The Hands of God

As the sands parted...a vast stone hand came into view

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

As the sands parted, and the winds intensified, a vast stone hand came into view, dust trailing beneath its immobile fingers. 

His frame sunk to the ground in the shadows of the stone, each finger’s mark spread across his prostrate form. He had made it. He rose from whispered prayers to stare up through the parted fingers to glimpse heaven, but only saw the blinding sun. 

Overhead a vulture pinwheeled, its shape distorted by the falling grains of sand. 

The man sat, back to the cool, shade blessed stone, and watched time pass. Dust slipped through the fingers, mingling in the earth beneath. He looked closer at the hands he had come so far to see. The fingers were long and beautiful Each one bent towards the other, poised somewhere between supplication, and a desperate attempt to keep the dust from falling. He could almost see the stone, struggling to move closer, to seal the gaps.

Exhausted by the heat, he lay down his head to sleep. 

Strange dreams troubled him. The hands still stood above him, but now the sand flowed in a continuous stream of red. Blood and dust mixed in a pool at his feet, in the murky solution he saw his own reflection distorted by the ripples. In the sound of each drop he heard whispered a thousand names. The pool stilled and his gaze was torn from the earth as he looked up to see the hand laid bare against a blackened sky. 

He awoke with a start. The sand still fell at his feet. He rose to stare up through the parted fingers, and this time he saw heaven.