The sun beat down through the windows, and burned our skin. Our lips cracked and peeled; our voices were hoarse. And still the road stretched on, hardly deviating from its straight and narrow west-ward course. We had no cowboy instincts to guide us in this country. This was not a movie. We only knew to continue to plunge on into the sand, hardly straying, just like the asphalt path forged before us. Our eyes grew tired. Our thoughts turned homeward. It was eternity.
Purgatory.
Hell.
Everything came to a point at the horizon, and this we stared at for days. The flat arc of the desert was a fresh novelty at the start, as we marveled at the lack of advertisements, houses, and people. But eventually even the other cars on the road drifted away and we were left alone in the wasteland, with no other soul to speak to except each other. Soon the center point, where the road stretched like a string of grey taffy, disappeared into a dizzying flash of water. As the sun grew hotter, the mirage spread out towards us, until I started to feel we would hear the refreshing whoosh of our tires splashing onto the shore. But always, the pale lake shrunk away from us, mile after mile, and the hot water bottles left in my car did not soothe our cracked mouths.
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