Sand Dunes
I found myself in a basin of scorching ferocity. As sudden as a fall in the sea, the heat swept through my body like a drug gone terribly wrong.
I tripped, and looked down to see what in this expansiveness, could be tormenting me with such a darkened sense of humour. Bit it had scuttled away to nether regions, leaving only a small reversed sand-timer to trickle into itself. I watched each grain tumble over identical neighbours slowly, ponderously, until all had settled to unerring stability, and I moved on, towards the blinding light.
I wandered fo many months, the energy of life ebbing away with each will-jarring footstep that cruelly yielded its impetus as the ground slipped between my bare toes, occasionally spraying up so as to nest in the seams of my tattered trousers.
The bright circles of rolling heat rained invisibly upon me from ahead, their directions seeming always to be focused on my attention. It seemed impossible, but my mind didn’t allow any capacity for thought. Not under the perpetual gaze of that third monster.
As I stumbled across the final dune, I paused with a quiet sort of self-esteem. I had navigated my way through that empty wilderness. I had found my way through the land of hidden creatures and yielding ground.
I looked back upon the mocking hills, and felt such tenderness, that I wondered how I could leave them behind. Such warmth it all held, such light. I knew that if I left it behind, I would never want to go back. Blistered feet are not kindly remembered, and my head swelled like a gigantic thumb trapped in an unkind swing-door. But it was something that could not be forgotten, and so I sat down on that final dune, and looked back upon my tracks.
As I watched, I had the strange sensation that I was looking down on some tiny anonymous portrait. I could imagine that trail I had made during the unforgiving trek, but the more I pondered, and imagined how it must be amongst the unfathomable vastness, the more I realise that my journey had not only been a miracle of navigation, but pointless too!
Had I died in that desert, my body would have been feasted upon by those lonely creature, maybe the best meal they would ever have in their lifetime. Then my bones would be picked dry of any last morsels of meat by the insects that burrowed hidden holes as their homes, the grains of sand like boulders to their frames, but treated as grains of sand nonetheless. All that would remain would be bones, bleached into the shape I had fallen, immortalised by the undying heat of the bright sun.
I sighed with apprehension. I loved this desert so much now. For my bones to be displayed here, like a hidden museum piece awaiting surprised discovery, I would wait, with pride.
It teased my cotton-thin strings of desire. But even these were seared by the directionless heat, so I pulled my thoughts away with the efforts of a man with locked joints, feeling the tears evaporate from my face to leave stinging patches of salt to tease my recollection.
Finally, my decision made, my body followed. I hauled myself from the sand with such precision and poise that I almost toppled in surprise!
Looking along the final dune, I took a tentative step, searching for my constant companion. But the pain I felt was only distorted reflections, like seeing myself in a fun-mirror. They werent relevant to me anymore. The pain was like a shadow: always with me, but never quite me! I had never noticed the shadow before, but that was because the sun was so bright on me, that all I could see was desert and light.
For an hour I skipped along the dune, back and forth, making sure that when I turned, it was towards the desert. My legs felt strong and lithe as they never had before. In fact, my total musculature felt so well oiled that I wanted to make the journey through the desert again, so that after all the pain and blistering, I could feel the joy of knowing I was okay, really.
A heavy sadness filled me as I realised that now was the moment to leave my home. As I waved half-heartedly to the world I had known for such a comparatively short time, I felt those salt-tears flow down my cheek, evaporating and stinging as before.. Only when I turned to face the blue-green desert that I approached did the tears start to trickle and take their natural course.
As I climbed down the final dune, the sea became more and more defined. It had no tide of any description. The desert stopped, and the sea began, starting very shallow, but looking enticingly deep further out.
I began to sob louder this time, hoping someone might hear my plights. The words came out amongst the shame, as if ripped out of me forcibly:-
Save me, save me! I cried.
But there was no-one there but me and the desert behind.
I knew that the sea was but two footsteps away, and even more I knew that the sea held no salt, but was like the purest of pure spring-fed lakes.
Throughout what seemed a lifetime of murderous erosion by the undemanding elements around me, I had found my goal. A drink to quench my thirst, and a bath to bathe my burning limbs.
Suddenly, I chuckled.
It was like a sudden realisation, a flash of inspiration. I realised that this was impossible!
Part of me wept, part of me sang choruses of Handels Messiah , It was beautiful, the thought. So perfect.
Mirage! I chuckled, as the water starting wobbling in a heat haze. Bloody mirage!
It rolled now, up and down like a television picture fed by an aerial with two demented pigeons fighting astride it. I watched in horrified amazement. It couldnt be slipping away (yes it could). My toils, my struggles. To no avail! (Thats right, buddy boy).
I held my hand out to the mirage, and tried to imagine its cool vapours upon my worn skin, but all I could see was the way my shadow slipped back into the pain again.
The sea, the mirage, was disappeared. Desert lay before me like a mocking sea in a hue of not-blue-or-green.
My head felt jumbled, then suddenly clear again. I forgot the sea as suddenly as I had realised it. Pursing my lips, I assumed my standard lolloping posture, which I had decided many months back would be particularly apt for my situation, and headed with fixed attention, for the dunes.
-Simon Huggins, Approx. 1989/90