Desert Song

Life flows through the desert, riding in on the back of the Santa Ana winds. The tumbleweeds are spurred into action in the dust, only able to ride the remnants of something bigger, twittering and bumbling after the trail like young starlings after their mother. The vultures ride the current, the spines of their feathers gleam silver in the sun and they cast long shadows on the hearts of those below - it is their duty to keep the balance, grisly it may be. And there is balance here.

It’s just past dawn and all the strife and sweat of the past is forgotten, lost in the weak ray arching over the northeast plateau (where the eagles make their nests.) In this place, there is no pain, only thirst. No warring or chaos, only the endless sand strewn from the edge of the city where the concrete has eroded into rubble to forever. This kind of sea rises and falls with the coming of the flash floods and changes for no one and only in the wake of bubbling heat do the shimmers betray another presence; it's glaring, actually, that it's taken up in flesh. A mirage has its roots in mirror.

And this hour the sun will scorch the earth.