The Valley In the Desert

The thin frail man looked up. Beaten by the heat, he squinted with exhaustion and radiated with a flush face. His throat was dry and skin was blistered. He paused for a moment, almost finding rest from the sun on his back. He has watched his shadow in front of him for, what felt like, an eternity. He prayed his  shadow would return the favor and make him unseen to the sun.

"The sun," he whined in his head, too parched to speak. It scorched the sand and rock like Hell's welcome matt.

The land's thirsty orange surface resounded with chiseled character off the valley walls. He saw a distant low valley that cut through the horizon and imagined the water that once was so plentiful as to divide such indelible masses of rock. He found familiarity in the subtle brilliance of natural preservation.

"Visual cognition," he thought. The seemingly trivial college note from 5 years ago suddenly didn't seem so insignificant. He spun around, quickly mentally logging each peak and plane, valley and line, looking for an attack point, a weakness in the deserts grip. He contemplated his next step with such concentration and intent, his knees nearly buckled under the weight of thought.

"It'll have to be down," he said, fixing his attention to a distant valley where water was sure to be flowing. The thought of fresh cold clean melted mountain water made his eyes pull for tears, but none came. He was a dried up man. Time was slipping away as fast as the shadows crawled.

With each elevation drop, he noticed more vegetation. Not soft or bright, but hard, rough vegetation which could fight off the harsh evils of the desert.

"It will be night soon", he tried to tell himself.

His hollow thought had long been emptied of empathy for a relenting sun. Unconvinced of his lie, he continued. He committed to that first unnerving step. He began winding through the desert's forest of tall, unsparing cactus. He, so badly, wished this was a bad dream and he could simply cheat this cruel maze, jump over the prodding wildlife, and dip his face into the crisp blue waters of consciousness.