Woman of the Desert
She sat staring at the emptiness surrounding her. It stretched endlessly before her, and the only shade for miles was hanging over her head. The barren land was as wrinkled as her skin, and suddenly she felt as old as the desert. For sixty years, she sat in this same spot under this solitary tree and gazed at the vast nothingness that was her life. There had been a time when mirages danced in the slim haze between the land and sky, but today there were none. When she was a younger woman, she used to fantasize about finding those elusive oasis, and more than once she gave serious thought to doing so—even while knowing that the relentless sun and merciless heat would claim her long before she could reach the misleading haven. Some days she would have preferred to die slowly in the land that was her prison. After all, it was better than dying slowly in the prison that was her home.
She turned her gaze to the small house that was nestled into the lone hill beside her tree. The porch sagged in the heat, and the shutters had paled to the color of the blowing sands. Why had he kept them here for so long? Despite her pleas for a normal home, a normal life, and a normal landscape, he had refused. His stubbornness had made her a calloused and hardened woman. She learned to live in the elements of the desert; somehow, she found a way to survive. Now he was gone; she was free to leave the place
she had hated all her married life. Yet, here she was, dipping her toes in the small, almost empty pond, the only one around for miles. All the while she was drinking in the wide, open space of the desert that had never seemed quite so wide or open before. It was now, mere hours after his death, that she truly realized her predicament. She had loathed this God-forsaken land for so long, almost as long as she had loathed the man who kept her here. But some way, somehow, the desert had crept into her, and claimed her as its own. Like the desert, her skin was composed of the fiery sand; like the desert, her heart was full of nothing but teasing, lingering images that faded just when she believed she was close enough to grasp them.
All at once, the desert seemed even harsher than ever; never before had it felt so lonely. She glanced once more toward the horizon and saw the glint and shimmer of a distant lake. She blinked, and in a flash, the lake was no longer there. For just a split second it appeared and beckoned her before releasing the cruel reality of the desert’s infinite emptiness on her. She felt tears roll down her cheeks; silently, slowly they followed the path of wrinkles across her face before slipping to the cracked ground. The desert swallowed them, quickly erasing the small mark they had made in the sand, and for the first time in her life she couldn’t deny that she and the desert were one.