Sinking into oblivion or holding on for a good while is a vital decision when you find yourself passing through the quick sands. The latter is preferable, but in doing so, you have to keep in mind that it’s all about taste.

If you see someone tossing about in the quick sands, you should stifle your desire to advise him what to do. Whoever he might be, he has his own right to set a liking for the final upturn in his fortune. What seems a wise advice for one could be an ill turn of fate for another.

I moved through the quick sands. The dunes stretched before me like a white immensity as far as my eyes could see. I consoled myself that the quick sands didn’t intend to swallow me yet. Undoubtedly they had existed all the time, so I couldn’t gloss over their unpleasant deserted essence with my appearance and - what bothered me even more - it didn’t deign to respond to my presence anyway. Perhaps I had to pass across the quick sands without a set destination like an accidentally woken fool or a deliberately deceived sage. I hoped that it would become clear in the upshot. But it would not be my whim.

There were white quick sands and nothing else. I had thought that there might be someone’s visible footprints before me pointing in right and wrong directions. They would prompt me how to suit the quick sands so I would not sink, but I was disappointed in my supposition. There were no signs indicating that someone had gone before me. There were no signs that could take me back to the time of beginning and that could help me to get at the tangibility of the end.

There were no artifacts of past presence and it seemed that I was alone along the unknown course along which no mortal had ever walked. I wondered how could these white grains of sand swallow so many sweaty bodies and leave no trace, so many unforgivable sins, wasted lives and shattered dreams? I was surely not the first nor the last - such was everyone’s delusion.

There wasn’t even a mere shadow on the sinister whiteness where I could have rested my tired look, tortured by the white infinity. These quick sands might as well reflect in black or white. All the same, nothing would change under the hot sun and the sands couldn’t stop to be quick.

The sun burned my brain. The dried salt of my sweat scalded my skin as if a hail beat me with uncountable bits of hot coal. Mixed with dust, the gusty wind uninterruptedly whipped me up like a ruthless driver. When the going became severe, I only counted on my breath and physical strength. It was useless to remember my own spiritual merits. There was a wild ingrained habit respecting only the tough musculature.

“For God’s sake, help me not to loose the sands’ patience.”

Each time, when I took one leg up to free the other for the next step with desperate effort, there was a great desire to take a long breath for a moment and not to lose the hope to keep alive. For the next step I strained my muscles more, otherwise my weakness might be considered an attempt for suicide. It would be a deadly sin for the faithful. And trust me, there were no tamed behaviors if you lived it every time. But it would be more just if we did not shift responsibility for the slavish behavior of walkers in the quick sands.

Sometimes it seemed that somebody played me in life’s race for coming to a final judgment. If someone deemed me worthy of the call into being or wanted to share his thoughts this way through me, I was ready to play the role. But I have met a too mighty rival, so the quick sands win. I wondered why they didn’t swallow me yet. It could be naive to say they liked me or I aroused certain sympathy, for the pain among the white-hot layers of sands was too real. For the quick sands I was not the first and not the last. Damn it, I felt myself the first and the last.

“For God’s sake, help me not to lose the quick sands’ patience.”

It became a little lilt with a hysterical laugh of my desperation. Despite my artistic, well, pathetic struggle - the observers would have noticed that it was done not feigningly - I felt a desire to howl in pain, giving the heaven a sign that I abhorred to see the same nights and same dawns all the time and I was going to be irritated early or late to be hovering between the bad and the worst for the pleasure of the quick sands.

It might be a great injustice, if you, undergoing tortures, would know that there was nothing for you behind the horizon, and you could have been forgotten among the quick sands as its slave. And very likely the one-day life of a butterfly would seem like eternal happiness to you. It was a wrong consideration that man was molded from clay. I began to think of me rather being molded from delusion, for I always believed in what might exist behind the horizon. It was very easy to live with such belief as I could draw breath again with the hope that the quick sands couldn’t last forever.

If casting a look down from great height with a bird’s sharp eyes, you should see a half grilled body moving forward under the blazing sun. If looking from greater height downward, you should see a spot that can hardly be taken into account as a moveable thing. If looking intently from even greater height downward, you should see nothing except the boundless quick sands, and there would be a great possibility of forgetting the object to look out for.

However, this long being had reconciled me to my lot to be grilled alone.

Suddenly I distinctly heard someone’s deep voice with a soft breeze.
“I wanted merely to show you the logic of motivation.”
In my weakened state I was not able to be surprised. Looking around, I couldn’t see any sign of life. And I realized that I was heard by heaven. Oh! I was heard at last. It meant that someone really had observed my moving through this misery. But I didn’t know whether to be glad or to be sad about it. At that moment I thought of how I could survive with the permanent thought of not to sink throughout the terrible movement.
I caught my chance. I didn’t keep the voice waiting.
‘Will you rescue me from the quick sands?” I asked with a spark of hope.
“No.”
“Why?'’ I exclaimed breathlessly.
“You are a human, by God. And it is a ground of human being to be in eternal fear of the end. You must go now, you are due to be at the horizon in time.”
“I don’t see any logic in sneering at people for not having the strength to resist,” I objected hesitatingly.
“For resistance you have to have a weighty motive. You are so immature for such anguish of mind. I don’t consider physical misery worthy of flagging.”
It vexed me to hear such words. Suddenly I desired to quit walking to spite the voice. But I couldn’t compel the rest of my unwilling legs. They would rather walk even for an instant than to be buried in the quick sands forever. I was ashamed of myself.
“Calm down! I will help you to leave your fears. The time will seem easy to you.”

The idea occurred to me that the only thing, which I found solace in, for my unawareness of what waited me behind the horizon, was the strange voice. Perhaps the voice was going to help me to get cheerful obedience instead of becoming a restive prey for the quick sands. But why was he so kind? Was I moving as well while it was written in quick sands’ precepts?

Undoubtedly the owner of the voice was able to read my thoughts.

“There are ten rules for neatly going through the quick sands.”
“Ten rules?” I asked in wonder.
“Yes!”

I was in terrible confusion. Going through the quick sands and being unaware of so many rules was at least foolish if one wanted to survive. I thought I should apologize to the quick sands for my lack of knowledge. Perhaps there might have been rules that could make my behavior acceptable to the quick sands so it would let me survive to the finish. I was not even sure how an apology could help me, if I didn’t even know when and why I had made a mistake. So, being sensuous to the inside, I tried to be deaf for the outside.

“From now on I will feel the fear even more than usual over the coming days and nights,” I whined.
“You should not apologize for something that was not known to you,” the voice emboldened me.
“I would like to think that to be in ignorance of the rules might exempt me from responsibility,” I said testily, “Could you mention one rule as an example?”
“Yes. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
“What do you mean by that?”

There was a long pause piquing my interest.

“Look, if somebody will have a better going than you and he has firm ground under his legs, you are not in the right to envy him and to wish to be in his place.”
“I cannot obey such rule,” I said desperately.
It seemed that the voice didn’t scorn me after my confession.
“I know that that is always hard to do in practice.”
But my keen interest didn’t lose the slight hope of having a try.
“What about the other rules?”
“It requests much more human effort to overcome yourself.”

It was sad to lose a suddenly appeared hope, and I thought quite differently about the quick sands now. They were found more brutal than I reckoned. It turned out that there was only an illusory way to suit them. I lowered my head, so I would not see the vast expanse of the quick sands, its tiring monotonous distance that frightened me, but I should again be hard in going and firm in my intention to be alive at any cost.

To cease the stream of vain thoughts that weakened my unconscious legs and hindered me from my instinct to survive, I fell into an apathy toward all around me, splitting me up into an insensible heart and a meaty moving mechanism.
In that moment I was not aware that people could not be left unsupervised at the quick sands like a silly child with a innate striving to only complicate the outcome of matters.

Suddenly, I smelled the strange but pleasing fragrance mixed in the light wind that nursed my face. I breathed deeply to slake my unquenchable thirst for unknown feelings. The air dissolved in my blood, little by little sharpening my other four senses. Gradually, I became sensitive to a sweet melody in my ears, a love song, hardly audible at first, but rising more and more adorably. The melody was so beautiful, so perfect and calming that I was sure no one could stay indifferent to it.
But my enjoyment was interrupted by the same voice again.

“What do you want?”
“I don’t know, because all my senses have become unruly. It might be well for me if my legs could carry out their duty after all.”

After a little demur, I forced to say, “You know all my thoughts.”
“Don’t worry. You already have successfully separated the immaterial from the material. Your legs don’t feel your mood, they feel only your weight.”

I calmed down. If the voice had intended for a long time already to arrange something for me, it meant that I would be upon the sands at least for another day.
Either unaware or unwilling to be conscious of why the voice was so charitably inclined to help me and define my wishes, I began to covet the spring I perceived. The strange scent was coupled with the fume of flourishing flowers. As a result of the free whirling in the recurring vision of florescence, I forgot the presence of the quick sands for a while and it was nice.

“Do you wish to feel the tangible temptation?” asked the voice.
I was pleasantly surprised.
“Is it an allowed wish?” I asked timidly.
“It must be your wish, I just show the way. People don’t know what they want. But I show them all things and they will sense what they want. I will present a pretty orchid to you. You will witness how she flourishes, fades and falls in your hands.”
The voice took my long silence as a mark of consent.

My intense delight began with the alluring female sight, silhouetted against the evening sky, rippling in the balmy air. The new fragrance was formed as a nude temptation with ivory delicate bodylines, brown wavy hair, lazy dreamed eyes, slightly moistened lips and fluttering bosoms like awakened roses. The figure softly touched my dried forehead and fondly enfolded me in her arms. The ruddy face with half closed eyes leaned over and kissed me so lightly that I wasn’t sure if I licked her lips or only felt her breath whispering to me, “Darling, let me care for you.”

After a while, a honeyed and caressing perception began to creep slowly over me, bringing a blissful serenity. Time stopped. I closed my eyes and felt that I would like to never be awoken again. I might have been forgotten in my flowery sleep being in the middle of the quick sands.

“I suppose, it is a bliss to carry on with a woman beautiful like a dream that got used to sleeping in your hands,” said the voice, low enough not to awake my lust, but high enough to be heard.

After awakening I felt a pain and a strange heaviness in my legs. Walking became more and more difficult. The quick sands reached up to my knees, but I couldn’t imagine a life without a woman in my embrace anymore.

“I must thank you for her birth.”
“No. It was your wish. But I do not think that you can live with carrying your lust in your hands.”
“Why?”
“We each must have a notion of things that last and things that don’t.”

My beauty clutched at my chest, trembling.

“Do you take her as your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” I answered honestly.

The quick sands echoed with my words, taking it as a vow.

“Well. Believe me. You’ll wake up some morning and see that you have to make a proper living. You are to build a home, beget a son, get into a business or become a politician in order to save your possession built on the quick sands.”
“What kind of business?”
“You must convince others that the quick sands ceased your devouring randomly, and its charity now is boundless. If you can do it successfully you will have much hard cash in your left pocket.”
“And what is it to be a politician?”
“You must convince others to compel the quick sands to cease devouring randomly and be even-handed. If you can do it successfully you will have much hard cash in your right pocket.”
“But how can I do it while I must go trough the quick sands. Do you think that my legs are able to carry such weight?”

The only response to my question was the deserted silence of the quick sands hanging over my yet unfinished path. It seemed that the wind whispered to me, and that the illusions of life come and go by force. But walking through the quick sands always obliges to check the poise and feel one’s own weight.

For me, the going had taken the place of faith, and then love had taken the place of faith. The once vivid dream about the quick sands has long been forgotten since. Rarely do I remember it, only when my low extremities ail me. The doctor says that the wet weather influences my health when I feel weak in my knees. In spite of his prescribed pills, he gave to me the friendly advice to take a frequent walk on the hot sand of the beach with my bare feet. I never dare to think loudly about my fear to sink in the quick sands. Again and again, I try to escape from idÈe fixe in my mind that even a coin in our back pocket has added weight.