"Quick! Over here,"

the deep voiced man commanded,
signaling with his right arm in a powerful sweeping motion,
the well-earned sweat on his face glistening
in the platinum desert sun.
A dusty group of 10,000 pilgrims,
covered from head to toe in gauze,
stumbled over each other to
get nearer to the one who
Knew the Way.
"Follow me! We're almost there",
he said with an authority that made their hearts clench
for a moment in awed obedience.
The pilgrims linked arms and
began singing an off-key but joyful song.
They swayed in unison as they
followed the confident man over a cliff,
still singing as they descended,
their bodies spontaneously forming a giant cartwheel
as they bounced en masse down the side
of the rock-strewn gorge, their song echoing
happily as they gained speed,
their bodies now a contented blur
as they hurtled toward the
unyielding canyon floor.
Two hundred yards away, another man
sighed and shook his head, saying,
"I knew those poor bastards
would end up doing that."
And with that he herded his black robed,
serenely gazing followers
toward the slowly widening fault line,
the earth's temper growing
increasingly short as they
strolled toward the promised land.