Ham’s journey, on that first day, was mostly uneventful. He saw more drab trees and dusty fields. There were rock-colored rocks and dun-colored birds and dusty and discouraged deer and that was about it.
Ham walked mostly with his head down, watching as the dust rose with each step. By mid-afternoon, his shoes and his stockings and his pants were well dusted with the history of his journey thus far. Of course, since his clothes were pretty much a dirt-brown color, you couldn’t tell unless you looked closely.
There was grit everywhere. It was between his teeth, grinding as he walked, and in his eyes, scritching behind his eyelids as he blinked. There was dust and dirt in his hair, in the seams of his pockets, and under his fingernails.
Toward the end of the afternoon, Ham heard the gentlest burbling mumbling sound. He lifted his head and his eyes, and for the first time since his nap on the stone at noon, he looked around with some interest. At first, he saw only more drab trees and dusty fields. And yet there was that tickling, taunting hint of a burble, and Ham knew there must be a stream somewhere nearby.
While he looked and listened, Ham thought about his life in Dusk. At the moment, his thoughts turned to the question of bathing, as the dust and grit worked its way into every seam of his clothes and every aperture of his body. In Dusk, the youngest member of the family would go to the well at the center of the village every morning. That person, be it child or adult, would fetch back two buckets of water for drinking and cooking, plus one additional bucket of water for each person in the home to use for bathing and washing. In the morning, each person in the home would splash some chilly water over face and hands and rinse out his or her mouth. At noon, each person having worked through the morning, they would repeat this ritual before eating.
In the evening, though, was the best time in the drab life of Dusk. At sunset, the remaining washing water would be warmed in a large pot over the fire. The pot would be left over the fire while each member of the household had some private time to bathe with their share of the heated water. No one ever took more than their share of time or water – it just wasn’t done, and no one in Dusk (or, probably, in the entire land of Dank) ever considered taking more than their share.
Ham reflected on the small pleasure of bathing in warm water each evening as he walked and listened for the burblemumble of the stream. With his head lifted, his eyes roaming around, and his nose sniffing, Ham came around a curve in the path and found himself looking straight at a stream cutting across his path.
Ham had never seen a stream before. Well, at least not one large enough to cut across a path. In Dusk there was a small, small, stream that was barely there. It made just the smallest burblemumble along the edge of the village, sometimes disappearing altogether.
This stream, though, spoke right out loud with pride and assurance. In its burblemumble it said, as clear as you please, “Here I am! Walk in me, drink of me, share with me.”
And Ham realized that he was hearing just what it was saying.
Ham shuffled to the stream. He looked left, and saw that the stream wandered off to the north, burblemumbling along through the drab forests and dusty fields. He looked to the right, and saw that the stream turned a corner after a ways, burblemumbling all the way. And Ham realized that the stream was coming from the south and going to the north. He didn’t know if this meant anything. Ham had never really thought about a stream coming from and going to. Just like the well in the middle of Dusk, he always thought of streams as just being.
As Ham tasted this thought, he scratched his head, he tasted the dust and grit in his mouth, felt the scritching of grit behind his eyelids, and felt the dirt between his toes and under his fingernails. He thought about evenings in Dusk, and realized that there was neither fire nor pot here. But there was an abundance of water. And the water looked to be clear and clean and chill. With that, Ham stripped off every stitch of clothing and stepped into the stream.
No thought of modesty occurred to Ham at that moment. He was overwhelmed with the stroking and smoothing sensation of the water. At home in Dusk, the water just lay there. Here in the stream, it wove through his legs, tousled his hair, rinsed clean his eyes, and played with him as though he were an old friend.
Ham lay down, as far as he could, and looked up at the sky. He watched the drab overcast as he lay in the water, letting the stream play and pounce. He couldn’t remember ever just lying still and watching the sky before. After all, in the village of Dusk in the land of Dank, no one really thought about the sky much. It was just there. But today, this afternoon, the sky was alive.
The clouds overhead moved and changed. They met, they merged, and something new was formed each time. The light, too, changed as the clouds changed. It grew brighter and dimmer as the clouds moved and merged. Ham was fascinated, and lay in the stream for a long time, while his fingers and toes puckered and shriveled.
Finally, Ham realized that he was cold. The stream, in its playfulness, had grown chill as the sun (such as it was) slowly hid below the horizon. Ham stood and dripped and took his clothes from the bank of the stream and rinsed them thoroughly, watching as first mostly mud, then mostly brown water, and finally clear water ran out of his clothes.
As Ham stood in the stream, watching the dirt and dust and grit run from his clothes, he wondered where that dirt would end up in its journey.
