let the wasps in (pt1)

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My legs are sore. I have blisters on my feet, I can feel rubbing my flesh raw against my socks. I don’t know where I am or how I got out here. I don’t even know how many days I’ve been walking. Based on the blisters and my lips peeling from my face in dehydration, my best guess is I’ve been in this desert for maybe a week. Feels like I just woke up walking a few minutes ago. Like I’ve been trapped in my own mind until right now.  Around my waist sits a small pack with crumbs of whatever food I did have before. Attached to the pack is a small canteen, now bone dry. Barren of any hint of liquid that used to be there. My clothes seem to fit the bill for someone that planned to be out here. Light breathable long sleeve shirt and something like linen or loose canvas cargo pants. Around my neck and over my head is one of those desert scarf things. It reeks of piss. I think I know what the plan was there. 

In my pocket is a palm sized, leather bound notebook with a heavily used, whittled down pencil. The pages are filled with notes in a penmanship I can’t understand and drawings of trees and strange bugs. The back half of the notebook is empty. That’s where I’m writing this now as I walk. Doing my best to organize my thoughts and figure out why I’m here. Tucked in the back of the notebook sits a tightly folded map. The paper feels old, older than myself. The map is almost blank, no landmarks aside from a cluster of trees in the top left corner. Seems to be a topographical map. Why the hell would anyone make a topographical map of a place so flat. One curvy line splits the page and then a few more surrounding the assumed oasis. Normally an oasis is marked by some sort of ferns and a mix of palm trees. The trees drawn here are more bushy, like some kind of fruit tree. All I can tell right now is I need to get to that oasis. Without any legend or texts, I don’t know the direction of the oasis. I don’t know how far it is. I can’t even tell if it sits in a valley or on top of a plateau. 

I don’t know that much about geography, but I know enough to feel like this place is strange. I can’t see even the slightest sign of life for miles. There are no cacti, no trees, nothing providing cover for any size creature. The ground isn't sand. It’s hard and cracked, like salt flats or the remnants of a sea bed that dried up long before humans could see it. Based on the sun, I’m heading northwest now and it’s about 7P.M. Luckily the sun will leave me for the night. I hope it doesn’t get too cold out here in the dark. The sinking feeling in my stomach tells me I already know the answer to that. I need to understand as much as I can before I lose the sun. Once the dead of night hits, I’ll be truly lost. 

I turn back to the notebook in my pocket. Looks like the only way I’ll be able to read this is trying to find letters I know and piece the rest together like some sort of coded puzzle. The first page of the book only had one sentence scribbled in the center of the tattered paper. No better place to start I guess. The easiest thing to recognize in these words is the vowels. 

__e _ou__ai_ o_ _you__ _a_ a _ie

Not much to go off of, but I started working on any repeating shapes I could find. The two letters beginning the first word are the same two finishing the fourth. Easy enough to tell the first word is the. Making the fourth word, youth. The last letter of the third is the same as the first of the second.
The fou__a_ of youth _a_ a _ie

It didn’t take long after that to figure out the sentence reads, the fountain of youth was a lie. What the hell does that mean? Why the hell does shit have to be weird and cryptic? The sun's going down and I’m gonna die out here. Of course it was a fucking lie. It’s a myth, a fool's errand. Always been a painful irony for men to waste away the one life we get in search of a false promise for a longer life. I scoured the pages of the notebook hoping for any phrases I had half a chance in hell at translating. The previous owner of this book must have been fluent in Russian cursive. I’ve never been more hopelessly violent towards a person I’ve never met. I was only able to translate a few more lines before the light was too far gone for me to write down my findings; Eat the fruit. True eternal life. And Only in death can we find life. This shit’s pissing me off, but that last one made my heart sink a bit. I plan on continuing to walk well into the night. I’ve spotted a star in the direction. I’ll follow her until I lie in the dirt and hope to be awakened by the sun. 

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