It's so hot out that it could have been a mirage: that man out there. After all, the image
blurred like a photo of a t.v. screen if you looked too closely at it. He was as still as a picture,
too, resting against that cross, big enough to belong on the wall of a church. Even so, he was no
godly man. Holy, maybe, but not godly. The wavering image was clear enough to show that.
Godly or not, if he had asked, I would have let him in, but he must have been a mirage,
just a creation of light and sand, for no human would have chosen to sit on the dunes, bent over
himself to provide his own shade, when a door stood open just down the hill. He didn't seem
prideful enough to reject us, but the way he was sitting, as though to command the sun to not
reveal him, kept me in my spot. If the sun would defer to a mirage, I supposed I should follow its
lead.
Standing, the being of light and sand took one step and stopped, shifting his face towards
the sky, the sun pushing through his golden glasses and merging with his sapphire eyes, making
them glisten with a green that could never have been brought with spring in this too-warm desert.
I heard, once, of a place called a forest and the people who hunted through it by searching
out broken twigs and leaves. This figure brought back the image of that long-gone hunter, only
he was tracking by following the heat lines which broke up the sky.
Finding the one line through the shattering sky that he was looking for, the figure took
another step and continued downwards, dragging the too-large cross behind him through the
sand. Soon, he had disappeared completely over the ridge, merging back into the sandscape,
leaving only the track of the cross behind him.
Can mirages leave trails?
blurred like a photo of a t.v. screen if you looked too closely at it. He was as still as a picture,
too, resting against that cross, big enough to belong on the wall of a church. Even so, he was no
godly man. Holy, maybe, but not godly. The wavering image was clear enough to show that.
Godly or not, if he had asked, I would have let him in, but he must have been a mirage,
just a creation of light and sand, for no human would have chosen to sit on the dunes, bent over
himself to provide his own shade, when a door stood open just down the hill. He didn't seem
prideful enough to reject us, but the way he was sitting, as though to command the sun to not
reveal him, kept me in my spot. If the sun would defer to a mirage, I supposed I should follow its
lead.
Standing, the being of light and sand took one step and stopped, shifting his face towards
the sky, the sun pushing through his golden glasses and merging with his sapphire eyes, making
them glisten with a green that could never have been brought with spring in this too-warm desert.
I heard, once, of a place called a forest and the people who hunted through it by searching
out broken twigs and leaves. This figure brought back the image of that long-gone hunter, only
he was tracking by following the heat lines which broke up the sky.
Finding the one line through the shattering sky that he was looking for, the figure took
another step and continued downwards, dragging the too-large cross behind him through the
sand. Soon, he had disappeared completely over the ridge, merging back into the sandscape,
leaving only the track of the cross behind him.
Can mirages leave trails?