A coyote howled to the moon in an empty desert, crying out proof of his existence.
“I am here, I exist!”
But the desert is empty and unforgiving, and no one is there to hear the cries.
“I am here! I exist! Find me.”
The howel, a lonely painful wail rolling out across the cold desert, only the wind and the sand and the nothingness hear the cry, and they do not respond.
“I am here! I exist! Love me.”
The sound of the howl, wavering and Unsure, like some wayward string instrument on the verge of becoming out of tune.
“I am here! I exist! I know not what I look for, but I know I must find it. I exist, I exist.”
Even the Moon turns his back on the coyote, hiding behind a lone cloud in the sky, the silvery glow now defused, obscuring further the vision of the path to be taken. Still, quiet, no sound except for the breaking heart expressed through the howl.
“I exist! I matter! To someone, somewhere… Maybe….”
The only response this time is the desert wind which briefly picks up speed, lifting sand up into the air and throwing it wildly about, like an expressive dance, a dervish, somehow paralleling the emptiness and the pain in the coyotes outcry.
For brief moment the coyote and the dervish meet, sending sand stinging at the skin like tiny little pinpricks and stinging at the eyes, blurring a vision that the coyote already did not trust to see clearly.
“I exist! But do I matter? Is there no one to hear me, is there no one to share my existence?”
The wind and the dervish have died down, leaving the coyote alone once again not even the pain and irritation of the small sandstorm to keep him company. The cloud has moved and the moon shines once again, this time it seems almost mocking.
“Am I here? Do I exist? Do I matter, to somebody… Somewhere….”
The coyote cried out once again, but this time even the sound of his own howl could not convince him of the validity of his existence, Could not convince him he was real, therefore he could not be convinced that he really mattered anymore to anybody, anywhere….
“Why am I here! How can I exist? Why am I not real?”
He looked out across the endless expanse of the desert, lit only by the moonlight. Looked out in every direction, and still no one was there, no one heard, no one was coming.
“I am not here, I do not exist, I do not matter, to anybody… Anywhere…”
And the coyote stop howling, stopped crying out, stopped trying to convince himself that he mattered, and stopped looking for what he knew not, but knew he must find. His soul laid bare and open for anyone to see, if only there was somebody there to see it. To see it’s emptiness, and it’s longing to be filled, it’s unquenchable thirst, it’s need to be loved, it’s need to matter, to somebody, somewhere… it’s need to exist for more than just the sake of existence itself.
Alone, in the emptiness, in the unforgiving silence of the cool desert night, the coyote never made another sound again and eventually cease to exist.
And no one ever knew.
copyright 2016, Gene Chiovari
