Chapter 546

Mothusi adjusted his worn, knitted cap, the Lesotho sun already bearing down even though it was early. He coughed, a rattling sound that echoed in the quiet morning. Cancer. The doctor had been blunt. Treatment was an option, but Mothusi refused. "What for?" He'd asked. "To add a few more months of pain?"

He started down the dirt path, the same one he took every morning. It wound through the sparse, rocky landscape, past the occasional shepherd and their bleating sheep. There was a certain beauty in the starkness, but today, Mothusi only felt the ache in his chest.

The path led towards the mountains. As he walked, a strangeness crept into the air. It wasn't a visible change, more of a…sensation. A lessening of the pain, for one.

He kept walking, drawn forward by an unseen force. The landscape subtly changed. The browns and greys of Lesotho began to soften, replaced by an altogether richer spectrum of impossible flora.

The air vibrated, making his vision get all funny. He found this oddly calming.

Up ahead, nestled in a fold of the hills, there was a…not a village, exactly. The structures were made of materials he didn't recognize, colors he had never seen before. Shimmering purples and golds. Not the colors of earth.

As he approached, a figure appeared from one of the buildings. Tall, with skin like polished obsidian. Dressed in robes that shimmered as though alive. It, she, or they moved, not gracefully, not precisely, not anything that resembled what a living thing's movement could produce, towards Mothusi.

He did not slow down. Mothusi was filled with, to his great surprise, absolute warmth.

The figure spoke, and the words had a strange reverberation and resonance to them, a kind of vibrating echo. "You are welcome here, Traveler. You have found the Crossing."

"Crossing?" Mothusi said, his voice less raspy than before. The figure extended a hand, slender and impossibly long-fingered, almost insectile in its appearance, except to have 7 total digits instead of an arthropod's usual appendages.

Mothusi took it.

He expected a cold sensation or to feel some disgust from the look, but was shocked at just how welcome it felt. As their hand intertwined, he felt...light. Not physically light, but emotionally. Like a weight he had been carrying all his life, all 64 of his tiring years, had been lifted. The ever present cancer did not feel nearly as threatening.

The figure led him into the place. The buildings – if they could be called that – defied description. There was an impossible beauty that itched at his brain, made his head feel thick. He only felt relief and elation, an unfamiliar feeling of what was almost "right."

He spent what felt like hours in this place, talking to the figure, although the words spoken in exchange by Mothusi did not use, seem, or act like those of earth he'd been made so familiar with. He learned… things. Things he could not possibly have put into words back on his side of the 'crossing', this new land was an impossible place that his memory could not begin to retain or fathom when crossing.

But each…moment…brought a deeper sense of well-being. The pain in his chest was gone completely. The ever present "impending doom" feeling did not make an appearance. He felt young again. Or, more accurately, he felt unburdened by age.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the figure led him back to the edge of the "crossing." The strange place began to look funny, again. Mothusi could not quite believe where he had ended up.

"You may return," the figure's resonant words sounded to be. "But…know that each visit takes…a piece. It gives, but it also takes." The being's words, though different than before in meaning, matched their same rhythmic patterns.

Mothusi blinked, back on the dirt path. The familiar landscape of Lesotho, bleak and brown, stretched before him. He felt…better. The walk back home felt different. His steps lighter, not dragging or exhausted.

He didn't mention the experience to anyone. His daughter, Mpho, visited later that day, and as expected she had a very concerned appearance about her when entering Mothusi's modest, stone-worked, traditional hut.

"Ntate, you look…different," Mpho noted, scrutinizing him. "You've been to that doctor I had asked you about, correct? You should have treatment."

"I am fine, morali," Mothusi replied, and felt a small guilt and worry. "I feel…better." And it wasn't a lie. He really did. His cancer felt very minimal.

Mpho did not seem soothed, as was standard from their conversations on the topic. "But the cancer—"

"—will be what it will be," he cut her off. "Leave it, Mpho."

She sighed. A long-suffering sound. "You're stubborn, Ntate."

He chuckled, surprising them both. When had he last felt such levity? "Always," he admitted.

The next morning, he went back.

Again, the change happened as he neared the mountains. The softening of the colors, the subtle change, and most notably a shift in feeling. The diminishment of the cancer's constant and nagging awareness, making an impression on Mothusi.

And the crossing revealed itself in a beautiful and disorienting swirl of unfathomable sight, motion, and change.

There was the tall figure, waiting. Again, the welcome, the connection. Again, the feeling of lightness, of burdens lifted, his feeling of impending doom and death vanished again.

This time, however, the… taking… was more noticeable. It was almost visual when the being pulled him away, this time by a hand, to reenter his homeland and reorient to earth. It was like… a tendril of his… self… remained behind as he crossed back.

When he arrived back, there were noticeable and tangible shifts on his body, to which the being warned would happen to be true.

But when he was in the other world, he knew everything made sense and that no possible repercussions were worth the forfeiture of entry. It was everything to him now, this place beyond everything.

He returned to his hut and was overcome by confusion for a few moments, staring down at a very aged and weathered looking hand.

As before, the walk back felt remarkably better in spite of what he saw had begun, so too did the ache not present its usual throbbing self. He felt good. Not young, exactly, but… free. The freedom he had been told came with consequences, he knew that and expected it fully.

Mpho, who now seemed, rather expectedly, as his permanent care taker and guardian, phoned him, later on, using that cell-phone service that always did make the modern generation lose some essence. Mothusi agreed with this thought fully, the ever advancing technology always taking "more," if you could ever label it in human words.

The reception on the small phone device crackled a small bit. "Ntate? How are you really feeling?" Mpho inquired.

"I'm actually fine," he reassured her, a smile creeping on his face as he remembered and replayed his walk earlier. He couldn't be sure if she took his explanation for truth, he was unsure if Mpho was able to hear that he smiled.

Mpho sounded relieved, to an extent, and that small amount made Mothusi happy that he could give such ease to a loved one. "Are you lying? Are you okay, should I come by? Maybe for longer, a week or two?

"I am good!" Mothusi confirmed, to both her inquiry about wellness and the invitation for her company. "Enjoy the family and give everyone, well... give them lots of me," he felt his throat tightening with just how warm his sentiments truly meant.

"Okay, love you Ntate." Mpho stated, hanging up shortly thereafter.

He didn't tell Mpho, though. He couldn't explain it. Not the crossing, not the…exchange. He continued this routine of 'lying to my child'. It happened day by day.

Each day, he made the journey.

Each day, the world warped as he did approach what had become such an integral routine.

Each day, he felt the growing impossible and warm sensation. The welcomed greeting, this giving.

Each time he returned home after his visits, there was the familiar taking.

His memory, even those from before all of this started, started faltering at increasing rates. The names and faces of friends, family – blurred, when home. Whole portions of his past became hazy when present, without discernible patterns that indicated logic, or reason. The order seemed, wrong.

Mpho became an unknown face when his only daughter did return, after much phone bickering. He smiled and pretended to feel good that an unrecognizable woman felt comfortable and "cared" so much for a total stranger.

One particularly disturbing side effect to note of this crossing, and his taking, was his teeth. They went missing in varying number and consistency after certain sessions. He had woken one day, back home in bed, after a visit, with his bed and lips lined with blood.

He checked himself in a nearby pocket mirror that did remain.

He did what anyone who woke with gaps in their smile, he looked to see. He felt around with his tongue. Sure enough, there was new "space" and "freedom" in his oral cavity. 14 in total, this time, all seemingly removed during the prior evening, or sometime between then and the last day of travel to "there."

Even more than memory and dental features were removed over the time. He started walking around hunched in stature, a noticeable shift that Mpho had pointed out right before her face became indistinguishable. His legs also shifted to walk differently. They moved wrong, and required the assistance of a walking stick he'd always relied on, before, during, and after.

But. The cancer. The pain, it remained totally absent. This trade off felt not to require extensive thinking on the part of Mothusi. He preferred his other realm, fully.

One morning, he walked a while. He didn't recognize where. He hadn't recognize anything around him at all. He felt around, but all the things that gave him clues and guidance from before no longer made themselves recognizable.

He coughed, and that felt oddly similar. He was somewhere rocky. It was dry. Lesotho. He thought. He tried saying the word out loud, and realized it came across more as "suh."

A blurry looking human that walked strange waved a hand. She shouted. He did not understand anything.

He moved forwards, unsure if what he was headed towards was correct or real.

Everything blurred. His cancer did not cause him trouble or issue. He did it. This felt more right than anything. More right, ever.

He could no longer see well, as things had become a big blob of light when arriving at the place, just "lighter" in general when traveling. This did not slow him or bother.

This light and color, that was different than usual, faded. Not "grey", as that was no longer even the color of things. He simply entered and went to his new home. He remained this way for the rest of his walk, feeling so so content, the impossible "beauty" giving him more warmth and rightness.

His steps crunched very loudly against gravel, in this world, at least. He was met as was protocol and custom at this point.

Mothusi heard and felt the figure from there, the giver, communicating. He heard, "Come to rest. You have given…enough." And, in the most incomprehensible way imaginable, "You have received your last gift, be welcome as part of us."

Mothusi no longer hurt, in mind, body, memory, any of him. He felt the relief he wanted for so very, very, very long. He no longer "crossed," "exchanged," "returned home," or was familiar with things outside of there, at all.

There, in that land that was a different world, the man of 64 years and former Lesotho-man Mothusi stood still as one of the "many." He smiled the gaps in his teeth to match his fellow company, no longer taking notice that he moved in strange patterns when ordered, with hands of many fingers that greeted travelers.

Travelers looking to trade some "parts," in order to receive gifts they cannot afford not to get.