[ Wp ] When you were a child , you were given a model town to play with . One day you had a temper tantrum and smashed it to peices . Now that you 're an adult , you 've been travelling the world and you 've just discovered a ruined town that looks very familiar ...

By the second week things had gotten worse and the world slipped away. Those haunting memories of a bad man long past came back to me and I had felt afraid. I was never a religious man by any stretch but as time marched, I was afraid I would die and go to hell. 
 
 
 It was supposed to be a simple trip but I had gotten simply lost. Here in this country that can happen and I panicked. By the third week the memories had turned to fever dreams and my supplies were low and I had given up. Any thoughts of hope or civilization gave way to the images of how bad I had been and how I deserved this fate. Perhaps my brain was justifying it all, making its own peace. 
 
 
 I crawled beneath a dead, stark tree and sheltered the falling sun and the flying sands and I knew the coming morning may be my last. Sleep came as easy as death and I awoke weak and depressed. My thoughts had reached my childhood now and I was bad there too. One memory in particular was of me smashing a model town my father had made. He was an old man, my father, and he had liked those things. I could n't remember why I had smashed it then, but I knew he had cried away from me and I had felt satisfied about it. Now that thought haunted me the most and I missed him greatly and wanted to see him once more. 
 
 
 My feet staggered slowly and for miles it seemed there was nothing but sand and a shimmering horizon. I would have given up if not for the clouds. They were more numerous in the sky that day and I walked on in the shade. I ca n't say how long I walked but finally my salvation came, shimmering like melted silver on the horizon. 
 
 
 The city seemed small in the vastness. I wondered had I made it back from where I had set off. A new energy filled me and I hustled there to that city. As I came nearer it was clear to me that it was not the city I had set out from. Some fear took hold then for it was not a safe country, but I knew I had little choice. 
 
 
 The walls came up in sandy disrepair. It was a war torn city from the looks and thoughts of death re-emerged. Every building had a desolate look to itself and there was something else too. The walls had an uncanny look and feel and as I walked a sense of nostalgia filled me. 
 
 
 Above in the sky the sun blistered, hotter than it had been even in the desert, and as I looked up, it looked nearer somehow. An uneasy feeling crept in. I fell to my knees often as I looked for people. Everything was all too quiet. From inside, I could not see the desert, but now I could not hear it either. The sound of swaying carried in a sterile breeze. The high palms that had survived the wreckage moved stiffly. They were not leaves and they were not trees. I muttered to myself and screamed on the inside. 
 
 
 I screamed on the outside too, begging for help. My mind had put it all together, but rejected the reality all the same. In my dying way I stumbled around, looking for someone, anyone. At a junction, where fallen market tents littered the street, I saw a body lying limp and dead. His back was to me and I walked slowly as the sand licked him. As my shadow came over, my mind began to beg and plead. I pulled at him and stared at his face. It was painted and dead and it looked like my father. 
 
 
 I fell unceremoniously and without sound. I trembled despite the immense heat and then the dreams came again in a taunting way. I held my knees and closed my eyes. I wondered where I was. I wondered if I was still in the desert somewhere, dying in the sands. I wondered if I was already dead and this was my hell. No answers came and I remembered no more.
