The Desert

It wasn’t mud or earth that he walked on. It was a brown fuzzy sur-face that couldn’t be distinguished from a grey sky and hazy air. The air felt neither hot nor cold, and neither could he say that breathing was easy or difficult. When Marty Smith walked in any direction he could see no shadows. The surface felt neither rough nor smooth beneath his feet, or indeed wet or dry. Water was a memory.

When he sifted through his brown wavy hair, with his strong weathered right hand, he felt a slight sensation of dust between the firm and fibrous strands. Sometimes he imagined that this dust prevented his eyelids from sealing marbled dark green eyes. His jeans felt airy, although the skin beneath felt numb and he rarely sensed any slight changes in temperature. Changes in the climate that surrounded were so rare that he had almost given up hope. Hope of the comfortable life he once knew. He wore a grey cotton T-Shirt, to match the essence of all that he could see, which felt slightly damp against his bulky torso. There was little sweat that he could feel. This wasn’t a pleasant place to be. He was in a state of limbo.

From his broad shoulders he lifted his strong neck, and looked up to see no sun. For miles he would walk, and nothing different to this state was experienced. No other signs of life or water, but just a uniform space surrounding. Sometimes it would seem to him that a wilderness would be a much better place to be. He couldn’t describe the place as having anything that could really be described. This wasn’t a wilderness.

He could walk and see the clothes on his body, and he remembered dressing long ago. There was a dull light surrounding, so his logic told him “At least this isn’t a place of darkness”. Tiredly meandering, there was no way that he could track where he had already been before. He had been there for what must have been three or four hours, before he slumped. He fell asleep.

There was a time of laughter and joy, and Marty and Paula would spend their lives in a comfortable serenity where they embraced. When they were 16, they fell in love and lost track of the time. At the weekend they would go from the finely decorated restaurant, with the cheery sounds and voices, to the park bench on the way home beneath the glittery sky. Before they knew it, they would realize that the time had passed and they would be late getting in to spark questions from their parents. Marty found himself there and he could feel the loving warmth from Paula’s hand, and soft cardigan. He gazed into her hazel eyes and watched her play with her long brown hair from either side of the wooden seat. Paula looked over Marty’s shoulder to see a cluster of stars behind a wispy, dull grey cloud in the night sky.

It was 12pm, and the two of them crossed the road on the way back to Paula’s house. The streetlights guided them towards a blue front door, and they kissed each other before they parted. It was a cool July evening, and all Marty could think about was a change of clothes before his tired mind and body were rested on the soft surface. He walked through the town he knew so well, and past front gardens with cast iron railings and green low-lying hedges.

‘Marty!’ Patricia Smith, a medium height woman with blonde wavy hair exclaimed as he walked through the green door. It was of a Victorian end terrace clad in Christmas cheer ‘Where have you been? You’re father and I have been worried sick!’

‘It’s a long story mother’, Marty replied exhaustedly ‘I’m going to have to get down now I think.’

Marty went to the kitchen for a quick snack, before clambering up a narrow wooden staircase before his worn out clothes were piled on the bedroom floor. Sleep was at an instant, and pleasant dull light seeped through the curtains.

There was once a gentle stream, and a rock against a hollowed branch that clashed next to water which cleansed the earth and sand. This scene was engulfed by green, radiant darkness that bathed his skin. Then below the grey and encased cliff-edge, his foot slipped and clashed into hers whilst they were soaked by cold teardrops. Brittle feet wiped the slippery surfaces of harsh stone pads to gently soften them. Their shadows overlapped, to contrast the striking rippled shades that flickered as the scene moved on the cave wall reflection. Part of the track meandered around a large oak tree with roots that were embedded in a large boulder. These grew underneath the stepping stones and into the rushing river on the other side, which had become still. They walked hand in hand through the cliff and into the forest via a walkway of mud and branch steps, as well as flights of uneven watery granite.

Though the lintel stile, they were hand in hand before he looked back at her fair skin. It was dotted with brown specs, and dampened hair which spread over her meekly soft shoulders. His eyes wide open, into hers whilst they sat down to allow golden rays to calm them. These shone through the surrendering clouds, between the glistening leaves. Marty puts his hand in the wet grass next to him.

‘TRING TRING! TRING TRING!’ Marty was awoken by a metal alarm clock that read 7am, and accidentally knocked over his night time water. It was a dingy Monday morning, and quiet outside. He clambered out of bed and went to check the messages on his phone which was charging in the corner, reaching down slowly having relieved the tension in his back. Strangely there were no messages. Around he turned, to then go and open the curtains that the very dull light was seeping through.

Past his bedside he stumbled as he came round, but then was stopped suddenly. He looked to his right in sheer amazement, and slight terror. On his bed there was large arrow pointing towards his bedroom door. He reached down at the arrow, and touched it. To his astonishment, the arrow consisted of sand, or at least a sandy like substance. So he looked on the ceiling, to see if maybe it had originated from there. But it appeared to him that it hadn’t. He paused, before doing the only thing that was obvious to him, or indeed would have been for anyone in that situation. He turned his partially bearded face over his right shoulder, as the bristles met his night shirt. What can only be described as a yellowy white light was seeping through the bedroom door frame on all four sides. The fears that he had almost forgotten about over the past few hours were then brought back to being a chilling, stark reality