In a Dry Land

Far from home he found a dried up tree, bleached white under the cruel sun, and for a moment sat on its crumbling roots, gazing over the riverbed, the dried up riverbed, leading off into the distant desert. Ghostly breezes played, swirling, tumbling devils of dust awakening only to fall asleep. Squinting in the light, the wanderer looked over the wide, empty plain of dirt before him, the thirsting earth before him. The rain abandoned country ended, his eye could see, in a border of craggy cliffs. Darkened in storm, from here the flashes could be seen of lightning, so far away a simple spark—so close the wrath of god. But the storm was held back by the giants of the mountain, and the land was thirsty for the rain.

The Wanderer