Meet Dumakulem

The horizon in the distance darkened and stretched slowly into different shades of desolate brown. You’ve been searching for something, anything, but the sands peppering through your blistered and seared feet were consistent in leaving you dried out of mercy.

You gave up searching for water a long time ago. The dream, your goal that you’ve been pursuing had crumbled down at the harsh winds of oblivion. All the thought you had was this determination to move further to see and breathe the numbers you’ve put on your steps as the sun blazed above. You didn’t dare to look back. You have no tears to spend, but you know that it would break what you have left if you’ve seen how far you’ve come.

There’s no room for thought anymore. As your breaths grew heavy, weary—as your feet staggered for that dreaded next step, you turned back. Instead of the thought tearing your heart in half, you’ve felt emptiness. You have walked far. You have toiled your body in this irreversible state of a charred walking corpse with a small glint of life in its eyes. You did that for a certain dream.

You have achieved nothing at all.

In that emptiness, you faced forward, forgetting this rotting feeling in your heart, but there, after an eternity of walking, finally, your body had remembered how it felt to be shaded by something. You thinned your dry dusted lips into a hopeful smile.

The harsh winds have cleared, revealing a vast kingdom of sand. Towers speared through the skies, churches, dwellings that rivaled the stars as they glimmered like gems against the harsh sun.

On top of it was a scarred and hunched one-eyed giant, gathering the sand upon his palms, kneading it like clay, stretching it like rubber, and shaping it in his hands like a pot until it took the form of a person… You.

Suddenly, you felt fine.

“You’ve passed the first test.”

His ominous voice resounded as he grinned. He didn’t bother to look at you with his dry but focused eyes and picked up another handful of sand that soon turned into a brick castle.

“It’s only the test that I’ll ever give, and I’m already satisfied. Leave me alone. The power that you need is now at the tip of your hands and for you alone to grasp. Remember that desire to take that next step even if your body was growing tired or decaying. You will surely get everything you want, but remember the reason why you sacrificed it all… to take that next step.” The castle crumbled at his fingers, but it was rebuilt into a larger temple. “I am always at the side where the grass is greener.”