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Enjoy.
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Afterburn
Every educated person knows that there is water in a desert. You simply had to find it, thought the young man as he scraped some muddy water into his canteen. It’s the heat, he thought, the heat’ll get you in the end. Satisfied that he scrounged every possible drop of water from the small ditch he had dug, the man contemplated filling the hole back in, as he was a resolute environmentalist, and wished not to harm the beautiful land he was travelling through. Standing up, the man arched his back and winced at the sunlight that struck his vision. It’s dawn, he thought, before leaning over to grab his small shovel. Although larger than a garden shovel, it was smaller than a regular one, and extremely light for its size. Designed for soldiers, it suited the man perfected, although it was made of wood instead of the traditional metal.
The man stuck his shovel into the dusty soil, using his feet to push it further in. Suddenly, the man’s body jolted as he struck a rock under the soil he was shoveling, and he stumbled and staggering a few steps before regaining his balance. Unfortunately for him, his shovel had snapped, and was practically useless to him now. Disgusted at the handle end he still held, he tossed it aside, and walked over to his pack. It was the final day in his solo trek across the Atacama Desert, and he was well-rested and ready to finish his journey. Reaching into his pocket, the man grabbed his compass and began to read it before remembering that it had stopped functioning the day before. Sighing, he returned the compass to his pocket and muttered that he would certainly demand a refund from the supply store. Nonetheless, he recalled that the sun rose in the east and as he was to travel west for another thirty miles or so, he faced his back to the sun and began to walk briskly.
As he hiked through the desert, he observed the environment around him. At first glance, one may only see a desolate, lifeless plain, but the man saw much more than that. He prided himself as an educated man, as well as a man of nature. Being in the middle of an environmental degree, his steady eyes perceived the smallest details of life, such as the slight waving of some brush several hundred yards away. But his teenage obsession of the wild also aided him in identifying the barely perceptible crevasses in the ground. They would have been overlooked by any other individual, but the unnatural cracks revealed to him that creatures lived there. With the smile of a content man on his face, the man continued to hike on, simply enjoying the nature around him.
Before long, the heat of the sun struck his back, and he began to sweat. Aware that he was losing water, he immediately removed his pack, and peeled off his fleece jacket, and placed it into his pack. He then withdrew a hat and placed it on his head, to shield his face and eyes from the intense sunlight. Realizing that he had already trekked several hours, he deduced that he had only around fifteen miles to go. Pleased that he had made such great progress, he wiped some sweat from his brow and again faced away from the sun before marching on. The man calculated that he would probably reach his destination just one or two hours after noon, well before his intended arrival time of around five. As a reward for his amazing pace, the man decided to eat the rest of his food at noon, in order to privately commemorate his expedition through the desert. He had no use for it anyways after he reached camp, and it would lighten his load as well.
As the morning grew longer, the heat intensified, and the man found that he had to drink more and more water in order to stay hydrated. Only slightly concerned, he assured himself that he would dig for more water during his noon break. Instead, he focused on the magnificence of nature to support life in such an unforgiving environment. The Atacama Desert was reportedly the driest desert in the world, receiving only a few centimeters of rainfall each year, if any. The man gazed at a small fox as it trotted toward its destination. Quite intriguing, he thought, how could such a large creature sustain itself with barely any prey? Staring at the retreating fox, he snapped back into focus and noticed that the sun was directly over his head. Almost giddily, the man threw down his pack, and stretched his arms towards the sky as if appealing to God. Having relaxed his muscles enough, the man sat down to eat.
After finishing off what was edible in his pack, his searched for his shovel for a few seconds before remembering that it had broken. Not discouraged, he knew that he would need water to survive the last few miles back to camp, and scraped determinedly at the ground. But the years of drought had turned the ground hard, and he was unable to dig more than a few centimeters before grimacing and grabbing his fingertips in pain. He realized that he had maybe one or two sips of water left, and decided to give up on finding water in favor or simply rushing to camp. By this time, the temperature had risen more than twenty degrees Centigrade, and the man was beginning to feel the heat. Nevertheless, he still maintained a relatively clear mind, and threw the pack over his back before heading away from the sun once more.
The afternoon had begun, and the man knew that it was hottest part of the day. Normally, he wouldn’t travel during this time, but since he had only one or two more hours left, he decided to push on. Licking his chapped lips, the man lifted his canteen and sipped a small amount of water. Struggling to fight his urges to simply chug the rest of the water, he finished his sip and quickly capped his bottle. As the unrelenting sun beat upon his back, sweat began to build up between his pack and his back, but he was still rather unfazed, as he had experienced the searing heat in the days before. After an hour of ignoring the screams of his body for liquid, the man yielded and raised his water bottle. Intending to simply take another sip, the man couldn’t fight the almost tribal urges from his body and ended up drinking the rest of his water in one gulp.
But his body still screamed for more.
The man stared expressionless at his empty bottle before returning to reality. I should have only around a half hour to go, he guessed, I’ll be fine. However, as he trudged on, he began to stop sweating, and began to feel the weight of his pack more and more heavily with each step he took. After another hour of slogging on, he still couldn’t see the camp, and knowing the he was in serious danger of heat exhaustion, the man resolved to drop his pack and continue on. But even as the pack released a weight from his shoulder, the sun began to beat upon his back. Struggling to maintain his focus, the man only had one objection in mind: reach camp.
As he teetered on, the man stumbled over the small cracks on the ground, wobbling more and more uncontrollably each time he hit a crack. Eventually, the man broke out into a wild dash, knowing in his mind that he would reach camp any minute, but no matter how wildly he ran, he could never see the camp.
Finally, his feet struck a small ditch and he tumbled over, the breath escaping him as fiercely as if Muhammad Ali himself had punched him. Not even retaining the comprehension needed to curse his luck, the man simply lay there, breathing heavily, then more and more slowly as his vision began to fade. As he gradually lost consciousness, the last thing the man could see was the broken end of a shovel as the sun set behind him.
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Spoiler
Edited by penguin71, 27 February 2012 - 03:07 AM.
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