mry writes

*a story fragment*

All through the night the wind blew, harshly, as it often did in this dry place, ceaselessly shifting the sand, relentlessly forming and reforming swirling patterns around whatever objects lay scattered across the unrelenting land. The wind-driven sand formed intricate patterns; zen-like twists, swirls, and sharp arêtes covered the landscape, a Japanese garden writ large.

During this night some small portion of the sand found a larger obstacle and on that obstacle a fraction of the sand stopped blowing, tumbling, rolling. It formed the largest vertical accumulation between the object and the horizon, the grains of sand delighting in piling higher and higher until they could no longer resist the pull of wind and gravity which insisted they tumble down to the base of the small dune, building a base for additional grains to pile on until the sand reached a point where it threatened to engulf the unmoving body.

The sand-covered body gradually sensed an approaching day; the ever-present wind continued its low hissing as it skipped across the sand, not caring if it was day or night.

The body, awakening and becoming a person as night bled into day, became aware of a weight pressing against it, cradling it, pressing down and lightly pinning it to the earth, holding it fixed where it had been throughout the night, or at least the portion of the night it recalled. The body slowly understood night was becoming day, as night becomes day endlessly, this night this day no exception. Which night or which day; where, how, why this place; the answers to those questions the body was not ready to deal with in this featureless place of endless wind and sand.

The body slowly and carefully opened one eye until it could cautiously peer out upon the landscape. When the head twitched one of the mini dunes that had formed on the body’s temple slid onto the bridge of the protruding nose and splashed into the open eye. Cursing softly, the body tried to blink the sand out of the eye.

The body tried again to look out at the world. The eye resisted with whatever might it had, not eager to repeat the experiment. The body carefully rolled the closed eye, attempting to soothe it enough to gain its cooperation. It managed to squeeze a small droplet out of a corner duct and onto the recalcitrant eye.

The tear helped. The eye slowly and cautiously opened. It did not like what it saw: nothing. Nothing but featureless sand stretching as far as it could see from its low position.

—
Not the End