We are living on a desert planet, the dunes are endless and resemble Mt. Everest and Denali made of sand. Every day it is one hundred thousand degrees hot, and that’s in Celsius. We are so unbelievably fucked.
A man is walking through the desert, many giant gourds are strapped to his chest and they are all devoid of water. He is guiding a skin-and-bones camel through this desert. The camel is so weak that it can barely walk, it drags its crumbling hoofs along the shifting ground and nearly collapses several times. It looks like the skeleton of a camel more than anything, it is caked in decades-old sand that makes it look grey and white instead of the majestic golden its fur is supposed to be like.
Man and camel have been looking for a body of water since twenty years ago. But this landscape is devoid of water just like the gourds that hollowly rattle against each other with every step taken. There are no clouds in the sky for it to rain, and the sun is so large it takes over the entire sky and there is no blue at all. The sun is so angry it is too bright to see, and the man’s eyes are covered with black cloth. The camel is blind. They don’t have to see where they are going; it is all the same anyway.
On the opposite side of the desert there is a woman. She is not nude, and she never gets thirsty at all. She is always wearing clothing that makes her look formless. The only thing you can see of her right now is her head and hair, and her hand is stuck in her mouth permanently. She gnaws at it and her other hand wanders and begins to pluck out all of her eyelashes. They are discarded by her hand and are scattered through the desert sands, kind of like a biological breadcrumb trail. Not to worry, though, there is no one here that will follow her except for herself since she walks in circles aimlessly forever.
In another lifetime of walking endlessly, maybe the man and his camel and the formless hand-in-mouth woman would have met. But this is not a fairytale and on a desert planet, there are no happy endings. In five minutes, the man will be driven to insanity. In a fit of psychotic rage he will unsheath a dagger from his sweat-stained cloak and slice the camel’s hump clean open down to its stomach expecting to steal away its water. There will be no blood. Instead of water, all the beautiful gemstones of the entire world will come spilling out from inside the dying body. They are lovely, but because they are useless here they will take to the skies in an impossible arabesque pattern and adorn the heavens high in place of stars. And although this action will come from a place of hatred, it is going to be the kindest thing that was ever done for the poor creature. In five minutes, camel heaven will have no more vacancies, and the sky will be two thousand five hundred times more blinding than before.
As for the woman, her eyes will be untainted by the light and she will continue tracing miles-long circles into the ground with her footsteps. She does not care for water, and her hand will never leave her mouth no matter how hard she tries. Once her eyelashes are all but gone, through her fingers, she will smile. Her index finger and thumb will be red and sore from pinching and pulling all day long. Her eyes will not close, and she will not cry.
On a desert planet, although there may be no happy endings, there are endings regardless. It is okay to be sad. The tears that fall will turn this place into a sea.
Original publish date: March 15 2026
Author's Note: Don't take this too seriously; it's my first non LSD-related story in quite some time. I wanted to write a really ambiguous story that ultimately forces the reader to come to their own conclusion about its plot and morals. It makes perfect sense to me, but of course I'm not going to tell anyone what it's really about. Is that pretentious? Whatever. Death of the author is real or something.