The Night Shift

Author’s Note: This is the fifteenth part of a series about Farren’s journey through a limbo world where everyone is trying to reach the peak of a mountain but have a rope tied to their ankle. Catch up by reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, and Part 14

Farren woke up in the cool shade of a tree. He’d slept the afternoon away after facing the mess of a knot his ropes were in. Botha, the man who’d lead him to the oasis in the desert, had knotted them up with the intention of them never being untied. It seemed to Farren the man had done a thorough job. Until Farren fixed it, he’d be stuck in the oasis, not making progress towards his rock or the mountain.
Farren stretched his arms and stood up finding the orange sun setting on the horizon. The temperature was much more enjoyable than the burning afternoon sun, and Farren was well rested after the long afternoon nap.
He was still not eager to deal with the massive rope ball that he had in front of him, but Farren knew if he left it as it was it would get him nowhere. Following his rope away from his napping tree, he got to his knotted ball of rope. Taking in the mess of a sight Farren’s was filled with despair. Farren felt like there was nothing he could do to fix the mess Botha had made. By tugging at places where he thought the knot should come loose, he confirmed that Botha had intention behind the mess he made. Each time Farren pulled at a length of rope, it tightened the knot instead of undoing it. He suspected that he was continually picking the wrong thread to pull since he didn’t think the ball could tighten down to infinity.

Farren messed with the ball of rope far past sunset. The water of the oasis began dripping again as the night became all-encompassing darkness. There was almost no light to see by, and Farren could only unite Botha’s knots by the feeling in his hands. His vision was limited to the small amount of rope he could see in front of him, and he learned he’d get more information by feeling where the line was pulling on the knot instead of trying to get a better look at the rope.
Farren kept at this process of untying for the whole night fueled by the afternoon nap, and the feeling that he seemed to be making progress. The noise of the oasis filling was his only companion.
When dawn arrived, he was finally able to step back and see his progress. There was a loop of loose rope in the sand circling the knot, but Botha’s mess was still an overwhelming behemoth.
After working through part of the morning, Farren could feel his tiredness draining him. Before midday, he had frustrated himself and, while having to feed most of his gained slack through he found that he had bound some of it into the knot again. He admitted to himself that he was losing progress and was thirsty.
Returning to the oasis, he was stunned to find that the pool was nearly full. The dripping the night before, from what he suspected was an underground reservoir of sorts, had added more to the oasis than Farren thought possible in a single night. He climbed into it, swimming in the refreshing water. Farren bathed himself washing the salt of dried sweat off, and the water was cool against his skin.
After finishing at the oasis, Farren had to decide if he would sleep the day away or continue to work on the rope knot.
He returned to the rope knot, but after taking a good look, he retreated to the shade of the oasis’s few trees. Farren comfortably slept through the late morning and the growing heat of the afternoon.

At dusk, Farren awoke to the dim light of the setting sun. He followed his rope over to the knot ball Botha had created and began to work at it. Having a fully rested mind helped encourage him to work on the problem.
Soon he was in darkness only able to use his hands to feel the rope, and the knots it connected. Slowly and carefully he fed the line through itself to unknot the mess.
Farren quickly found tricks that Botha had hidden into the rope. The rope would come out of one end then loop around to the other causing Farren to walk all the way around the rope ball to get to a minor knot that was keeping him from loosening the strand he was working on. As the night continued on Farren felt like he was amassing a large pile of slack. The progress energized him. Farren even dreamed that he could untie the knot in a day or two since Botha hadn’t spent more than a day tying it together.
As the sun crept above the horizon light came back into Farren’s world. Before him lay a knot of rope that seemed just as large as the one he’d seen at the beginning of the night. It was still taller than him. It was still wider than him. The only sign that his night hadn’t been a waste was the growing pile of slack that sat in a ring around the ball.
Even that slack was a mess. Farren had no illusions about that. Luckily, it wasn’t a knotted mess like the behemoth in front of him. He looked at all his rope and sighed. Despite being tired from the night, he trudged on.
Being able to see the knot Farren expected to be better at untying it. Unfortunately, he found himself tracing the wrong strands of rope with his eyes and making a mess of the progress he’d made. The sun was only a few hours into the sky when Farren gave up.
Stepping back he looked at the ring of rope around the knot and thought it might be smaller than they’d been at sunrise. Despite this, he began looping them into his familiar rope ball pattern to keep them organized and from getting knotted up more.
Before midday Farren had a small ball of rope. He suspected it was a little shy of one month of travel.
Doing some quick math, he realized that before Botha had made a mess of things Farren was dragging over two dozen balls of rope behind him. It was enough to build a small shelter after all. He hopelessly laid back in the sand of the oasis realizing that he’d be at this project for almost a month at this rate.
Discouraged by the math, he bathed in the oasis hoping to refresh himself. He also drank some of the pool’s water to recover from the heat of the early sun. Finding his shady place under the tree Farren slept the afternoon away.
When the sun began to disappear from the sky, Farren slowly woke up from his sleep. He groggily walked over to his knot of rope. Unable to see the whole ball in the pitch black Farren felt around the knot for the lead he had left the morning before. When he found it, he began his day’s work.
The rough rope warm from the day’s sun threaded in and out of his hands. He used his arms and elbows to hold parts of it in place as he fed rope that needed to be freed through. The line cooled as the comfortable night air came in on a breeze. Farren found himself barely sweating and became hopeful that he might be able to get the entire rope into an organized state before the end of eternity.

The dark of night began to come to an end as the sun returned to the sky. Farren was able to see what he was doing and as the full sun rose Farren had the entire knot in his view. Looking at the whole knot, he took in its enormity. He dropped the rope that was in his hand letting it hang off of the knot ball held in place by a loop it hadn’t been entirely pushed through.
Farren walked away from the ball and bathed in the oasis. There hadn’t been dripping in the night, and Farren wasn’t surprised since the pool would soon overflow with water if it kept filling. It was still early morning when he was clean and hydrated.
Farren drank in the progress he’d made during the night and began to pick up the rope that lay around the knot in a scattered mess. He cleaned it up by organizing it into the neat rope balls that he’d had before. By the time he retreated to the shade of his oasis tree he had added a full rope ball to his collection.

Farren got used to the pattern of working through the night and sleeping through the hot day. Some days he made significant progress having nearly two balls collected instead of the standard one. Occasionally Farren walked away in the morning with no rope balls. Those days he’d leave the knot with long strands of rope hanging from it ready for some line to be fed through the next evening. Every few days the dripping of the oasis would return.
The first time Farren thought that it was the oasis was filling up even more. He wondered what that would mean for him. However, when he went to bathe the next morning, he found that the water level had receded. After a few days, the oasis was empty again.
Farren worried that he’d get dehydrated when the oasis was emptied. But to stay alive, he merely slept longer hours in the shade conserving his energy for the chilly nights.
After a few days of the well being empty, the dripping returned. The water filled back up, and Farren was at a point where the knot was shorter than him although still quite wide.
Realizing that the oasis had a tide like the ocean Farren cursed his luck. If he’d waited only a few days, the pool might have been full, and he would have been able to talk with Botha about turning back. At a minimum, Botha wouldn’t have exacted revenge on him by knotting up the rope.

After four cycles of the water’s rising and falling Farren had all of his cord free and organized into balls of rope. It had been a massive undertaking, but as he concluded it, he realized it hadn’t been any more significant than building a boat, or hiking indefinitely through a forest.
He observed his progress in the morning sun and looked at the empty and sandy desert before him. It will get hotter as the day goes by, he thought to himself as he remembered the fresh and comfortable night air. The pool was full at this point of time, and he thought over how he might move forward as he bathed. Farren knew he could travel in the day and spend the hot afternoon in a rope shelter without dying. He’d lived that way with Botha on the way to the oasis. However, he knew this would only enable him to move for half a day.
The alternative was to keep his day-night cycles switched and travel in the cool night air. The downside was that it’d be impossible for him to see where he was going in the dark of the night unless he had something to guide him.
Tired from a long night’s work he napped under the oasis tree. When he awoke, he followed his rope back to where the knot used to be. When his sleepy mind remembered that he’d unknotted everything he realized how he could travel in the comfort of the night.
He picked up the rope that ran off away from the oasis and began to pass it hand over hand. He blindly knotted it into an organized rope ball as he collected slack. The sand was smooth, and there was nothing to trip over after he got away from the tufts of oasis grass.

After six nights of travel and five days sleeping in the shade of a rope hut Farren fell on his face into the sand. He’d hit something in the dark. As he felt to see what it was, he realized it was a dead man with chapped lips and hot skin despite the cold night air. The nose on the face was haggard and crooked. Despite not being able to see the face Farren knew who it was. Botha had passed out from the heat of the sun. Over the entire month of Farren unknotting the rope, Botha had only made the progress of six days of walking. Farren felt bad for the man since he knew the man would be facing the torture of the black void right now.
Farren took the man’s rope attached close to the ankle and tied it in a small and tight knot. It wouldn’t hinder Botha. The man might not even notice it. Farren wanted to let the man know that Farren was free and making progress back towards his rock. Farren was grateful that Botha had knotted up his rope because it helped Farren realize how to travel efficiently through the desert.
Climbing back up to his feet he found his rope again. Farren started back towards his rock collecting slack. He didn’t suspect he’d be meet Botha again. Farren hoped that he wouldn’t have to come back through this desert. And at the rate with which Botha was moving there seemed to be a low chance that he’d be free of the desert any time soon.

Farren continued traveling night after night by the feel of his rope. He’d spent weeks traveling and had amassed a few extra balls of rope, and still, there was no sign to the desert’s end. However, as the sun came up above the horizon one night, Farren saw strange black specks in the distance.
The man continued towards them instead of making a camp at first light like he traditionally did. Curious about the specs he wondered if they would be another person or even a group of people like when he had first seen Botha.
When he made it to the specks, he was shocked to find a field of rocks. Some moved, others stayed still. They were all different shapes and sizes, but most of them were small enough for Farren to lift but not without effort. The one thing all the rocks had in common was that they each had a rope attached to them. Each line lead into the horizon, but they all went in the same direction as Farren’s rope.