Where I am, there’s little opportunity to check in, and my on-line journalling has suffered because of it. These moleskin notebooks, though – I’ve been filling them up. It’s not quite the same, however, having no-one to read them. I complete the last page of one, toss it on the stack of others, and start a new one. It all seems rather impotent. Though, should something happen to me, I guess it’s a nice thought that I’ll have left something behind.
Eight hundred kilometres away from any sort of major centre, I’ve been instructed to wait. I do. Wait and watch, they said. And I have been. Beginning to feel like I’ve hit the pause button on life, it’s as though I’m on standby. And I am, I suppose. I await further instruction. They’ll call someday. In the meantime, I count the days to the next airdrop. More food, more water, more moleskin notebooks, more pens. Contact.
I can’t say much more than I have, but I can tell you a bit about the sand. It’s everywhere. It’s there, as I push my bare feet further down into it. It’s always between my toes. I recline a little, pushing the palms of my hands back further behind me, fingers outstretched, digging them deep down into hot sand. I push them further down until I find the cool layer beneath. It reminds me of growing up on the beach in Santa Monica. Remember that? I’m only missing a red plastic pail and your little hand to hold.
The sky here is a different shade of blue than back home. I can’t explain how or why, but it is slightly different. Almost imperceptible. The sky, it’s so clear, bright, and blue that I can barely stand to look at it without squinting most of it away. My eyes water a lot. I can sit like this beneath the blazing hot sun for a short time, an ocean of sand all around me, but I eventually have to move to shade. I retire to my khaki canvas shelter for the rest of the afternoon and write.
Yesterday afternoon, I thought I saw someone coming over a dune in the distance. It was a motorcycle, I thought, but when it disappeared over a ridge, it never came up again. Afterwards, I walked in that direction for about a kilometre. I found nothing. Thinking about it today, I feel like I probably imagined it. It’s not unusual for gusts of wind to kick up small clouds of debris now and then.
I can say I miss home. I prefer to be in the city, surrounded by concrete and glass. But, here I wait. Limit your contact, they instructed. And I do. Curb your signals, they told me. And I will. You’re a ghost, they said. And they’re right.
