Long Walk

He knelt down next to the burnt foot tracks and took a break. He would have mumbled encouragement to himself if the wind wouldn't have swept the words away and there was anyone left to hear them.

He drank his last few drops of water, even though it meant burning his hands by taking off his gloves. It was something he had to do if he was going to find the man with the tracks.

And then?

He wiped the drops from his beard and rubbed the thin mud on his lips.

For years(?) now he had accepted the fact that he was the last of them all. The youngest fossil to be found if anyone ever came across this burning speck. But then he found the tracks.

If there was one, that meant there could be more.

And then?

He scanned the empty landscape, then got up to find out.

Hope and desperation do strange things to a person.

If anything ever did stumble across this speck again, and knew this man's story; they couldn't help but wonder if he laughed or cried, once he learned the tracks he was following were his own.