I was awoken by the searing pain of the ground pressed against my cheek. I got up quickly and  my feet failed me, collapsing as the ground gave way. The precarious nature of my footing confirmed my suspicions; I had found myself atop a dune of sand.

I grasped a handful of grains to prove this, the sand burned against my dry skin as it cascaded back toward its kin. I squinted, permitting small cautious steps as I inspected my surroundings, the sinking of my feet now matched the sinking sensation the desert was eliciting. I remarked that I could have stumbled from any of these dunes and observed  the exact same thing; oceans of sand stretching further than my eyes could see and my legs could venture.

I tried my hardest to descend the dune elegantly but found myself sliding rather than walking to its base. The horizon bulged and writhed to the rhythm of the sun’s heat, threatening to burst at its seams and bleed into the blue sky. I decided that as my arrival here was still an enigma, every direction promised an equal chance of salvation, or indeed an equal chance of hopelessness. After scaling my third dune, there was little to mark my headway other than the shallow footprints I had left in my wake, my mind could muse only on how magnificently barren this golden wasteland was, and how much longer I could endure it. Beneath my feet there were no signs of life, no cacti, no insects nor desert foxes nor armadillos nor vultures harbinging my inevitable doom. Nothing. Nothing but me and a seabed lacking in a sea to provide for it.

This desert was distinctly prosaic, and the disheartening symmetry of this sand prison seemed to have kept me in a stupor. The blistering heat now reflected back onto me from the sand I walked on, as if I had been caught between the ground and the sky whilst absorbed in a heated debate.

My clothes hung on me like bandages and I felt the weight of my body as I trudged through the thick air that snaked around my visage. The ground beneath me began clinging to my footsteps, an omen that I hadn’t long before I fell prey to the sands . I had forgiven the desert for being so stark, I could not think of a single creature that would wish to share in this burning embrace. My legs once again failed me, and my eyes followed them. I admired the dazzling orange of the sun as it shone at me from behind my eyelids, and its glow faded to black.

I awoke to a comparative haven of hospitality; the ground beneath me no longer burned, but kept a modest heat. My eyes no longer needed to squint as I stared up at the sky now dyed fuchsia and midnight purple. The sun had completed its rounds and now the night filled itself with the chirps of insects and the rustlings of animals, they echoed between the basins of sand and filled me with hope. The idea that I was not entirely alone inside the hourglass I have been confined to invigorated me, and made me determined to survive the sun’s impending return. I sat upright, retreating my hand toward my chest as I felt the tickle of an insect march across it, going about its business absentmindedly.

As I surveyed my surroundings, the once desolate desert had come to life now that the sands had become less punishing. Ants patrolled their quarters, woodpeckers flittered overhead, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, a silhouette of a ferret like creature could be made out in the distance, clawing at the sand in search of something. The watch on my wrist read midnight, and I shook the sand out of the crack in the glass face and it ticked appreciatively. It felt like an artifact from a time and place long ago. It was comforting to own something that did not belong in the desert, and made me feel inspired to prove that I didn’t either. The night was blossoming, and the clicks and cries and scurries and chatters of the animals flowed amongst the amber valleys, filling the night air with life and my heart with promise of leaving this place.