Day 10

Use only water as your medium/inspiration today.

Water the most vital compound on the face of the earth. It covers over 70 percent of the earth’s surface. It is essential to all known forms of life, including my own. But yet, I have none. And there is none to be had anywhere around me. I am smack dab in the middle of the 30 percent of the world that is not covered in water. This is the driest place on earth. The inspiration for hell. The place where they send people like me, for torture. This is the Sahara.

In every direction it looks the same, tiny little coarse rock particles becoming the vain of my existence. And to think, as I child I loved the beach, would cry when Momma said it was time to leave, go home, shower off the sand. Ironic in a sense. But of course I never thought I would become what I have either. A trained killer and now the trained kill-e. They have left me here to die. And I don’t blame them, I have done the same to so many others. They are using all of my tricks on me.

I turn my canteen upside down. A drop of water rushes to the sand instantly evaporating. Well that was it. Now what? Death? Hallucinations? Perseverance?

I continue to push myself forward. If I have learned one thing it is to keep moving, always keep moving. So I do just that. Slow, snail paced.

My mind construes images of ice cold glasses of water. The perspiration bubbling like a burn wound, popping, oozing down the side of the glass. I reach out to grab it. It is gone. In the distance there is a swimming pool, so crystal clear and still as the sunlight dances on top of the water. I walk to the edge and look down. I am caught in a staring competition with myself. Only I don’t recognize myself. Who is that man? I blink and loose both the competition and the pool, but instead it is snowing. Heavily. Big puffy snowflakes twisting, floating, falling to the ground. I stick out my tongue to catch them. No snowflake is alike. Nothing sticks to my tongue.

I must keep going. But all of these delusions are distracting me. What have I done to get here? And then I remember. That reflection really was me. The person I had become, the trained killer, an assassin. I followed in the steps of my father, who I had never known, who had probably died a death similar to the way I am dieing at this very moment. Could I find his bones here if I dug deep enough. Would I want to?

Water the most vital compound on the face of the earth. It covers over 70 percent of the earth’s surface. It is essential to all known forms of life, including my own. But yet, I have none. And there is none to be had anywhere around me. I am smack dab in the middle of the 30 percent of the world that is not covered in water. This is the driest place on earth. The inspiration for hell. The place where they send people like me, for torture. This is the Sahara. And then I began to cry. One of the worst things to do when you are without water in the middle of the dessert, abandoned.