The other side of the desert

The white burning sand left an aftertaste in my mind. The inexhorable heat hung like a heavy curtain of deceit from all that was cool and beautiful. I wondered at the greyness of it all. White and grey. White and grey. Like the canvass of an artist who forgot to dip his brush in color. The buildings rose in unison, like tombstones that carry interred images, half-dead humans who carry the glory of a  distant past inside their tortured minds. Life went on with clock work precision. Get up, work, come back, drink, sleep. Get up, work…an unending travesty. I looked for the mirage everywhere. Searched for it within the sand dunes as well as between the unfriendly concrete jungles. The painted ladies smiled, without mirth, deadpan smiles that fell like faded flowers. The liqour flowed in abundance. Liquid fire that burned your intestinal tract and left a trail of deceit in the mind. The liqour made the nights tick. In a land without time.

Here time hung inexorably like an unwanted guest who has overstayed his presence. Stark, stale, heavy, mind numbing time, ticking away like a Chinese water torture. The sand dunes crept into the concrete jungles, especially in the night. Creeping eerily, through the agoraphobic windows.

Go back. Hit the bottle. Browse desultorily through the snail-slow net.

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