A Fire in the Desert

Dry brush and cacti skeletons crackled under the pulse of the fire's heat. Steadily eating away at their combustible food, the flames kept up a haltingly graceful choreography under the fathomless blue sky. an ocean of moonlit rocks and reddish-brown silt crashed against the shore of light emanating from the small campfire.

Two bodies, pressed tightly together, sat under the comfort of a thick wool blanket. Each was staring intently; he at the strands of hair he held between his fingers, and she at the empty blue space above the fire. A rusty, mud-caked pickup truck watched from a safe distance. Snaking lines of smoke continued to ascend while he twisted the pale gold strands ever slower.

"You know, I've been waiting to be alone like this with you for a very long time..." he started, trying to express to her his relief at knowing that she was finally his. She sat, silent, with her head resting on his shoulder. A reflection of the fire shone in her glassy blue eyes. Such a beautiful, fragile creature.

"I had my eye on you for some time. You're so perfect, you know. There is no one I'd rather be with, right here and now." He turned away from her face, staring off into the distance, perhaps at the same imaginary star upon which her eyes now rested.

"Valerie, Valerie..." trailing off, he boarded a new train of thought. "My love for you is that fire, that very fire... It is warmth, just as you are warmth for me; it is all that we have in this empty desert of life. The fire changes, Valerie, just like my love for you. I thought that I loved you as much as was possible, but then I learned to love you even more. Isn't that profound, Valerie? The fire of my love?"

She remained in what seemed to be an unbreakable trance. Finally disgusted with his own selfishness, he stood up to leave her. The body slumped, coming to rest on the ground while displacing a quantity of dust. The frigid night air of the desert must have been getting to her. Maybe it was time to bury Valerie.