desert stars (July 31st)
A short fictional tale, that only now I realise might be unconsciously inspired in Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
This is the first of a series of writings I intend to post weekly here, as a writing exercise.
I have only a forlorn hope now of being found. The days have passed unnaturally; never have days lasted as long as they last here. Time stretches further and further away from me, and it seems I can never catch up with it. The sandstorms make everything worse. Every day, grits of golden coloured sand cut through me mercilessly, and at every cutting step I shed my humanity away slowly. Perhaps the primitive man could have endured this, but not us; these self-proclaimed developed human beings. We are nothing compared to the sand that cuts us, the water that drowns us, the fire that burns us.
The other day, in between visions and dreams, I saw two birds plucking at each other for a piece of dead meat. I wonder if I will be the next thing that rots in here. Dried up completely by this desert air, burned to my bones by the sun.
The only moment I find solace is this very one, when the sun sets, and the stars take over the sky like soldiers in a battlefield. Even if I die here—I am sure now that I am going to die here— at least my forgotten body will be guarded by this unimaginably beautiful sky. I don’t think any human being has ever seen such a landscape as I see now. The sky and the sand melt away with the feeling that this moment is eternal; and has endured through all stages of this Earth. And just as I see it now is how it was hundreds of years ago and how it will be hundreds of years from now. To know that, and to know that my soul will wander through these sands and stars, is what makes this landscape so beautiful. And to know that my moment of joining it comes so soon.
I then consecrate this moment, and name it the last sunset and night of my life. I don’t care anymore if I am found, but I can’t live another day in here. I desire to merge into the night and cease to be in this body that suffers unimaginable pains, and to become part of this desert night, that will endure magnificently until the very end.