The Desert

There is something arcane about the desert.

Something about that sun and wind which are dwarfed by nothing. There is no feature out there to relieve you from the wind - groaning, collecting, penetrating. Desert wind fills your lungs and pores with the vigor of an ocean. There are no clouds in the sky for the sun to hide mercifully behind. And though the hills are small by some comparisons, our being is much smaller, so that you lose your way as soon as you leave high ground; the sand sits higher than it seemed to from the hill you just descended.

Wily snakes and busy insects zip by once in a while, as if reminding you that you're un-alone, but they are in constant transit, perhaps reminding you to stay that way as well. The lone cacti, saturated current, beating sun and your thoughts are your enduring companions in the desert.

It is the calmest and most ferocious of places.

When there is no wind, you feel as though you were in space, for the world seems so silent; the medium through which sound travels, air, seems to collapse and vanish altogether, and if you close your eyes it feels like all that exists in the universe is you, and the Sun.

You feel as though you could evaporate into the warm empty.

The desert welcomes you in, and hurries you out - for it cannot keep you, or you'll die; this it knows.

It is impossible to leave with the same body and mind, for if you go in, you incontestably come out changed entirely by its secrets and austere grandeur.