Balsamine Chen, Period 8, 2/10/21

Balsamine Chen

Period 8

2/10/21 

Creativity & Fiction

“Come on, come on! Up and at them, Razzy!”

Razz slowly lifted his head from his makeshift pillow and stared at his friend Tonnie through squinted eyes. How he was able to be this cheerful in the dreary hour before dawn, he didn’t know. 

It had been days since they entered the barren desert of Almengia and they were stranded smack dab in the middle of the lifeless sand. Only the sun and a rusty compass was there to guide them to the famed treasure that Tonnie was so enthusiastic about. Now, Razz felt like a block of concrete. As he sat up, his fur crunched and his tongue felt like sandpaper. Lovely.

Tonnie tossed him a water pouch and said, “Come on, we have to get a move on if we’re going to find this treasure! Someone else may have gotten to it already!”

Razz opened the pouch and took a sip, trying to conserve as much as he could. Their resources were getting low, and that meant scrounging under the ground again to collect the few precious drops of water they could find. Sighing, he replied, “So let them have it! Remind me again why we’re doing this? We were doing fine in our little home, and now we’re slogging through this dreadful desert with no end in sight!”

A few weeks ago, Tonnie had been scrounging around in the humans’ cabinets and found an old map wedged tight against the wall. According to the scroll attached, there was a magnificent treasure hidden in the “city of lights”—Almengia. But before reaching the city, they had to make a long trek through its famed desert to the east of its walls. Razz had dismissed the whole bundle as just a little story that someone made up, but Tonnie was adamant about finding the treasure as he had heard whispers of it during one of his scavenging trips. Sure, it wasn’t the greatest to live in a little cave with only stale crumbs and slight heat from the humans’ house, but it was something. And now, because they decided to chase a wild dream, they had nothing.

Tonnie walked ahead and said, “I’ve already packed everything up. I’m sure we’re getting closer and closer! You need to be more optimistic!”

Razz shook his head and followed.

And they walked. And walked. And ran from a hissing snake. And dodged falling prickly cactus arms. And dug under the sand to find water. And got blisters on their paws despite their bandages. Soon the sun was high in the sky, and they crawled to the shade under a lone tree in this beige, beige landscape. Time for lunch.

As Razz lifted the food pouch from his bag, Tonnie flopped down on their blanket and hit him with his tail, causing Razz to jerk his arm and their seeds to spill out onto the ground.

“Great!” Razz wailed. “Now our food is full of sand! Why did we come to this stupid desert?”

Tonnie didn’t reply. When Razz looked over, his friend’s head was bent, and he started laughing.

“What are you laughing about?!” Razz yelled. “Do you know how long it’ll take to pick out everything out?”

Tonnie’s laugh turned into a quiet giggle, and then he started crying. “It’s just… everything’s gone so hysterically wrong! I’ve been trying to be cheerful to cover up my worries, but you’ve just been voicing them all over these past days and I can’t take it anymore! I just wanted to have a better life for both of us. Wasn’t that what you wanted too?” Tonnie was sobbing now, small tears running down his cheeks as if they didn’t have the energy to gather up bigger droplets, too.

Razz was stunned to see him crying like this. He felt like a terrible friend. “I’m… sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t be complaining so much when I also committed to this journey. I’m just scared of failure, you know? But I shouldn’t be adding to our burden when we’ve gotten this far, and I’m sorry.”

Tonnie’s cries started to subside. “Ok… I’m also sorry for dragging you out here.”

Razz handed him a handkerchief and started to pick up the seeds. “No, don’t apologize. Even I have to admit that we needed to move, and I guess we just moved farther than most. Come on, dry your tears. We can get through this. I promise I’m in it with you.”

And so they continued on their journey to the city of lights.