The mask keeps out the dust. Not all of it, but enough to keep me from hacking and coughing and falling to my knees. A storm rolled in, towering clouds of ashy grit blacking out the sky. It tastes bitter. It always tastes bitter and sour and clogs the throat. I want to spit it out, but that requires me taking off the mask. I refuse to do that because it would only make all of this worse. Its already slipped through the lens and stings my eyes. I don't want any more of it in my body.
The wind, though, the wind is the worse part. It keeps me from moving. All of my strength collected in my legs and I cannot move as I wish. That is the deal we all have. If there is strength there is movement. And that deal has been withdrawn. The storm has taken it from me, taken me down to a stone. Immobile and still on the precipice of a dune that dwarfs mountains.
Dust and grit and sand, I sit on dust and grit and sand, constantly swirling and shifting and buffeting into me and the world keeps spinning without my movement. I pull the coat tighter around my shoulders. It keeps out some of the grit and some of the sand. Not all of it, but enough.
Something shifts beneath me and I am forced to stand up. The wind, the howling wind of razor blades lifts me and for a brief moment, I take flight upon a bed of knives. Broken skin, and I can feel the blood trickle from me, spark, and sputter against the cloth. It slams me down again and the dune collapses. A landslide of bitter grit, and I am but a single stone along for the fall. Tumbling and scraping, sand working its way through the cloth and lens, finding every single soft, sensitive part of my body, and tearing it open. Pain, dull itchy pain of insect feet and needle pricks hit me and I do not want any more.
I am buried. I am free. The moment passes and I am under a mountain of sand. Another moment comes and I am flying again, the razors taking my weight and keeping it aloft. And throughout it all, I am calm. The storm will pass. The pain will pass. There is still the spark and stutter of my blood against the cloth that will always be there, always be in my deepest core and that will see me through this storm. The mask slips and I swallow the desert.
Immediately, my hands scramble to cover my face, to keep as much dust out of my lungs. Some slips in and the burn starts. I need to cough and hack and expunge the foreign contaminant from my body. But I can't. The mind says that I cannot because that would only allow more dust and grit and sand to enter my body and that cannot happen. It burns. It burns the chest and the mind and the wind does not stop howling. My hands scratch and tear at the cloth, trying to get it back in place. The lenses have shifted and I shut my eyes. Maddening howling dark, blind, deaf, pain, scratching pain of sand burrowing in my skin. The mask slots back and the lens clamp tight. I huddle in the sand as close as I am allowed, hunched, and covered against the howling wind. The dune settles in its collapse and I am offered a brief respite.
In a valley now, some shelter from the wind and the dust. I hazard an attempt at opening my eyes. I am only rewarded with an expansive stretch of dull brown sand and choking gray ash covering all that I can see. But one foot moves in front of the other. And the cycle repeats as I slowly stagger forward against the storm. The jacket's getting more and more worn down, more and more threads coming undone and loose and snapping in the storm. By the end of it, I probably won't even have a jacket, just tatters and holes and threads roughly in the shape of a torso clinging to my body.
I think it is my imagination, but the wind is dying down. Still biting and stabbing and scratching and doing all sorts of terrible things to my body, but I can move. I can move in the shadow of the dune valley. Shadow of the wind blowing across the ash, the hidden hole of my movement.
I am not moving as my strength would allow. I am not moving as I should, for the shadow of the wind is still stronger than I am. But I am moving forward. My will is still manifest in the physical, still pushing me forward. And I relish it. I relish the challenge, the spark in me that seeps into the stained cloth sticking to my skin. It grows and surges as my legs burn and strain. Beneath the mask, I smile with grit-stained teeth. I shut my lips again. Too much, even a cracked smile is too much entrance for the storm. But still, it is enough.
It is cold, the surge in my gut. Ice cold, no matter how much I tap into it. Always cold and sharp and digging into my flesh, just as the wind does. Knives and daggers and razors and thorns. My existence in as many words. Knives and jagged blades and so many wonderful sharp needles. I start smiling again before I think better of it. That can wait for later when the world decides to start being less terrible. Poor choice of words. The world is always terrible. But it can be terrible in different ways. I will smile when the storm stops and some other travesty strikes my journey through the desert.
---
Heat, blistering heat that bakes me through the shredded tatters of my stained leather. I do not miss the wind. That would make me an ingrate. And I do not want the wind to cut and rub me raw and sore and I don't want to bleed. The chill, though I have the chill to keep me cold. Searing cold in me, through me, and the sun and the baked sand ash cannot do anything about it. I watch the swirl of colors, gold brown and white gray twirl in my footsteps. Tumbling dance hypnotic and shaking the dunes down. Mountain ranges that slowly fall due to my footsteps and the change of the world at a whim. Bleeding sun, flaming orange red that slowly burns on my skin. The jacket does not cover enough of me. I am pale, turning red and charred.
It's a slow burn from the blank sky above, the white uncovered by black clouds. That's good at least. No sign of any more storms. But the sun, the endless burning sun, keeps my focused occupied.
The light shimmers and quivers, wavering lines that lead me forward. Ever forward and I cannot stop. I do not have the mask on, for all the good that does me. I can breathe and cleanse myself of the grit in my throat as I see fit. But I have to keep the moisture and chill in me. The heat seeks to rob me and the light, the quavering light in the horizon does not want me here anymore. In all fairness, we are in agreement. I do not want to be here. And the sun does not want me here with the light on my back, but I am here and it is burning me and shimmering and I cannot keep moving.
Water. I need water and food and I have none. I just have the heat and the walk and one foot in front of the other and that is enough. That will let me put the next step down the path. And I have the lenses making the light less harsh. Scratched black glass that gives me some small peace of mind. The jacket is useless now, only the lenses.
The light quivers and shakes in the distance and it has shapes now. Shapes rising and falling from the dunes and the sand. Shapes breaking down the waves. Shapes that are not smooth and round and rolling.
I do not get my hopes up. I do not let that wonderful little kernel of joy settle in my stomach. It's better to just let that little bit of me die so I can keep moving. The desert plays tricks. It plays my senses and tells me of things that are not there. There is no water, there is no settlement. There is no grand reprieve from the deadly sun. There is just another step forward and maybe a raging storm if I am lucky enough to receive it. I doubt it though. The sky is too clear for such a blessing.
But I am wrong. It is not a trick of the light, nor a fanciful hallucination to offer me false hope. It is real. There are real shapes strutting up from the sand. Square things, low things. Almost like stones jutting up from the earth. But they are cut through in squares. Worn, certainly, by the sun and the wind and the sand, but they are still too sharp for anything made by the storm. I sigh and let the chill seep into me once again, feeding it. I do not trust the square hovel ruins in the sand. I do not trust that they have the insight to keep anything insane from moving in.
It slips through the joints and the fibers in my muscles, the gap of fat underneath the skin, all the smallest parts of my body, driving ice and glorious pain through every small nook of my core. It hurts. It hurts to tap into the chill, the jagged knives that part my body. And it feels simply sublime, the growth, the stretch, the wonderful rip and tear of my body. Something cracks in my core and I finally, finally smile the savage smile of daggers and needles that I am.
The ruins remain quiet as I approach over the dunes and the grit. Smart things, hiding in the scant shade of slanty shanties. Smart things that do not approach and collect and assault. They will not remain smart for the foreseeable future, but they are smart now. They hide and scuttle and scamper and skitter from the heat, content in their small burrows. The shifting sand hides them, their tracks, their presence from me and my senses. But I know. I know they are there, snuffling and lurking. I know and I am getting impatient and they are going to be recipients of the impatience.
The first building that draws my interest sits on my right. Red stone line with poured gray between them. Been a while since I've seen something like this. Pretty, interesting texture. A stray hand traces the smooth lines and the chill leaps from my fingertips and snaps against the worn stone. I draw it back and it snarls at me. It snarls at the leash around its neck. Patience, it needs patience and it will be released. It will be released and it will be glorious.
The wayward touch shifts the stone and something settles and clicks deeper within the structure. Unstable, the whole thing is unstable. Probably all of them now that I think about it. Every single one of the ruins. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. It will drop in time, and all I am here to do is speed that up if necessary.
At least a dozen of the same red and gray stone buildings line themselves up down an avenue reduced to dust. My chosen one looks to be something like a market. Maybe. I can never tell. But these types of ruins are always full of markets. Some of them are probably cantinas or something similar. Never could seem them up and running though. Tables too small, no benches. Every so often, a drinking hall slotted in, but all the good stuff picked clean or empty. Shame, real shame that. I don't much care for the mash, amber and murky. Saw a bottle up for auction once at a way station, but all the way to the stars in terms of price. If only, if only.
