Trickling down from the mountains above, the stream crept gently and quietly through the woods past the children as they played in the field. Ananta stood apart from them, watching a single leaf drift along with the slow current, further and further away from the tree that had once held it. He wondered briefly if trees could feel sadness.

“Anan, what are you doing? We need another person for Mae’s team!”

Anan watched the leaf float further down the stream for a moment, then turned and ran to his friends. They played ball for some time in the early afternoon sun. At the crest of the north hill, smoke rose from the bungalows in the village as the adults worked and prepared food. The children played for several hours and then grew tired. A few returned to the village and the rest spread out around the field, talking in separate groups or lying quietly in the grass as sparse clouds passed around but never directly under the warm summer sun.

A strange man walked along the crest of the south hill which ran parallel to the north hill on the other side of the stream. Ananta noticed him first and drew the other children’s attention to him. He wore a large pack on his back and clothing that seemed bizarre, not just foreign but totally out of place in some way that none of them could place. Suddenly, he stumbled, and an object was jarred loose from his pack, rolling down the hill into the stream. The man either didn’t notice or didn’t care; he continued walking along the hill to the west at a good pace.

Ananta and the other kids ran to the stream. The jumped across the shallow water and scanned the far bank for the object. It was Mae who found it. “Look, look! What is it?” The children gathered around, examining the object with great curiosity. It was a metallic circle with strange markings on it. The metal was very smooth and shiny. The object was about the size of a dinner plate.

The children continued to look on in awe without speaking for some time. Then Ananta finally spoke. “We should return the object to the man.”

“Don’t be silly,” one of the younger girls said. “He’s along the top of the hill and already quite far ahead of us. We’d never catch him.”

Ananta thought for a moment. “I’m the oldest of us and a fast runner. I’ll catch him and bring him the object. The rest of you go back and tell my family where I’ve gone and that I will be a few minutes late home tonight. I’ll have to go now and hurry to scale the hill and catch the man before he’s too far away.” Before anyone could protest or even say another word, Ananta grabbed the object from Mae and ran through the trees to the base of the hill. He began scaling the rocks and by the time the other kids had gotten through the woods, he was already too far above them for anyone to stop him.

“Anan! Wait! Don’t go!” It was Mae calling. Ananta stopped for a second but did not look back. He felt a sudden rush of an emotion that he did not recognize but which an older person might have identified as nostalgia. He’d never heard Mae’s voice sound this way before. His heart ached and he wondered to himself whether or not the decision he was making would carry some great consequence beyond his understanding.

The thoughts passed quickly. Ananta climbed very fast, leaving the range of his friends’ calls within seconds. At the crest of the hill, Ananta paused briefly to admire the view; he’d never been up there before. To the north, he saw the valley where he’d lived his whole life. The village sat atop a hill taller than the one he stood on although it was considerably less steep and easier to climb. To the south, he saw the foothills of the small mountains, not quite visible from the valley but a familiar site to him from his bedroom window. He looked west and saw the tiniest speck moving along the ridge of the hill which steadily climbed as it became a mountain itself in the distance. Ananta set off at a full sprint.

Ananta gave chase at full speed for close to three full minutes but he seemed to gain little or no ground on the man. Ananta had to slow down. He was becoming winded and he feared that if he stopped altogether he would never catch the man. He remembered the pace the man had when he first appeared to the children. As long as he could at least match that pace at all times, he would at least not lose any ground. He’d have to look for shortcuts if they were at all possible. Ananta set off at a brisk jog.

At times taken by the serenity of nature, Ananta lost track of time. He had no idea that he’d been moving steadily for close to two hours, chasing a man and the sun in what seemed to be a losing race on both counts. It was when the sun began to turn orange and stars became visible that Ananta realized the time he had spent. He felt a panic grip his heart and it fluttered up into his throat. He would not be able to return to the village before dark and his family had told him never to be out on his own and night. The man was still visible very far ahead of him. Not knowing exactly what to do, Ananta felt a tingle race down his spine. He called out suddenly, his voice cracking, “Hey! The man with the pack! Please! Can you hear me?” The man gave no indication that he heard anything. His pace remained constant. Ananta felt a rush of adrenaline and he set off at a full on sprint.

The object under his arm was growing cold as the sun fell further from the sky. Ananta ran and ran, pursuing the man with all his heart. The man was now closer to him than his village and his only hope. He had gone too far to turn back. He would have to see the journey through to the end.

As the sun finally disappeared, moonlight and starlight became the only sources of illumination. It became harder for Ananta to see his path and yet he raced along at ever faster sprints between short breaks to catch his breath. He thought for sure he was finally making up ground and would catch the man. The moon reached its peak before Ananta knew it. He had been walking for many hours now and he fought back an evil thought; what if he would never return to his village? Had he gone too far, really too far to ever go back? He stopped suddenly and spun around. The light was dim but stared intently back the way he had come and to the north. There was no sign of his village or of any smoke on the horizon. There was no human light anywhere. Ananta had really gone a long way. He had the urge to sob but stifled it. He turned again and ran after the man, ignoring a growing pain in his calves and thighs.

The night air had become chilly and Ananta’s sweat now cooled him more than he would have liked. The ground under him grew damp; it had rained there recently. The smell of actinomycetes filled his sinuses. The man was growing closer, this much was for sure, but Ananta thought he was still out of shouting range. He managed to continue running off and on for quite a long time. He was shocked when he looked over his shoulder to see the sun chasing him. He had been running all night! The village would be so far away that he felt he would starve before returning to it if he tried.

He turned back around. The man was out of his sight. Ananta panicked. He ran again, harder than ever, frantically searching for a vision of the man. He saw nothing. “Hey! Man! Where did you go! Don’t leave me alone!” He felt hot tears stream down his cheeks. He ran hard up a particularly steep incline and as he crested it, his chest began to ache. He was hyperventilating. He started gasping for air but as his panic increased, he only made the situation worse. He stumbled forward past a large rock that stood on the edge of the path. He fell to his knees, clutching his chest. He was on the verge of losing consciousness.

From the other side of the rock, the man returned to the path. He saw the boy on the ground and approached him. “Calm down, son. Calm down. Breathe.”

The boy looked and saw that he had finally caught the man. He burst into tears. He managed to calm himself down and catch his breath over time as the man stood next to him. Finally, he had calmed himself enough to stand and he faced the man. “Sir, you dropped this!” He offered the plate to the man. The man looked puzzled. “Dropped? No, I threw it away. It lost its style and isn’t of any use to me anymore. Did you follow me to return this to me? From that far away? That was many kilometers ago!”

A new kind of emotion washed over Ananta as realization set in. “I thought…I thought…” He felt another wave of tears behind his eyes and suddenly, the blood seemed to seep out of his head. He realized he was lying on the ground with the man kneeling next to him.

“Son, you shouldn’t have followed me. You’ve gone too far and I can’t take you back nor can I watch over you. I’ve got no food for you. You’ve abandoned your life over a useless trinket.”

Ananta shook his head, too exhausted to cry anymore. “What will I do?”

The man sighed. The sun finally cleared the horizon, washing Ananta with warmth that was surprisingly soothing. “There’s another village just down the hill over there.” The man gestured to the north side of the hill just ahead of them. “Go there and ask for help. They are a very kind people I am told and I think they will take you in without question.”

Ananta felt empty. “Will I ever see my friends and family again?”

The man stood up. He picked the broken object up off the ground and handed to Ananta and helped the boy to his feet. “He faced Ananta towards the village and began walking along the path again. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back. Ananta stood clutching the object, staring blankly ahead. The man sighed and said, “No. There are some things that cannot be regained after they are lost. This path only goes one way and the things you saw on it before can never be seen again.” With that, the man walked away and was out of sight long before Ananta found the strength to descend the hill and enter his new town with only the clothes on his back and a broken sundial.