The Night Journey

A Sampler

The Night Journey
By Laura Hansen

As we come over the ridge the valley is a deep dark bowl below us. We feel the void. The valley has no boundaries of its own, just these softly moonlit hills that bob in and out of the cloud cover like a train of camels circling. The headman lifts an arm then, satisfied, nods for us to continue. 

The beasts keen forward and with heavy feet they begin the journey down into the valley. We follow tracks that only the beasts can see, or perhaps they travel with eyes closed, down paths they've traveled many times before. They huff and snort in the dark. No one speaks.

Though these hills - from a distance - seem gentle, softly rounded and green, the track we follow is littered with scree which occasionally kicks loose and scatters down the slope ahead of us sounding like the hard patter of rain. We are lulled by the quiet sure movement - down, slowly down - that continues for nearly an hour as the moon slips imperceptibly to the west. 

We begin to see pinpricks of light scattered ahead, small half-hidden fires, which dance across the night valley like fireflies. Soon we hear reedy voices in ones and twos, tinninating and rhythmic, but coming from no identifiable source. 

By now the beasts that carry us are warm with exertion and steam rises from their flanks as we pass through one rocky crevice after another, cool rock meeting heated breath, vapors rising as if from gently stoked flames. The voices we heard earlier are now closer. There is occasional laughter that comes to us with a hollow ring as if from a rock-walled grotto or pool.  Again, the headman raises his grizzled sinuous arm and we halt. "Here", he tells us, "We walk now." Young men come and tether the animals as our legs adjust to the ground once again. We gather in a state of confused expectation.