In the impenetrable darkness before the light, the impossibly long and dreadful night, I can finally see the wonders of paradise. I stand in expectation, in the dreary, empty desert. I stand in between two ridges of sandstone. Everything bears the dusty red color of rust, but it still somehow bears some kind of desication that might be called life. The grainy sand underneath me crumples with my every step, absorbing my strength, and draining my life away. This has been my world for the past years, and despite the enormous strain it has placed on me, I still have difficulty letting it go. There is some sort of hold it has on me that does not let me escape it entirely. A desicated landscape stretches behind me, one that has taken my life one step at a time, and yet now I see that it has also given me the strength that I needed to reach this height of my life, and climb the immense mountain before me, to reach the paradise of the oasis beyond.

In this oasis, I see the fruits of paradise. For I stand upon the sandy crest of the hill, which overlooks a steep slope, decending into a broad valley. It looks like nothing so much as it looks like beach before an ocean of green. There is the sandy, rocky, red and brown landscape that I have come to know over these years of wandering through the desert, this is what I have come to know. The constant searching, seeking, that has marked my life in the barren landscape has left me always wanting something more. Despite the desolation of it, I have found what I have needed when I needed it, but still, I have never been happy, nor found somewhere to stay. Now, I have encountered the lush, green, forest, and my empty life is finally coming to fruition. This, without having been there before, I have seen in my dreams for the ages that I have survived. In finally reaching it, it is as though all my life yet has been a dream, and I have now finally woken up.

I climb down the hill, and into the verdant valley, and see that it is still a walk to the edge of the forest, but yet, there is so much that I can see that is what I have dreamed of. The lush vegetation, plentiful fruits, luxurious shade, it is all too much to take in. It is as though being given a banquet, when all you have had to eat for years is one type of food that was flavorless, and only barely sustained you.

Walking the remaining distance is like returning to a great lover, because it is so close, the time disappears, and suddenly I am there. I look back at the distance covered, and the sheer immensity of it stretches into infinity behind me, but similarly, eternity awaits ahead of me. The green of the forest, the quiet rustling of the leaves, the trickle of a small stream running through a clearing that I can only see in my mind's eye, but I realize is truly close now, all of this is what awaits me, for I have finally come home.