally forgiving himself.
Originally published by Half Hour To Kill
Michael has authored six novels and a collection of short stories. His flash fiction was recently published in Sci-Fi Shorts and Half Hour to Kill. In addition to his writing, he edits a popular web fiction fantasy series that introduces Korean culture to English-speaking audiences. Michael lives in South Korea with his wife and two cats.
