Crawl

Hot. So hot. The very air presses down, stifling lungs and crushing spirit. Tiny arm hairs shrivel away from the glare, melting and abandoning skin to fend for itself. Pores ache to release moisture, open and gasping. Perspiration escapes as pure vapor, not even bothering to hang around long enough to cool. What are you doing here?
Blistering sand shifts underfoot, and there's no way to tell what progress you have made. It's all the same, stretching and blurring, on and on. Endless waves of tan, lapping in a slow undertow, heaving with the rise and fall of ragged breath. Nostrils crackle, and lips split. Tongue feels big and important, swelling in self-satisfied ignorance of its dire predicament.
Sky so blue, searing like a butane flame, pinpointed at the white-hot sun.
And endless thoughts of water. Lakes and rivers, streams, springs--drops of rain...puddles...condensation on a glass of iced tea...
A rivulet of sweat. A tear.
Stop!
Walk and walk, keep the sun behind and hope ahead. But the sun seems everywhere. You're inside the sun. Walk and walk? More like slide and slide, shoes filled with sand, toes scuffed and blistered. Turn and scope the progress, a shallow wrinkle stretching as far back as the eye can see, fading with a whisper as wind sifts sand to erase the path as if you'd never been. And maybe you haven't. How long for skin flesh and bone to crumble and become uncountable grains of dust? What is time out here?
And to think just hours ago you were on top of the world. Suits. Bottled water. Airplanes. Air conditioning.
How did you get here? Well. That's a long story for another time. Besides, why bother? All there is is shifting sand, blistered feet, lips, eyes. Any words would come out as a croak of desperation. Why not just give up and lie down to sleep?
And then there she is, right there! Or just over the next rise...? Smooth bronze skin, thin fingers wrapped around a clay jar overflowing with clear cool water. Taste it. Feel its salvation spreading through every inch, every cell. At last. Take it slow, no sense in wasting it trickling down your chin. Savor it and respect its elemental necessity. Seventy percent. Replenish and swallow, swallow, swallow.
But then you blink, and throat's dry as ever. The lady has vanished in all her glorious perfection. Vanished with her earthen jar. Vanished with her water. What would possess her to appear so, just in the nick of time, holding forth deliverance only to withdraw it at the very last moment?
Don't...collapse. Don't...give up. Hope...lives. No. So hot. So dry. There must be a trickle somewhere. There? Here? Anywhere...?