The runt of the litter.

It feels life has come a full circle. After all those miles ran in search of the treasure, I've reached back at the foot of the same old sycamore tree. Neither the miles travelled across the deserts nor the mountains could find me the alchemy to turn my ores into gold. And my youth have frailed away in the thin airs of the winter nights. Yet, I'm here holding onto to the last remembrance of that recurring dream I saw under this tree.

Have I failed in my pursuit? Believing that would give me closure. Or should I go back digging at the bygone years for answers that could bleed the scars.

There are dreams that sets your soul on fire, and lets you fly high above the horizon drawn for man. But then there are other dreams, if it isn't alive, the nights would be forever dark. The weak ones, the ones that you hardly think of, the ones that live one breath and fades away. The feeblest of the lot from the grand arena of dreams, the runt of the litter.

So you pack your bags, and run and run chasing the big ones. What if I miss my rendezvous? So you run, aimlessly run, before night catches up on your youth. Banishing pain, you lodge in woods dreaming of the moment. But you lose sight, fear creeps through jeopardizing your quest. And you find yourself in the middle of the valley, with dry bones across the floor, of warriors set forth to their rendezvous. And a sigh escapes your lips, "Can these bones live?"

You could feel the valley of death waging war with you, for it give out a way out of it. What do you seek? You try to converse with the spirit of valley, I've neither gold nor silver. I would have given you if I had.

But it asked forth something that couldn't be bought with treasured gold. I placed it on the sacrificial rock and looked away. Through the warm roads splashed with blood, I saw a way across.

Risk and reward is connected, that's what I was taught. Greater the price paid, greater the rewards followed. Yes, but not always. Guess I missed the asterisk. Conditions applied.

I've never respected time, avoided her like love that dared to knocked on my door. But time is a cruel taskmaster, it watches while you pompously overuse the quota allotted. Before you know it catches up with you like the mad dog chasing bikes.

And here I'm, at the valley of death again! What does it seek of me this time, I wonder. For I'm stripped of my dignity. What more it could seek of me?

Yet it looked deeply in me? Pointed to the little kid on the darkest corner of my heart. 

I gasped.

You are alive? I exclaimed.

The bargain was too much even for the passage.

For I knew the little boy too well. I wonder how he survived, unfed and not looked after. How did he?

I found the little boy years ago at a park, gleam and sad looking over the ice-cream truck that he missed. He looked passed the billboard across the street to the countryside. I went up to him and asked,

"You okay, kid?"

He looked at the billboard quietly. And after a while he asked me, " Do you remember that?"

That question struck through me and I woke up.

"On the sacrificial rock!" The spirit roared.

I was not ready to look away this time. For the boy was too much to let go.

"I don't want passage through the valley" I said.

"You go through the valley or end here!" the spirit said sharpening it's sword.

I was ready to give up what's left of me to keep hold of that boy. Little did I know that boy is what remains.

A breeze blew from the east across the valley, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Four winds blew and breathe into these slain, and as breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army!

"Can these bones live?"

Yes it can.