Desert Joe

DJ's Dead Reckoning
	So I'm drivin'. Then I'm not drivin', cause this car finally quits on me. So I'm walkin'. Nothin' but desert and that narrow black slab of asphalt as far as the eye can see. Gettin' dark fast. Not a cloud in the sky to hold any of the heat in either. Only thing's generatin' any now's the side of my face turned to leather by the sun-a subcutaneous mass of nerves all screamin' in unison-and that narrow black slab. So I'm layin' on it. Flippin' like a bony buckwheat pancake. At first I'm splittin' my attention between the soothing glow of the last warm object within two hundred miles and the thought of somethin' big and fast and heavy barrelin' down on my dozing carcass before I can roll it off into the dirt. Pretty soon, though, it's obvious that nothin's movin' on this road but my imagination. Who gives a damn anyway? Not me. But there's gettin' squashed and there's gettin' cold. And what's got me rollin' up, first to my knees then to my feet, is clearly the latter. No heat. The road's given it all up to the atmosphere. Well, there's confirmation. Nothin', lookin' either direction, as far as the eye can see. But as far as The Eye can see, there is something else. Not down the road-which in the moonless hole this place calls a sky goes no further than fifty feet in either direction anyway-but off in the desert. I can't see it yet, don't know if it's good or bad, don't know if I can reach it, but The Eye says it's there. So I'm walkin..., again. Off the road this time. And I'd swear that every damn bush in this desert's linin' up in front of me. And dark as it is, I'm fallin' over one every couple a minutes. That last time I hit the dirt I felt somethin' wriggle out from under my right hand and dart off into the bushes. Felt slick, almost wet, and big enough around to fill my hand. For just a second, I could feel powerful muscles tense down the length of it. Then, before I could even register the thought, my hand shot back like I'd wrapped it around a hot exhaust pipe. `Course my hand was already empty by then. Life's gettin' pretty elemental right about now. It's like a strange sort of clarity washes over me. Whether I keep goin' or die right here, the desert's equally indifferent. I'm just another animal scuttling along the surface. If I don't care, nothin' out here does. My pitiful little tracks'll be wiped away by the desert wind in under a week. So I'm walkin' again. Seems time's pretty much stopped. Could be ten more minutes, could be two more hours I'm walkin' before I notice the light. As I get closer, I start to figure I'm losin' it. Maybe the cold, maybe hunger, maybe just the hypnotic emptiness of the desert. There isn't so much as a one-rut dirt trail that I can see, but there's this funky little hut, like a crusty brown toadstool growin' right outta the desert's navel. Then I'm inside, sittin' at a table, some Chinaman askin' what I want to order. Crazy. But I've got nothin' else goin', so I go with it. I tell the Chinaman I've got no money. Hand him my watch. He looks at it. Says, "No time out here." But he takes it anyway. I order up a steak, a baked potato and a cold beer. On his way to the back, he stops long enough to toss my watch into a lacquered chest maybe twice the size of a shoe box. I don't get a good look, he does it so fast, but it looks to be full of watches just like mine. He's back a few minutes later with some tropical looking drink, little paper umbrella and all, and a plate of eggs and sausage. He sets it down. I look at it for a few seconds, look at him, then back at the plate. Then I set about eatin'. Under the circumstances, I'm not inclined to argue..., least not `til I figure out how things work around here. That's assuming there really is a "here," and I'm not still out in the desert, starin' up at the void, takin' my last few conscious breathes before I slip quietly into hypothermia.

DJ's Dead Reckoning

    So I'm drivin'.
    Then I'm not drivin', cause this car finally quits on me.
    So I'm walkin'. Nothin' but desert and that narrow black slab of asphalt as far as the eye can see.
    Gettin' dark fast. Not a cloud in the sky to hold any of the heat in either. Only thing's generatin' any now's the side of my face turned to leather by the sun-a subcutaneous mass of nerves all screamin' in unison-and that narrow black slab.
    So I'm layin' on it. Flippin' like a bony buckwheat pancake.
    At first I'm splittin' my attention between the soothing glow of the last warm object within two hundred miles and the thought of somethin' big and fast and heavy barrelin' down on my dozing carcass before I can roll it off into the dirt.
    Pretty soon, though, it's obvious that nothin's movin' on this road but my imagination. Who gives a damn anyway? Not me.
    But there's gettin' squashed and there's gettin' cold. And what's got me rollin' up, first to my knees then to my feet, is clearly the latter. No heat. The road's given it all up to the atmosphere.
    Well, there's confirmation. Nothin', lookin' either direction, as far as the eye can see.
   But as far as The Eye can see, there is something else. Not down the road-which in the moonless hole this place calls a sky goes no further than fifty feet in either direction anyway-but off in the desert. I can't see it yet, don't know if it's good or bad, don't know if I can reach it, but The Eye says it's there.
    So I'm walkin..., again. Off the road this time. And I'd swear that every damn bush in this desert's linin' up in front of me. And dark as it is, I'm fallin' over one every couple a minutes. That last time I hit the dirt I felt somethin' wriggle out from under my right hand and dart off into the bushes. Felt slick, almost wet, and big enough around to fill my hand.
   For just a second, I could feel powerful muscles tense down the length of it. Then, before I could even register the thought, my hand shot back like I'd wrapped it around a hot exhaust pipe. `Course my hand was already empty by then.
    Life's gettin' pretty elemental right about now. It's like a strange sort of clarity washes over me. Whether I keep goin' or die right here, the desert's equally indifferent. I'm just another animal scuttling along the surface. If I don't care, nothin' out here does. My pitiful little tracks'll be wiped away by the desert wind in under a week.
    So I'm walkin' again. Seems time's pretty much stopped. Could be ten more minutes, could be two more hours I'm walkin' before I notice the light.
    As I get closer, I start to figure I'm losin' it. Maybe the cold, maybe hunger, maybe just the hypnotic emptiness of the desert. There isn't so much as a one-rut dirt trail that I can see, but there's this funky little hut, like a crusty brown toadstool growin' right outta the desert's navel.
    Then I'm inside, sittin' at a table, some Chinaman askin' what I want to order.
    Crazy. But I've got nothin' else goin', so I go with it. I tell the Chinaman I've got no money. Hand him my watch. He looks at it. Says, "No time out here." But he takes it anyway. I order up a steak, a baked potato and a cold beer.
    On his way to the back, he stops long enough to toss my watch into a lacquered chest maybe twice the size of a shoe box. I don't get a good look, he does it so fast, but it looks to be full of watches just like mine.
    He's back a few minutes later with some tropical looking drink, little paper umbrella and all, and a plate of eggs and sausage. He sets it down. I look at it for a few seconds, look at him, then back at the plate. Then I set about eatin'. Under the circumstances, I'm not inclined to argue..., least not `til I figure out how things work around here. That's assuming there really is a "here," and I'm not still out in the desert, starin' up at the void, takin' my last few conscious breathes before I slip quietly into hypothermia.