Letter Delivered to the Ocean From the Sorana Desert

I don’t know where it comes from, the sudden burst of adrenaline that lets me run up the steep highway. Maybe I’d be able to explain it if I hadn’t seen the building before, if its unexpected sight had excited me beyond measure and made my feet run, run, run. But I saw the blue Rest Area sign a long time ago, and have been marching towards the building for the past week.

The soles of my shoes are worn almost right through, and I can feel the road’s heat coming off in waves. It doesn’t matter. My backpack smacks against my back with every step, I beat the pavement over and over again in a rhythm my breath struggles to match, and there it is!

I don’t know when my body decided I was close enough to it to sprint, a half-run, half-stumble. But it did. And I don’t know why, after so many restless, scorching days of walking with no North but the mountains and the building, I’ve just realized what it means. My eyes water as I run towards it, my haven, my mirage.

The hot, dry air cooks my lungs from the inside out, the smell of dust ever-present in every breath I take. I rush past the wind, stagnant as always, and feel the beginnings of refreshment settle onto my skin for the first time in months. A cool drop of sweat drips from my forehead onto the pavement, leaving a dark stain before evaporating completely. 

I halt–

For just a moment.

Smiling, catching my breath. My hands are jittery. My heart is racing. For the first time in forever, I feel alive.

(and hopeful too)

But I don’t stay still for long. Two seconds resting, and the heat catches up to me, hits me all over again. I lurch forward towards the red-and-white building once more. It’s waiting for me, I know it.

It stands out against the landscape, a dust-covered box with a half-fallen roof thrown against my Sorana’s cerulean skies, her golden dunes and prickly shrubs. It’s out of place.

A lifetime ago, I would've looked at it with disdain. I’d have been watching the desert while Ramona drove, knees clutched close to my chest, forehead leaning on the window. The cool AC at full blast. The music too loud for any thought to form in Ramona’s mind. Doing nothing to stop mine.

I’d have pointed and scoffed, “Who put that there? It’s completely useless. Besides, imagine the poor soul that works there. In this heat!”

But now it’s the only thing keeping me going.

My braids whip behind me like a smoke trail would off a burning woman. I thank God for the long legs that carry me forward; I thank Him for my dark skin, the way it’s singed by the searing sun but keeps on enduring; I thank Him for my unwavering resilience–

And my feet are off the road and in the sand.

And I stumble–

And it burns–

(it really does)

But I keep on running. 

Because I think: There it is. My food, my water, my life guaranteed in just one building.

And as soon as the tarmac’s shade is cast onto me, I begin to weep.

I collapse under the shadow of what was once the gas station part of the area. The concrete is no longer concrete, only slightly colder sand and dust packed hard into the floor. I pant, grateful for the shadow’s coolness. Only now do I realize my mistake. My chest rises and falls quickly, my throat scratches against itself, dry and painful. I’m tired and parched, but I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

And suddenly everything is possible. 

It takes a full five minutes for me to gather enough strength and willpower to get up, for the little man in my temple to stop hitting my skull with a hammer. I pull my backpack on again, and walk over to the store. I falter as I do, dizzy and tired. It’s right in front of me: glass door gleaming in the midday sun, shaded only by a tattered awning that sags dusty and melted. The inside is lit bright with the midday sun. There’s a couple of aisles packed full of plastic bags containing Lord knows what. Probably non-perishables, junk food, something toxic enough to have remained untarnished for these past couple unsupervised months.

I imagine the storage room. The large, large bottles of water. Enough to last me a lifetime. Or a good month, realistically speaking. 

I don’t hesitate when I walk up to the store and push on the metal handle. I have to blink away the light that reflects off the glass, and the handle is so hot I wince, hold my palm up. My hand turns a shade of pink I’d never seen on my body before. Blasted heat.

I end up just pushing the door open with my back, and my weight sends me teetering once the hinges give way. I look around at the store, the air inside hotter than it was out there, despite the shade. I open the door again, hoping for any breeze to find me here. None does.

I stay still for a second, looking out into the desert spreading its beiges and oranges as far as the eye can see. And I think them. Those dreaded questions that come as destructive as torrents in my mind.

What if there’s nothing? If the food is toxic and expired, the water dried, the batteries leaking and devices melted? 

What then?

No.

No.

I whip around and begin going through the aisles. Most of the bags have been thrown on the ground, but they’re full, thank goodness. Chips and pretzels and all the kinds of stuff you don’t want in your system. I keep looking. Crackers. Cigarettes. Candy. All dusty, all sandy.

I turn to another aisle, and yes, yes! Water!

Thrown haphazardly on the aluminium aisles, four bottles of water, old and lukewarm and nothing like the water I’d have drank some months ago, but it’s water!

(finally, finally)

My hands are clumsy as I reach towards the first bottle I find, and unscrew the top. I bring it to my mouth with the thirst and the greed of a thousand people combined, and I drink. The water is, as I suspected, sun-warmed and tastes of plastic, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter as it flows down my dry, sandy throat. I find myself gasping for air between gulps, messy and desperate. 

I gulp too quickly and I choke, sending water spilling everywhere. I pull the bottle away while I cough, and I tell myself to drink slowly. Slowly. 

My chest hurts while I bring the bottle back up to my lips for a sip. My hands still tremble and it spills on my shirt, and I’m wasting it and I should be more careful, but I can’t. I watch as the dark patch on my shirt expands and I let myself be sloppy. Just this once.

After some time, the thirst loosens its iron-fisted grip on me, and I screw the cap back on. There’s only half of it left. I should put the bottles in my backpack, but I don’t know if they’ll fit. I haven’t stopped to look inside for a long time.

So I do. I drop the bottles and sit on the floor with the water laid out in front of me—one bottle half-full and the others sealed—and I sweep away some of the caked dust layered on the floor, revealing a clean, white tile underneath. I empty the contents of the grey canvas backpack.

A crumpled pair of jeans, rags, and a blanket that I can’t use during the day.

A flashlight.

Pictures that fall unceremoniously like birds shot in mid-air.

A handgun I refused to use.

(and still…)

I take the gun and shove it back in the backpack, under everything else, hidden from sight. Not today, I think to myself with the beginnings of a smile. Not when I finally have a chance at life. A chance I don’t plan to waste. My mouth may still be sticky, my lips cracked, my head still hurts, and my hands’ jittering refuses to stop. But there’s a chance. 

I get back to the practicalities at hand, at sorting out the strategy that will hopefully let me see another month. The jeans take up a lot of space in the bag, and so does the blanket, but they’re necessary at night. Still, something’ll have to go. Water and food are more important. Food.

It’s only when I think the word that my stomach begins to grumble and I realize just how hungry I am. I get up again and put my memory to practice, force myself to think with the brain and not the stomach. 

Chips are a no-go. Even if they’re dry and salty and probably free of microbes, the heat is strong enough to make the oil go rancid. Never eat old chips in the Sorana desert. I learned it the hard way. This is enough to discard half an aisle worth of food, but I’m not risking it.

Pretzels are a good option. The best one by far. Unfortunately for me, there are only three bags. I grab one and shake off the dust before eating it. My hands are muddy from the mix of water and sand and dust, and I tell myself to wash them first. I grab a clean-ish rag from the floor and wipe my hands off before eating. I down a quarter of the 16 oz bag, and remind myself to eat patiently before I throw up.

I put it down, next to the water, and walk around the store. There are candles and matches, which could prove extremely useful in the future. Lighters. Dry pens and sun-bleached postcards. 

And I see the postcards–

And there’s Sorana, yes, but her desert too. No, it's too alive to be called a desert. Still, she always said that “She’s a desert of her own. She’s cold and unforgiving, too. With her storms and her winds. Her scorching midday sun. Freezing nights. So many people who lose their North there and never find it again. Just like Sorana. And so different too.” And she’d say it while we drove past this very store, on the highway that waits outside for me. 

While we drove away to the cold, nameless ocean.

Suddenly, food or water aren’t important enough. I walk to the counter, where the postcards lie scattered, discarded, and I find that it feels like sacrilege. That it feels wrong to know that the wind doesn’t care for the pictures like I do, that the world doesn’t pay homage to us like we do to it.

I pick up two cards, one for her, one for me. I’m lucky to find a pencil next to the cash register. I take them back to the floor, and I look for my pictures. 

They’re under the jeans and the rags and the blanket. I grab them with care and run my fingers over the polaroid film. I curse myself for having forgotten. For having not remembered her enough. Because there we are, her and me, me and her, when we were only girls, and we’re small and radiant and smiley–

And tears spring into my eyes.

Because we’re wearing plastic sunglasses, and I’m missing teeth, and we’re doing peace signs and I remember exactly how warm I felt, with my best friend by my side and my mother taking the picture–

Lord, how I miss her. My Ramona.

And the words–

All the words that flood me–

I just need to write them down.

Ramona, 

I’m not a poet and you know it. I can only call myself a romantic. So I will describe the scenery in front of me, and then state a fact.

I’m in the rest area. The same one we passed every other summer weekend. The sun is high and hotter than ever. If I look outside, I can see heat rising up from the highway, and it sure does look like water. In front of me, on the other side of the road, are the mountains. They’re as far away as they always were and always will be. As far away as you are. 

The floor I sit on is dusty and sandy. The store is hot. The food is scarce, and I’ve only found four bottles of water, but I haven’t done much searching, so there’s still hope.

Now come the facts:

I miss you. I miss you and I love you, and I miss you some more. And I still haven’t used the gun. I hope you haven’t either. I’m on my way, I promise.

Judging by my unreliable memory, I’m about 3/4 of the way through. I caught a ride in a horse-pulled cart for the first half, stopping in that little town we never got to visit. 

I found nothing there except for a bike whom I named Gertrude. It’s probably somewhere out there now, discarded on the side of the road. But not without good reason. That bike got me a long way through, and I covered weeks’ worth of walking in about half the time. It was exhausting, and the towns thinned out as I got deeper into Sorana, but I never lost hope that there would be another town just beyond the horizon.

I stopped every now and then for a quick supply run. Most of the time, the towns were empty. Desolate. This didn’t mean they didn’t have wells or some storehouse I could raid. I’m extremely grateful for that fancy Thermos my sister got me last Christmas..

The road has become dangerous, and not with cowboys or aliens or anything exciting. There’s a shitload of sand on it. It messes with the bike’s gears. About three weeks ago, Gertrude gave up on me. I landed on the burning asphalt on my face and side. I’m still waiting for some scabs to become scars. I had begun to lose hope, and the gun was right there, sitting nice and welcoming in my bag’s front pocket.

But I didn’t do it. Because I thought about reaching the ocean. And finding the town you were staying in when it all came tumbling down. I walked, and I starved, and I thirsted. And hopefully I'll find you. Whichever hardship has found you, I hope you haven’t used your gun either.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I get there and you’re nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear it. What will I do if I never hear you laugh again? I know I always say you cackle like a witch, but you know I love it. My greatest delight is to hear you laugh at your own jokes, or when I get to witness you using your sarcasm on stupid people. I can’t help but laugh with you. It’s stupid, I know. But I miss it. I miss your arms, your warmth, your lips, and your car’s damned AC. And did I mention I miss you?

So believe me when I promise that I’m coming. I don’t know how much of what’s in this store I can carry on my back, or how many stops are between here and the ocean, but I’ll make it happen. Just you wait.

With all my love, all my heart, and all my hope,

— Jesse

I’ve written on seven postcards. I wrap them all carefully in a spare cloth, and put them in my bag.

It’s true, all I’ve said. I don’t know what I’ll do. How I’ll get there. If I get there. Will I see her? Will she be waiting for me with a smile on her sun-kissed face? Or is she long gone?

I don’t have answers. Not one. But I do have hope. Lord, do I have hope. 

All there is to do now is to keep on walking.