the granular desolation he
dreamed might have been accompanied by the first many stanzas of the Moody
Blues Procession those early bars of
falling rain would have offered him solace
the desolation was unremitting blowing dust shifting footing burnt-out standing hulksscorched tree trunks charred limbs scattered beneath them
there
were no plants
the only thing he heard above the
stillness and the quiet was his footsteps on loose gravelpowdered clay
he quit talking to himself he only had so much water speaking parched
him
when rare brown winds spasmed he
quickly covered his face with a scarfdropped to the ground with his back to it
sometimes he had to dig hollows with his hands hide his head in them constantly push the ravaging particles and clots downwind that tried to refill them so he could breathe
when the wind fled and the sky
cleared it remained the colour of amber a
marmalade then he didnt think marmalade
because it made him hungry and his provisions were lean
time had no meaning
he quit counting his footsteps
because they were a measure of now unrecorded time
he wasnt interested he walked until he was tired and
laid down and slept when he woke he
began walking again
that could have been a measurement of
time had he chose to count how many times he fell asleep
he didnt
walking he suddenlystopped
something broke the aridness he
inhaled moisture closing his eyes he saw blue moisture
he turned slowly counterclockwise
trying to identify where the moisture seemed most pronounced
then with his eyes still closed
he committed he walked towards where he
felt the blue
moisture was
much later he thought he heard
water it giggled as only water canno
matter the circumstancesno matter the horror or sorrow or banality
when he opened his eyes he had to
wipe crust from them before he could see clearly
good thing he had
he was at elevation
the horizon sat heavily on its
edge not a hundred metres off
he stood at the edge of a
steeplyslanted cliff at its foot was an
irrigation canal narrow brown ponds were hyphenated by lengths of gelatinous mud veined by dribbling runlets
the cliff face appeared looseunsubstantial so he walked one way then the other before he found where the cliff veered
sufficiently away from the canal so if he lost his footing and tumbled the
violence wouldnt accelerate and the earth avalanche wouldnt sweep over and cover the
canal
fortunately he made it down
without incidentbut for a few slides
he walked along the canals edge
looking for the clearest pond or deepest runlet to refill his bladder slake his
thirst
then he sat and talk to
himselflaughed out loud at his miraculous fortune
a miraculous fortune amid draconic
unexplained misfortune
he knew the definition of the word
desolation from out of a dictionary
that was not really knowing it
1037, Twosday,
6 4. 21
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