Oasis

I don’t know how long I had been walking. I lost track of the steps I had taken and the position of the sun overhead. I had stoped counting the days once I ran out of water.

My steps had slowly, but surely been reduced to a painful shuffle, one foot in front of the other, one more step. The blisters on the bottoms of my feet irritatingly grinding against the sand in my shoe. ‘One,-‘ my thoughts evade me for a moment, ‘more step.’ Maybe I’d find water somewhere, or maybe I’d be able to find a person.

The suns reflection off the sand gave me a headache. My sunglass had been lost some time during the night. Snatched, probably by some creature that roamed the sands. Or so I told myself. I hadn’t been able to see clearly for a while not. I couldn’t tell you how long ago that was.

Thoughts in my mind were slow, they’d come to me one moment, then scatter like grains of sand in the wind. Probably a result of dehydration and heat exhaustion. A small, fleeting moment of clarity brought the idea of heat stroke in my mind. ‘Yeah, probabaly,’ my feet inched forward in the sand, ‘that.’

The muscle in my thigh tensed up painfully again, not going away when I took my weight off it slightly. My head was pierced with a stabbing feeling I had slowly gotten used to. The headaches started a few days ago, I think. It’s hard to keep track of the days, they all blur together.

My vision shifted. The blury outline of everything cleared for a second as a cloud passed over the sun. A sweet reprieve from the heat that only lasted seconds. My breath felt cooler than the outside air. But it didn’t matter, my throat and mouth were as dry as the sands around me.

The sun beat down on my back, sweat doing nothing to cool my slow roasting skin. I had decided the second day to use my shirt to keep the sun off my head. Probably the only thing that’s kept me going so long. I vaguely remembered laying down the first night. The pain of my sunburned arms against the sand was agonizing; but, exhaustion made me sleep anyway.

I was stumbling blindly through the sand dunes now. I had forgotten what I was searching for. My lips close and my tongue pushed up against the roof of my mouth as I try to swallow what felt like sand lodged in my throat. ‘Water,’ I tried to swallow again, ‘searching, water.’

I look up as a shadow passes over head, too slow to make out the shape. My feet feel twisted for a moment and that’s all it takes to send me tumbling into the hot sands that make my knees and legs feel ablaze. My mouth opens in scream, the only sound that escapes me is a painful rasp as my vocal chords rub together like sandpaper. I hadn’t been able to speak properly and without pain for days now. I had no strength in my legs anymore.

Laying down in the hot sands, I moved my arms and stretched out. Grabing fistfuls of sand to drag myself forward. ‘Just a little,’ my mind lost its train of thought I struggled to repeat the mantra I’d been saying since day one, ‘further.’

My chin scraped the sand as I inch forward on my stomach. My legs coming up in a pathetic leap frog motion to keep me moving. After what seems like hours I began to feel my legs and stomach sweat more than usual. This registers in my half baked brain for some reason. Later I might realize it as my bodies self preservation instinct.

I look back, morbidly curious, to see if my sweat has left a snail trail in the sand. It’s not sweat I see though. I haven’t managed to drag myself far, that much I can tell. But the damage has already been done. The sand, combined with my body weight had managed to scrape off the blisters and skin of my sunburn my mind vaguely registered the new pain. Everything was turning numb. I barely made out the shape of a bird, pecking at the sand of my passage. My vision darkened and came back in a strange pulsing feeling. I tore my eyes away. One word coming to mind as I tried to pull myself further; ‘Shock.’

My body was finally trying to shut down. My vision cleared for three seconds. Enough to register a discolored patch a few feet away. Something brownish green. Something that didn’t belong in the desert. ‘Plants.’ My jumbled brain was able to put two and two together somehow, ‘Plants, water, need-‘ I dragged myself forward desperately now. ‘Water.’

An almost possessed chant had formed in my mind, my heart began to beat faster with the discovery. I may die soon. But I wouldn’t die thirsty.

‘Water.’ Another push forward.

‘Water.’ Another ragged breath leaving my lips.

‘Water.’ My fingertips digging into the sand, pulling while my legs pushed.

‘Water.’ One leg wouldn’t move anymore, I couldn’t feel it.

‘Water.’ Pain rippled down my back, the blisters and cracked skin pulling apart. I moved my arms further forward to cover more ground.

‘Water.’ One more push forward.

‘Water.’ The plants overhead shaded me from the sun. It felt hundreds of degrees cooler under its protection.

‘Water!’ My fingers fell into the pool of crystal clear refreshment.

I let out a strangled cry of relief. My chest was still against the ground when I pulled my legs underneath me and pushed one last time sending myself forward with strength I didn’t know I had.

I was submerged under it. The water washed over me and cooled the cracked bleeding skin of my back and chin. I gulped greedily. Taking in as much of the water as I could. I needed to breath, but I couldn’t feel my arms. A flash of panic took over my mind.

‘Air!’ I couldn’t breath. The water filled my lungs. I panicked, my body thrashing. It wouldn’t listen to my commands. And then one final thought. Clear as the watery grave I had dragged myself into, ‘Better to die drowning than burning under the sun.’ My vision faded, and I found myself falling into a void so dark, so comforting, I let go.

_____________

The vulture had been waiting for a while now. Waiting for the hairless animal to stop moving. The pieces of food it had left had only sated the hunger so much. It needed more. The chicks in its nest were growing. They couldn’t fly yet but soon they would; and when they could, scavenging would be so much easier. Surviving, would be so much easier.

The bird watched the creature struggle in the water until it stilled; it waited some more. Scavenging meant patience. The creature was bigger than it. It watched the water go still. No more bubbles floated up, the back of the hairless creature no longer rose and fell in its rapid pace. It opened its wings and descended in slow circles. Watching.

It landed by the creature and began its fruitful scavenge. After taking all it could, the bird spread its sparse wings and took off. Flying up past the tree line, circling the area. Watching for intruders, only to drop down into a nest shadowed by a branch further up.

The chicks chirped at the birds return. It dropped its head down and began the instinctual task of feeding the next generation of scavengers. Its legs bumping into a pair of strange plastic shapes the hairless creature had worn over its eyes.