by Catt Foy
First published in Images Magazine, 1982
Hot.
It was so hot.
The sun scorched my back and the dizziness overcame me again. I fell in the dust, unable to go on, unable to see my way out. I slept, even in the tremendous heat, as my body baked on the arid sant. I tossed and turned as memories of lush greenness and cool waters invaded my dreams. I awoke much later, perhaps only to keep from sleeping forever.
The heat was at its worst. Relentless, scorching heat. I stumbled through the clouds of dust that rose from beneath my bare and blistered feet.
Climbing a dune, certina it would bring no greater vision than the last, I stumbled. The coarse sand abraded my sunburned skin and flew into my rapidly swelling eyes. As I crawled to the dune's crest, something in the distance caught my eye. A glint of white shining like a beacon came from afar.
"Mirage," I told myself. "You've been out in the sun too long." I chuckled at this, amazed that I had not completely lost my sense of humor nor my ability to admit that I may be demented.
I blinked painfully. Still it stood there, just over another rise of dunes. I had no idea how far it was from me. Perhaps a mile, perhaps two. But there it stood, alone, amid this scorching place - a tower.
I reasoned this out. If there is a tower, then someone must have built it. Perhaps there was even an oasis or a village. At the very least, there might be shade.
I stood and shouted into the air, arms waving wildly. I shouted a mixture of curses at God for having somehow put me in this absurd and tortuous situation, and praises to the same Almighty Being for the tower that now stood in the distance before me.
I stood too long in the sun and collapsed, suddenly, facedown, tasting the sand. But I was determined now that I would not be defeated. I would get home. I knew not how, since I knew not how I came to be here, but I did know that somehow my salvation was through that tower.
I pulled myself to a sitting position and brushed the sand away from my face. Slowly, I began to move, crawling towards the tower.
It was a beautiful piece of architecture, tall and slender and white, like a young girl, with what appeared to be ornamentation around its top and sides. It stretched upwards for a long way, as if it were reaching toward that malevolent sun.
I pushed on in the heat, now crawling, now standing, now laying in the dust. The relentless orb, now high in the sky, provided no relief.
A huge sun it was, not like a pleasant summer sun, but a cruel demon suspended by some invisible string in a washed-white sky, laughing at his victim, his only pleasure in watching me suffer. I resolved to defeat that sun, that demon, my personal tormentor, if it were the last thing I was ever to do.
Oh, what I would have given for even a breath of cool air, a mere sip of cool water. Never again would I curse the snow, nor retreat from a dip in a cold lake.
I believed that if I made it to that tower, I would find salvation. If I died the moment I touched it, I would have died victorious. I closed my eyes against the blinding light and continued onward.
Before the tower appeared, I had given up, had nothing to fight for, no reason to believe that I would survive. Now, I could not give in; I felt as though I would certainly be saved if only I made it to the tower.
It actually seems as though the sun increased, grew bigger and hotter in the sky. That white-hot sphere had become my foe, fighting me every step of the way. It took on a personality in my mind, patiently waiting for me to die. And should I die, it would patiently await its next victim, the next show in this arena of torture.
My victory would be won. Somehow, I knew this to be true. I also knew that this accomplishment would mean more than I could every really understand. Something told me that the bright tower stretching toward the sky would not disappoint me.
I inched forward, eyes still closed. My thin lids were not protection enough from the terrible glare of that brutal light. After what seemed like an eternity, I opened them to discover the tower, now not more than a few yards away.
I began to cry, tearlessly, as I found the strength to stand and run to it. When I came within a few feet, a cool breeze blew up suddenly and I looked up, following the tower's height to the top. Far above my head, printed in gold, were four letters. As I absorbed the meaning they conveyed, I collapsed into cool darkness and slept.
I awoke from my nightmare suddenly, a cool breeze blowing the curtains of my open window. I sat up and stared out the window into the dark and starry summer sky. The letters on the tower still gleamed brightly before me. The word could well have been twenty feet high and written in neon, so brightly did the image remain on my retina. I spoke it aloud and realized that nothing is ever completely lost.
The letters floating before me were H-O-P-E.
