A Hush in the Desert

The sand dunes are silent. Nothing makes noise, except for those who willingly ignore the will of the desert night. The desert would attempt to impose its silence on the wanderers who so audaciously refuse to obey the silence, but it knew that, just as the wanderers ignored the desert’s wish for silence, so too would they resist any commands to do so.

These wanderers did not make any sound the desert knew. It understood the murmuring of the wind across the sand, the heat of the sun, and the tiny sounds and movements of the creatures who called the dunes home. However, the sharp pitch and rumbling bass of the wanderers was unknown to the desert.

The wanderers confused the desert. Their noises made no sense to it, and their actions did less to clarify. They swung their appendages in different directions, seemingly at random. East, North, Southwest, West…they pointed in each direction and more, none towards the same. It gradually dawned on the desert that maybe, these creatures were lost.

This created more questions than answers for the desert. How could they be lost? The world was easiest to read at night. For example, if they wanted to go North, all they had to do was just find the brightest star in the sky – which was always positioned to the East, as it had as long as the desert could remember – and travel with it on their right side. But it seemed that these wanderers didn’t know to do that. Instead, they clustered around a piece of paper. Paper was unfamiliar to the desert. What could a paper tell the wanderers that the sky, sun, and stars couldn’t?

The desert’s ruminations were interrupted by a loud cry from the wanderers. One of them – there were five – was shouting louder than the others. Another raised its voice in response. Their voices began to bestir the denizens of the desert. A scorpion clicked its pincers together. Snake scales rustled along the sand. To the wanderers, these sounds were nonexistent, but to the desert at night, the noises were anything but. More voices were raised, and they kept getting louder. A burrowing owl screeched, disturbed from its slumber. A lizard hissed, thinking the voices meant danger.

The voices were suddenly replaced by the ring of metal.

The desert hated that noise. It sounded like death, but of an unnatural sort, one that didn’t belong among the dunes. The wanderers had all pulled out varying lengths of metal, and were waving them at each other like the stingers of scorpions.

At this, the desert made its decision. Before, its silence had been defied, but now, it was being violated. It had been graceful to these wanderers before, as it respected their right to move across the sands as others had done, but now they were disrespecting the sacred peace of all wild places.

So, the desert began to stir. It urged the wind into motion, blowing sand into the air, brewing a sandstorm to end the noise of these interlopers. For that is what they are now, interlopers of the desert’s peace.

Two of the interlopers, as if emboldened by the rising winds, swung their metal at each other. The desert surged into action, unleashing the gale of its fury as the metal arms of the interlopers met in a resounding ring that echoed actoss the sands, rolling on, and on, and on…and on…and…

Silence. No. Not silence. Silence is a thing of nature, a thing that all beings know and welcome. No, this quiet was not silence, but a hush. No sounds could be heard, as if every being was holding its breath in fear of the hush. Even the fury of the sandstorm had faded, as if scared to come to life in the face of this unnatural quiet.

The interlopers felt this hush as well. The two that had been fighting had lowered their metal arms, and all of them were looking around fearfully, as if the hush was a living creature breathing down their necks.

The desert was unnerved by this hush as well. It was unfamiliar, but not in the same way as the interlopers were. The desert may not have understood their noises, but it knew that those noises were natural. This hush…this presence…felt like a wrong note played on the wind, hurting the melody of the work in full. And the source was moving.

The desert felt something it had never felt before…fear. Fear of this unnatural note. Fear of what it could do. For all things in the world have a place and a purpose, but this hush had never existed before, so the desert did not know what it would do. The interlopers seemed to share in this fear. They began to gather close to each other, their metal arms extending in a ring around them. They made no noise now, as if they, too, felt the source of the hush approaching. The hush on the world seemed to grow in weight, pressing down on everything, stifling all sound…

One of the interlopers suddenly cried out, a panicked shout of terror. It pointed at the nearest dune. A dark figure was striding up it with sure, steady steps. It seemed similar in shape to the interlopers, but it wore a cloak of deepest black, which seemed to meld with the sand as it strode up the dune. The hood covered everything but the figure’s eyes, which burned a bright crimson against the featureless void of its face. It reached the top of the dune, where it turned towards the interlopers, a stoic silhouette against the bright stars.

One of the interlopers shouted something. The figure made no response. The interloper called again, this time more fearfully. Again, the silhouette did not make a sound. It seemed wear the unnatural hush like armor, letting it speak for itself. Another interloper babbled something and hurled a piece of metal at the figure. It spun, end over end, glittering in the starlight as it flew towards the figure’s heart. It was a true throw, and the figure watched the metal fly and fly, and then…it moved, impossibly fast, cloak swirling. An arm appeared from the depth of the cloak, throwing another piece of metal into the air. However, instead of throwing it the interlopers, the figure threw the metal to the side, and it curved, flying in an arc to strike the interloper’s weapon midair in a clash of sparks. For a moment, the desert recognized the figure’s weapons movement. It moved almost like a bird, riding the low breezes of the dunes in the same way a dove might, but no metal should be able to fly like that…

The interloper’s weapon fell to the sand, while the specter’s weapon continued to its strange arc, returning to the figure’s hand, exactly where it had left. The interlopers huddled closer together, afraid of what they had just witnessed. The desert was scared too. The hush surrounding this figure…for yes, the specter was the source of that strange quiet…still suppressed any and all sound. Both parties, the interlopers and the desert, waited for the specter’s next move, the interlopers with bated breath and fluttering hearts, the desert in nervous apprehension, waiting to see what happens next.

The figure regarded the interlopers with those burning red eyes. Then, it raised its arm again. The interlopers screamed, thinking another flying blade would cut them down. But no blade came. Instead, the figure remained still, with its arm outstretched. Pointing.

The interlopers followed its arm, which pointed towards the brightest star, to the East. One of them, braver than the rest, babbled something. The specter remained still, pointing. The interlopers murmured among themselves for a time. They seemed the figure’s pointing as a direction and began to set out in the direction indicated. The figure watched the wanderer’s go, not making any movement until had crested the dunes and were out of its sight. Only then, did it turn and begin to stride across the dunes to the West. The desert watched the specter as it went, ruminating on its presence. Never before had wanderers violated its wishes so audaciously…and never before had such a being walked across its expanse. As the figure vanished into the Western mountains, the desert decided that something had changed today…and it didn’t like it.