Catch The Wind
—But where did it go? The lake had dried almost overnight and within weeks everything was dead, the few resilient beasts concealed in the clay of the empty river bed, gummy membranes retaining water. The last tribesman wanders the dusty expanse, squinting before the harshness of the sun, searching for rain clouds across the skyline. That same sun, once precious giver of even heat, had seemed to spasm lately, growing steadily larger and hotter. All the tribe was dead or gone, their bodies mummified quickly in a heat so appalling that after the first round of burials not even the strongest could bend to dig fresh graves. Some had attempted to flee—to find water; to find a shady place where green things could persevere in spite of the sun— but they were dead too, a trail of silent bodies reaching for each horizon. He tried once to dig at the riverbank with a sharpened awl to get at the precious morsels of water trapped in reptilian flesh, but couldn’t crack the hard clay and finally resigned himself to death. Every tough and fibrous plant had been chewed, every insect eaten for token nourishment— he only vaguely recalls killing the last of the emaciated goats so the children could drink their blood. Just days ago there were still six clinging to life, but he awoke one morning to find all had expired in the night, knees tucked in tightly to their chests, lips cracked and hanging off. Each morning since he had risen quietly, dragging himself to the large outcropping of rock that marks the far west of the tribe’s territory, surveying the sky for clouds and land for signs of movement— but with ever increasing heat the ground only seemed to swell and shift and he understood in a very visceral way that nothing was alive but him. At night he watched the sky in earnest, witnessing the seize and shake of stars– planets blinking around a dying sun. The heat was no better then and for the past several days he had slept very little, musing on his ending. They must have offended the gods: given too much tribute, or the wrong kind. He didn’t know, having followed his heart in supplication as he’d always been taught. Maybe some adumbration of the divine still existed: he was still alive, after all. But with a rapidly distending belly and a throat raw from dust that even saliva refuses to remove, he knows his god has abandoned him, the waxing and waning of those affections hurting more than heat or hunger. In the morning he rises one last time. His eyeballs sting and begin to crack as he crawls to the escarpment and blinks in vain, seeing nothing but black blurs and swirls of dust; fountains of flame leap from the sun’s surface. No cloud. No man. No beast. He wants to scream, but lungs, slowly filling with viscous blood, refuse the stifling air. With nothing else to do he sits on the great rock with his head in his hands, waiting for rain, knowing death will come first.