The Greatest Sword in the West

Upon the dunes

There is nothing left now, the rivers have run dry and the air reeks of abandonment. Equipment seems ancient, buried beneath but a year of dust, unfulfilled, and squandered in the empty desert so wilful, so secretive. Who now would know what blood ran freely here, what love? Who now remembers the faithful, fateful dance, desperate and final that shifted the somnolent, wild sands into a shimmering frenzy, choking, desperate and earthly? It was love too, of the earth, human and hungry, love that would not be held by the trappings of civilisation. That night the earth sang with the movement of feet bewitched, with a dance, a ritual passionate and reckless lust. It is all gone and the somnolent sand keeps its own counsel and none, wise nor foolish will tread upon her, love her changing moods, infinite and immovable.

He shimmers in the heavy throbbing sun, white and piercing, in robes that flow in the arid, sullen breeze like waves within a brewing storm. Alone and silent, deep in thought that not even the storms of raging sands can overcome, he is, eyes fixed upon that one place that memory itself seems to have forgotten. The midday sun reaches its climax, the sands vacant and tireless sweep the dry air, burning with unquenchable heat, and he is gone. Footprints begin to fade in the growing tsunami of dust; as though neither he nor any other had ever been.