The Desert

When I was younger, I swam in a little pool under a willow tree. A rope swing hung from the sweeping branches, and sometimes I'd leap off mid-swing to splash down into the refreshing water, laughing, happy. It was charming, picturesque, something out of a storybook, a book of memories, shoved into the attic of my mind.

I can't remember the feeling of water against my skin, I can't remember the sensation of coolness or chill. All I know is the suffocating lullaby of desert heat. All I know is this smothering, blazing expanse of molten sand. I don't know how long I've been here, alone in my solitary desert world. The sky is electric blue, brighter than anything I've seen before.

My only companion is the sun, a fearsome, watchful demon standing guard over this lifeless realm. Or rather, soon-to-be lifeless. I'm still here, I'm still kicking. I can't say I remember how I got here, though—it feels like I went to sleep one night, back in the real world, back in my childhood house by the willow tree, and woke up here, wherever here is.

There aren't any buildings or structures to disturb the landscape, nothing except my body. I don't even have much of a shadow, it's always noon here, always mid-day. The sun doesn't move from its perch in the sky, it stays there, an eye, watching me, watching it all, unmoving, unblinking, unnerving.

I don't know how I'm alive, I don't know if I'm alive. I don't know where I am, and I don't know how much time has passed. Time certainly moves differently here, in that it doesn't, it doesn't move at all. Nothing changes, nothing shifts. There's no wind to turn sand over, no breeze to rustle the landscape. The sky stays the same, no clouds ever dare disrupt that deep electric blue.

All I know is that it's hot. It's so hot, so unbearably hot. And yet, here I am, bearing it, somehow, some way. I don't think I should be alive, I don't think living creatures are meant to endure this bitter misery. The heat never leaves my mind, and I wonder where I am.

I don't think I've ever heard of a desert like this one—so empty, so barren. I think I'm the only component moving in this otherwise immobile image, but to be quite honest, I don't even know if I'm moving. I put one foot forward, then the next, then repeat, but I can't quite tell whether my motion is confined to the bounds of my mind, imagined.

I wonder if this is Hell.