It was an ordinary day—if days could ever be called ordinary in Bhutan—when the mirage first appeared. The mountains whispered secrets only the wind understood, and there it was, hovering just beyond sight, flickering in and out like a long-forgotten song playing on an old radio. "Did you see that?" asked Tashi, his voice barely above a murmur, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the illusion.
"Maybe it's a ghost," replied Phuntsho, eyes wide as the horizon seemed to stretch and bend like the pages of an ancient tome left too long in the sun. They laughed, a nervous ripple in the quiet fabric of the afternoon, though beneath the laughter lay a thread of something else—curiosity? Fear? They weren't quite sure.
"Let's follow it," Phuntsho suggested suddenly, a wild idea igniting his usually tempered spirit. And so they did, tracing the mirage's dance through crumbling paths and forgotten trails, the scent of dzong architecture lingering like old memories of home.
As they wandered, the landscape shifted, revealing glimpses of a time when the valley thrummed with life— the echoes of laughter, the rustle of prayer flags. Or perhaps it was the sound of a river they had never seen. "It's just a trick of the light," Tashi murmured, but his words were hollow against the backdrop of the eternal mountains.
You're welcome to ponder the mysteries yourself: Trace the Echo or perhaps Sublime Passages.
And in the end, did they find what they sought? The mirage continued its elusive waltz just ahead of them, as it always had, and maybe that was enough.