The sand was warm. He had sunk his feet and hands into it, buried himself in it, when humanity was still taking its first steps. Anyone who had ever known his name had now been forgotten. Many times he answered the call of the Path and tried to walk it. Yet, he always ended up deviating from it, back to the sand. Life flowed on the path and no matter how much effort he imposed on himself, he ended up fleeting from it; to find refuge not in Death, that awaits at the end of the Path, but in non-life: in the absence of movement, that is, in the present. In the present everything is beautiful and ugly in equal measure, equally pleasurable and unbearable, everything is still.
Many he had seen advancing on the path, each in their own way, there were those who ran and those who trudged, but all advanced. Those who, like him, indulged in the warmth of the sand were usually ready to get back on the Path as soon as they recognized its sickly influence, the others sank, forgetting and forgotten. After innumerable failures, upon hearing the call of the Path, he decided to resist it, too many times he had deluded himself into believing that he could advance, that he could find what he had once been eager to find, only to end up in the sand, disappointed and defeated. So, the call grew fainter and more distant and the sand warmer and heavier.
When he noticed the kneeling old man feeling the ground of the Path with his eyes closed, only his face had not yet been buried. The old man was looking for a long curved stick, and no matter how close his hands passed by it, he always missed it. The old man, unbothered by the passing of days and nights, continued his search relentlessly. Why doesn't he stop? He is as old as I am, we both bathed in the first light that kissed mankind, with the first man we shared the savage eating and desperate drinking. Why does he continue? If it was at all possible, he would have already found what he was looking for.
While he entertained these thoughts, his shoulders and torso freed themselves from the sand, and the obsessive curiosity that had taken control of his mind forced him first onto his feet and then, once again, on the path.
"Old man," spoke the man of the sand, "what are you looking for?"
"My stick," replied unfazed the old man.
"What for?"
"I need it to continue on the Path."
"And tell me, how long have you been wandering these lands?"
"Mhh… let me think. Probably, at least, since humanity for the first time recognized itself in a watery reflection."
"Exactly as I thought. So are you a fool? If you have not yet found what you seek, how can you still hope to accomplish it, you have walked for more lifetimes than were necessary to establish the great powers that rule this world."
"My dear friend, I seek only my staff."
"Here, take it!" He said, impatiently kicking it closer to him. "And now that you have found it? What do you plan to do?"
"Thanks friend. To keep walking on the Path of course."
"But why?! What's the point? I ask you again, what are you looking for?"
"Friend, I've already told you, my search is over, I was looking for the stick and I found it, now I can continue my journey."
"Why?" Asked the sandman exasperated.
"Because the path is there and if it's there it must be walked."
"So you struggle for nothing?"
"I struggle for struggling's sake, I walk for walking's sake, I wander for I am a wanderer, and you who are so intensely want to know what I look for, you who would like to be a seeker, you don't struggle and you don't walk. You stink of sand and barely exist. You are the ghost of someone who once was. So ghost, let me ask you, what was who you once were, looking for?"
Flct
"You forgot? Are you ashamed of it? No problem, dear ghost, the Path knows everything, for what is, is in it. All you have to do is walk and as long as you keep on moving you will eventually stumble on the object of your desires. You have but to proceed, there is no going back, you already are an expert in immobility, in stillness, but if you want to walk on the Path, if you need a hand to drag you out of the sand, here it is ghost, grasp it and become a seeker again."
---
Time later, as the passage of time regained significance, the Seeker asked: "Wanderer, if you need a staff to walk on the Path, why didn't you get another one, there is certainly no lack of branches and sticks."
"I like this one," smiled the ancient Wanderer.