93 Grains of Infirmity

"Quick!" the legless man insisted. "Before it's too late."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

He grabbed the sand where his legs should have been, moaning in phantom pain.

Mocking him, someone had fashioned, out of the sand, two legs. When he braced them against the pain, their sand crumbled. Now he screamed.

"What can I do?" I pleaded.

"Rebuild them!" he answered. "Show me how you help people--like me and the rest of us!"

I quickly reformed his smashed sand-shins, then patted them, locking in their shapes. He exhaled in relief. "Thank you," he said. "Those are nice, indeed."

It wasn't mockery. Just someone helping the guy. Surely the next person would think of my own mockery in forming his new legs.

"Could you make my friend?" he asked.

"What?"

"Like you made my legs. Do it next to me but don't stop at the legs. Make the rest of my buddy."

"Your buddy?"

"Yea."

"I'm no sand artist," I said, frustrated.

"Do it!" he commanded. "If you don't do anything for anyone else, do this for me!"

I began to gather and shape sand next to him. Clearly logic suffered, as tentative as any sand castle or man doomed to the next tide.

"Not bad," he said, surveying my work.

"I suppose," I agreed.

With that he stood up and ran away, leaving me with his friend. I plopped down next to my creation.

"Well, pal," I told his sand-buddy, "ain't that something."

Sand-buddy turned his head and nodded. "Well, done," he said. "Do you mind? I'm just plopped here, all intact and better off than the other guy. I mean, I've got legs from the start. Hard to complain, right?"

"I suppose..."

"But y'know, tides comin'. I'm a little nervous. Could you move me?"

It never ends: the need to do. Do for someone else. But you just can't fix everyone.

"Sorry, my friend. That's ridiculous. You're no more real to me than my ability to create someone from sand. What's real to me is what matters. So, I'm going back to where everything makes sense. Where I belong and you don't."

"A lotta good that'll do me!" he huffed. But I didn't care.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Word count (excluding notes): 365

Submitted for Tuesday, April 2, 2024

2024: A Story-a-Day for the whole year. This one is #93.

All pictures are AI-generated, but the granularity not!