#104
The dog somehow knew where we were headed. Dune after dune, I followed him. We were far from the rest of the visitors, most of them keeping a safe distance from their car. Sleds in hand, they didn’t venture far. But we. We had supplies. I had film, and water, snacks for the dog and I. I had stamina and power to walk the dunes with him, following our noses out and back, getting lost, but not desperate.
The dunes were quiet. The dunes were sleeping. The wind, barely there, but enough to chill a hand, an ear. The mountains in the distance we just crossed hours ago, but it could have easily been days.
Between the dunes, in the valleys, small desert rabbits, lizards. Animals that attract the dog’s attention. I follow him down a steep side, my boots filling with sand as I go down. But the dog, he just slides down like he’s meant to be there. You can’t hear either of us move. Our feet don’t tap tap tap or clomp along. It’s powdery like a beach, but there is no water.
We stop and I take off my shoes and stick my toes in the gypsum; it’s cold. It sticks to my feet. We open a snack, he sits beside me, looking out - what is he thinking? What does he feel in his mind? What he tells me is to stop and look, and to slow down. To ponder this life, this place. It’s special. It’s not of this world, except that it is this world.
We sit together for awhile, realizing that not matter how I feel or how the dog feels, we both know that we shared this moment in time. We both know where the sand dunes of white gypsum are. We’ve been there. We might be there again and if we aren’t, we will still remember them.
I picked up our things and we took off, south by southwest, towards the sun dipping low. I could feel the cold coming. Off he ran, across the last dune on the edge of the world, I was just a few steps behind.