"Travel light, but take everything with you." That was the only advice my father ever gave me, before he left. I was six.

I took it to heart, it was the only thing I had of him. I never knew where he went, he told me it was important, but that's what you tell a child when you have to leave, no matter the reason. So when mother died, I was seventeen with nothing to me but that advice. I decided to seek out my father, to know where he had gone, to walk in his footsteps. I needed to know, to see if he had any advice for me.

I walked the length of the city. Every street, every alley, every secret passage, hidden basement, they were mine to know. And he wasn't in any of them. So I left.

I kept walking, I kept moving. I must have covered every square inch of the county, the state. I looked for signs, I looked for his spoor, I looked for anything. No one had heard of him, there was no sign of him. I began to doubt that he even existed, but knew that my own solid flesh was proof enough. It would have to do.

I walked all over the world, and under it, and found nothing. So I learned to walk elsewhere, under green skies, and in dark places that have never seen the light of suns or the touch of man. I walked in truly secret places, and I keep walking. It's what I have, it's who I am now, and if I stop walking, if I stop searching, I'm afraid that I will blow away in the wind. In those places that have wind.

There are people I've known, and known in many places, many times. But they exist on their own, as I do, and I will continue to seek as long as I can. I own nothing but that advice, so I take everything I can. Someday I might find him, and I don't know what happens next. It frightens me to contemplate, and I sometimes wonder if I do not want to find him. But I continue to walk. To search.