One day, I decided, on a whim, to visit him.

He is a peculiar man, so much so that I can hardly call him a "man", the same species as myself. Never have I met another quite as persistent and willfully stubborn as him.

He remains atop a cliff, his boots perpetually seeking the furthest edges of the rocky precipice, as if he longs to enjoy the thrill of a downwards ride to a solid abyss.

His eyes are a torment to gaze into. I have never seen him blink, and thus his eyes bear the glaze of sun on the horizon. They are piercing and spectacular in warmth at early dawn; and they are rusted over in blues and pinks by nightfall.

I have attempted conversation with him, yet no attempts of mine have succeeded once thus far. It is as though his mouth has been sewn shut by a skilled seamstress, though I know that notion is incorrect.

Once, I have heard him speak.

When he believed he was alone, I had approached him from behind with my steed. The sand had dampened the hoovesteps, so I suppose he could not hear my presence—yet, even if he did hear, I do not think he would have been of the kind to respond deliberately.

His voice is, as simply as I can put it, a blur.

It seems to me as though he speaks not to himself, not to the world before him, and neither to the void, but to something else entirely which I cannot even fathom a guess.

His words were thus:

"Doleo te mortuum esse."

I am consistently bemused by him.

His intentions and every action elude my understanding.

Who—or what—does he speak to?

What does he see in this never-ending desert that I cannot?

If I were to hazard a guess, one merely of my own ignorance and imagination, I suppose what he sees can only flit in and out of existence on the horizon, carved by the undulating grains from eons past yet fading with every passing wind.

Sometimes, I dearly wish to behold, with my own eyes, the vision he seems to see so clearly.

Perhaps that is why, now and then, I am compelled to visit him, this lonely, solitary figure trapped in the dust.