We are walking in a wood. To our left I see paper in the process of dissolving in a pool of water. You are wearing a long, beautiful skirt, that I haven't seen you in before, which occasionally swishes against the clumps of newly fallen leaves. Above, the wind replies. Nearby, to our right, but out of sight, water burbles by, though the ground we walk on is gradientless. Birds chatter music all around, enjoyably consuming lingering summer insects. There are no further away sounds. We have walked like this for years, extensive explorers. Stronger. Interlinked. A twig snaps. You turn to me with a well-known, warm, calm smile. Let's keep going.
This is desert. The heat drains my energy, until it feels like my soul has been pulled through my crown. When I try to look around, all I feel is my body churning, my head still, as if fixed on a screen. I rub my eyes and they fill with sand. The dunes rise, and lash at my body. I'm simultaneously elevated, to break down in the same scene, and also buried; smothered beneath the weight of sand. This eternal cycle. I rub my eyes and they fill with sand, clarity failing, horizon constraining, I am the water that takes the shape of what is around, and here is shapeless shifting. This is desert. [Inspired by the music of Ben Howard and John Luther Adams]
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