Fortnightly Writing Competition: Desert [Resolved]

[Reiter]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to a new leg of the Fortnightly Writing Competition!

The topic for these weeks are:

Desert



Ah, deserts. They are fascinating places. From the thousand star-lit nights of Araby to the frightful skeleton coast. From the Atacama to the Mojave. You find so many magnificent things in the desert, if you seek them. Say, what is happening in your desert? A majestic genie on their way to a meeting? An Indian mummy contemplating the world outside its mountain tomb? A rover in the Martian badlands picking up a signal from the Noctis Labyrinth? A deserter eating dessert in the desert?

So! Write a text on the topic of Deserts! You have free hands, as long as deserts are relevant to the text, or if you do something very clever indeed with the topic instead.

-Voting Commences-

Ladies and gentlemen! We now have three splendid entries to the competition! The entry phase is now closed, and we shall vote over which one is best.

The entries and contestants are:

Dear Ben, by Ess2s2.
Sundancer, by Sinitrena.
and
The Parch of Woe, by Baron.

Read and vote on each piece, as according to the categories below:

Character: Who are they, and how well are they written?
Plot: What happens in the story, and how well is it realised?
Writing Style: Which story is the most well-written and built? This would include turns of phrases, spelling, narrative tricks and turns, etc.
Atmosphere: What is the atmosphere and the ambience of the piece like?
Theme: How well does the text connect to the theme of Deserts, or what other clever things does it do with the theme?


You have until midnight, 19th of June (up until your midnight) to post your votes in this thread. After that, we will tally the votes and celebrate the winner!

_{For the Newcomer: The Fortnightly Writing Competition is, well, a little competition in which we write and post a text within a fortnight, and then we vote to see which one is best. The winner is then to select a new topic and start a new round. It is very fun!}

[Ess2s2]

I'll take a crack!

Dear Ben

It isn't easy living in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest store is Wally World, half the roads out here are little more than clear-cut strips of sand, all the bushes have spines or spikes that want to poke your eyes out, and under every single one of 'em, there's something venomous that wants to take you to a dusty grave.

And that's just talking about the townsfolk, we got some nasty critters too.

At times, it can get a little heavy, especially with how hot it gets up here. The desert's hard, and it attracts some hard people. Go too far off the main track, you'll likely run into our little area's rough and tumble drug trade, and the shifty characters behind it. It's one of the double-edged charms of the desert, there's literally millions of beautiful, strange, unique and even magical places hidden in the wild expanse. It's the place where millions come to look at funny trees, and where Hollyweird once chose to spend their free time. It's said that some rap star built a mansion out of shipping containers somewhere out here. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. That's just the kind of place this is. Once you get away from the city, and find yourself here, you're struck by how...otherworldly it seems. From the "Seussian" trees to the loose sandy soil, to the miles and miles of rocky, craggy hills I guess it should come as no surprise that a place so strange should hide a few secrets.

And boy, did I ever find a doozy.

I found it back as a kid, exploring alone in the hills, and I've never told anyone about it, it was just too special. I don't think anyone has ever found it, although I think a few have come close. Over the years I came to consider myself a sort of guardian of this place, and before I pass on someday, I want to make sure it's in good hands to guarantee it endures long after we are gone. "Okay, fine, shut up Jim, get to the point." I can hear your voice in my head saying it. So here ya go.

I found an oasis. The...Oasis.

I remember the first time I stumbled on it. Dad and his friends were in the living room, doing "business" that I now know was drug-related, which meant I was ordered out of the house. Fine by me, I'd recently started riding my bike a few miles down the road toward the low hills. We lived on the very edge of what was already a very remote town due to my dad's activities, and in under an hour, I could find myself on the edge of the dusty wilderness. With nothing at home to interest me, this was my sanctuary; a place where the earth turned freely and man scarcely tread. During my routine visits to the area, I'd found and mentally plotted all the off-road tracks and party-spots. Signs of man were easy to find and follow in the vast expanse, the bright desert grit throwing into stark relief anything that didn't belong; the relentless, overbright sun glinting off anything artificial. Bottles, broken parts, cigarette butts, discarded shoes...at times I fancied myself a modern archaeologist, deciphering the remnants of humanity and guessing at the origins of the "artifacts" I'd unearthed. After a time though, sifting through the garbage of what I'd come to mentally refer to as "disenchanted souls" stopped holding my interest, and so I pointed my exploration away into the wild.

It wasn't long before my curiosity took me further into the desert, to places I'd never been. As I'd expected and hoped, there was no sign of man out here and while exploring a small ravine at the base of some hills, I found a narrow cave leading under the mountain. The small entrance was partially hidden behind a rock outcropping, and quickly became pitch black as I descended. A couple of months earlier, in preparation of going out into the wild, I'd taken my savings and bought a cheap "survival kit", which included a flashlight, some inexpensive nylon rope, and some basic first-aid. I dug out the small pen-light, switched it on, and illuminated my way. The path lead steadily down and at times was uncomfortably tight, but finally opened into a larger chamber, easily roomy enough for a crowd of people. There was standing water in low spots, and several water marks along the base of the chamber. At the other side of the cave, I could make out another inky black hole continuing down into the earth and picked my way around the debris that had washed down here in previous desert downpours. As I approached the opening, I noticed what appeared to be a crude, upside-down "T" etched into the rock. As I entered this lower passage I could feel a sort of pressure change in my ears, and inwardly wondered how far down I'd gone.

As I continued, the echoing sound of my shoes scuffing on the dusty rock gave way to a constant rushing noise, at first what sounded like wind blowing through treetops, but was actually the sound of running water. As I clambered down one last dip in the path, I realized my flashlight was becoming less and less essential as the light in the cave began to get stronger. As I came around a long corner, I noticed a form of stairway had been carved into the floor, and as I descended, what I saw was beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

The stone stairs led me down into a cave larger than anything I'd ever seen, with a gently arched ceiling high above me. Enormous stone pillars spanned from the ceiling all the way down to the cave floor, which stretched into the distance amid what looked like a vast stone marketplace. As I walked past a stone pillar, its base as big as a redwood tree, I saw a tangled maze of open-front stone buildings and cobble pathways sprawl out in front of me. To my right, and feeding into the pathways and structures was a large rushing river of water, being fed by several waterfalls that tumbled out of various places far up on the cave walls. As I peered around, I noticed some of the falls were deluges, while others were little more than trickles. Still other holes showed old, dried water stains, indicating they had once contributed to the rapids below. As I looked into the water, I noticed it was lit with a strong, steady glow, providing the light for the cavern I was standing in. The small, man-made waterways built into the streets of the marketplace also glowed serenely, casting a clean turquoise tint on all the structures from below. In between cobble stones and at the corners of buildings, delicate ferns sprouted, their lacy leaves turned downward instead of up to capture the unique light of this world. As I walked, I could see the maze of cobble paths lead into various passageways that dove into the walls of the chamber, leading to unknown places. I could feel the thousands or even millions of feet that had fallen on that path before me. But while I saw no souls, the place felt very much alive. To be sure, it was no tomb, and even in disuse, it felt, somehow...cared for, like a school during summer break. I reached out and touched the stone counter of a nearby building. The rock was smooth as if by erosion and had an unnatural warmth. The pale-reddish flecks in the black rock was unlike anything I'd ever seen in my previous desert exploration. As I ran my fingers along the finely-hewn edge, I could almost see the exotic fruits and vegetables laid out for display.

As I explored, I came into what appeared to be a plaza, with an onyx obelisk at the center. The obelisk was covered on all sides with different writing, none of which I could read. The cobbles in the plaza square were arranged in an ornate pattern, with what appeared to be a sun with rays of light striking out in all directions. Here, light seemed to be streaming in from the cave ceiling overhead, but it was impossible to tell if it was natural sunlight, or some source similar to the light in the water. At one point, I also found what appeared to be the remnants of a stone dock, although the rushing water had erased any traces of boats or goods. The dock itself had long ago fallen into ruin and tumbled into the water, creating tide pools and a small lagoon where some strange water plants had taken root and overgrown much of the rubble. I peered into the softly undulating water and found at least a partial solution to the water-based glow, small fish and insects in the water that radiated a steady bluish hue. I didn't find much else in the densely packed scree of buildings. Most seemed to be shops of some sort, with large open fronts and wide counters. Other places seemed to be storage or areas where work could be done. I felt like I'd been down there ages and so took one more long look and made my way back out the way I'd come.

I've since been back there hundreds, if not thousands of times. Once, I found a couple of college-age hikers not far from the ravine, and warned them off, telling them the ravine had a population of coyotes and was considered dangerous. Another time, I found a couple of guys looking for a place to do some drugs just outside the cave entrance. Goodness knows how they managed to get that far out in the desert, but I gave them an earful, telling them they were lucky they hadn't been bitten by something, or that a ranger hadn't come along and found them already. By that time I was already well in my thirties, and intimidating enough I never saw them again.

It's kind of like a second home down there, and when dad...died..or disappeared, or whatever happened, I spent a couple weeks down there, with some groceries I took with me. I always packed out what I packed in, and I never disturbed the natural order. It's quiet down there, with a real air of something that came before, so it's good to clear your head. It...puts a lot into perspective. It also affords seemingly endless time to pursue one's inner self. I spent a long time trying to read the obelisk, and while I'm pretty sure I'll never translate that thing myself in a thousand lifetimes, it somehow feels wrong to turn this place over to some agency or group of diggers who'll come here and excavate the beauty and history out of it, even if they do figure out what it says. No, this place is mine, handed to me by whoever came before and had the care to leave it as it was for me to find. Moreover, I feel something uniquely special about the place, something that dances on the border of magic, a kind of energy that would be forever ruined by an outsider's touch.

And so it is that I've kept this place near to my heart, and I now share it only with you, to watch over and preserve as I have. Sure, it isn't easy to live in the middle of nowhere, but this place has kept me here long after I would have left on my own, it is like no other place in the world, and it is the only reason I ask you to stay after I'm gone. It will bring you no wealth or gold, but I have found it plants something within you, an inner wealth that can not be put into words.

Northwest of the dry river fork, atop a rise past a lone boulder, go straight until you no longer hear the chirping of birds. Put the hills to your right and follow the ravine. When you reach the dead-end, climb a small pile of rocks and then look to the left. Bring a flashlight.

And it goes without saying of course, but tell no one. I think it would make the energy down there...angry.

Your Lifelong Friend,
Jim

[Sinitrena]

An entry before I even updated the Competition Topic Master List (shameless plug  )? That is one fast entry!!!

I'm lacking ideas right now, but I'm sure something will come to me sooner or later.

[Ess2s2]

Can't wait to see what others come up with! I don't want to win by default!

[Sinitrena]

Sundancer

The old man had sat down on the ground and put the stick he used to prod the cattle down over his knees. He just started to talk. There was no reason to wait for people to gather or to invite them. When the old man sat down and rested his old bones, they knew to come to him. He should be minding the cows while the younger men protected the outskirts of the village. He should be chasing the cattle to another pasture or to the water hole, but the pastures were all just dead stubble now and the water, always a brown broth, was now hardly more than mud.

Okoth watched for a while from where she stamped the corn with the other women. There was too little in their barrels and so not enough work for all of them. In the distance, shots rang out, again and again. They made her flinch, but hardly bothered her otherwise. They were far too normal by now. She stood up after a while and gathered her colourful but faded dress in her callused hands. She took her son up from the ground where he had played with some dried grass. The tiny hands of the toddler grabbed playfully for her earrings. Her hips swayed as she walked over to the man, as they always did, though she never moved them on purpose. The grace was always in her steps, the rhythmic movements of a natural dancer, though she hadn’t danced in a long time.

Children had gathered at the feet of the old man. Flies whirred around their heads and arms, but they didn’t bother to shoo them away. They only paid attention to the voice of the man, croaked and serene, silent and deep. His voice got lost when the men argued, it got drowned out when the fighting came too close, and it broke when he got angry, but when he sat in a circle of children it seemed to cast a spell on them.

All stories he told were known to all but the youngest children and even these had heard them all from their earliest years. They never stayed exactly the same, though. With every telling, the stories changed. A detail was added here, another lost. A part was embellished, another nearly forgotten. Some said he told new stories every time and forgot the old ones, as a story from twenty years ago would now seem new and fresh. Nobody cared. They all just liked to listen to him and wished for more stories and more moments where his words brought times long gone back to life.

Today, he told the story of the sundancer.

Okoth knelt down a bit outside the circle of younger and older children. Jimiyu, her little boy, was fidgety, playing with her earrings, her headscarf, the cloth over her chest… He was hungry. She put the boy at her breasts and settled in to listen.

“And she danced for the sun,” the old man said in his rhythmic voice, “like the moon she danced and like the stars. Her drums were the sand, her melody the wind. In gold and in silver and in all colours of the desert and the sky, she turned and she twisted.”

Okoth smiled, despite the pain on her nipples as the boy sucked and bit when no milk filled his small mouth. She knew the story well, the story of the woman who stood up every morning to thank the sun and how the sun…

“watched her every day. Every day he looked down on beauty and grace. Every day the sun dared not look away, afraid he might miss even one flick of her hands. And when the sun looked long enough, his eyes filled with tears. They rolled down his cheeks and fell to the ground. They drenched the sand until flowers sprouted. For the sundancer’s beauty, the sun cried and the world lived.”

Jimiyu did not cry. It had been days since he cried last, even though he must have been hungry constantly. His lungs were so strong when he was born, but every day made them weaker. After a while, he stopped sucking on her nipples and his little head sank against her chest. Okoth adjusted him on her hips hoping the boy would just listen and forget.

“But it was not just the sun that watched her. Every morning, a man followed her. Every morning he cried for her beauty. Every morning he followed her every move. Behind the safety of a large cactus he watched her. Behind the safety of a dune he listened to her silent steps. And after a while, her dance lead her to him. First just a step here, just a turn there. After a while, her smile greeted not only the sun and the sand, not only the wind and the heat â€" it greeted him. Her feet pounded on the ground not for the sun and his tears but for the man. Her hips stopped swinging for the sun, they swung for him. Her eyes did not look up any longer, they looked down, first to the man, then to the ground.”

Okoth remembered dancing as well. She once danced for a man too. She didn’t know it then. She didn’t know yet that a man had his eyes on her or that they would embrace each other in just a few weeks, that passion would take them before tradition was followed, or that she would rock his son just a year later. Or that he would not live to see Jimiyu born.

“For a while, she kept dancing. And for a while the sun kept watching. But then, she didn’t come one morning. She was back the next, but more and more mornings were forgotten. One last time, the sun cried for his dancer, not for her beauty but due to sadness.”

Okoth felt tears streaming down her face. They were not for the lost love of the sun but she pretended they were. It was easier. Her heart beat fast, in rhythm with the gunshots that had plagued the village for the last couple of weeks. They came closer. The fighters came closer.

“Lost was forever the elegance of the sundancer and the sun turned his face away from her and to other dancers in other parts of the world. Slowly one forgot the other.”

Dogs barked not too far away as the gentle, raspy voice of the old man faded. And then, men came over the hills towards their village. Okoth ran before she even knew what she was doing. Some of the children stumbled. The old man toppled sideways. Everybody ran.

She pressed Jimiyu against her chest forcefully as her sandals raised sand. She lost sight of all the others, her family, her friends, before her mind even caught up with what she was doing. Her way led directly to the desert, to the everlasting sea of sand and heat. At the edge, where their village was, they had some trees to offer shade and some water, but here, after just a few steps, there was nothing.

The sun stood high in the sky but Okoth paid no attention to it or to the way she was going. Her legs carried her forward, her eyes held her back. Glued to the steps taken, they looked behind her. Again and again she turned around and looked around. After just a few metres, everybody was gone. High dunes obscured the view back to the village and to the other people fleeing.

After a while, she stopped running, after another while she started to stumble. Wind blew grains of sand into her dry eyes and she kept swiping them away. She tried to listen to the world around her. The men, shouting â€" were they still there? The guns â€" did they still fire? The dogs â€" still barking? Running? Hunting? She couldn’t tell. And so she slowly sank to the ground.

The boy at her chest had long stopped to fidget. Large eyes starred at her, begged her for water or food, but he made no sound. She took off her headscarf, spread it out in the sand and put Jimiyu down.

Her throat was dry. There was sand in her mouth and eyes and the sun burned her shaved head. She needed water. She knew she needed it now and Jimiyu even more than her. She took the boy back up and put him on her breasts again, but she knew that there was nothing for him. He sucked but only for a moment.

She had to keep going. She had to find shelter. Okoth stood op. She was in one of the many vales between the dunes and could not look far. No plants grew here, no trees to offer shadows, no cacti to suck the liquid from. This liquid could give her enough strength to keep going, just this one step further to…

Gunshots. She ran again before she had time to think. The boy lay against her chest but the headscarf, her only, tiny protection against the sun, was gone. It twitched a moment on the sand, then the wind took it up and blew it away, a speck of colour in a yellow wasteland.

She ran. She tried to. Her sandals slipped from her feet. Her knees became weak under a weight that seemed far larger than normal. The sand under her feet was slippery. It already trickled away when she took a careful step, but hers were anything but careful. They were frantic and uncoordinated, with just one thought in mind: to get away, as far and as soon as possible.

She lost all sense of direction with just the burning sun as a compass. But the sun was too bright to look at and the passing of time confusing. Did she start running in the morning or afternoon? Did she run for one hour or five?

Exhaustion made her cough and with every gasping breath she sucked sand into her lungs. Her head hurt, burning on the scalp, pounding underneath. She needed water, now, not in an hour, not when the sun set and she might allow herself to rest.

At some point, she scaled one of the dunes. There was nothing but more of them around her. They reached as far as her eyes could see. There was no trace of her village, somewhere behind many of them, no trace of her people, just more gunshots in the distance. The air shimmered in front of her eyes, the whole world seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Nausea crept up her throat.

But there, in the distance, wasn’t there a flicker of a different colour? Didn’t a palm tree rock there in the wind? Hope, so little, moved her forward, reaching out to the end of her path.

The boy in her arms was too warm. His skin burned hers and his eyes had fallen shut.

There were screams. They came closer. Did she get closer to them, were they coming to her? There was no way to tell, no reason to even ask.

She stumbled. She fell. She slid down the steep side of the dune. Jimiyu was dragged under her body, pressed against her as strongly as her arms could hold him. She came to a stop where she had started her climb and sand trickled down on her head. The rough grains had chafed her skin and left lesions and blood.

She didn’t want to get back up but there was no choice. And the drums called to her. They were in her head, pounding, demanding. And the old man’s story crept into her mind, took over her thoughts and ideas. She needed water and she knew of a way to get it. It was always in her feet, ever since she heard the story for the first time.

She didn’t even bother to think about her decision. In her head there was nothing but the pounding of the drums. It knocked against the inside of her skull.

Carefully, she put her son, her motionless son, down in the soft sand and then she listened. She listened to the words of the old man. She remembered him falling, but that was out of the corners of her eyes, and so she didn’t doubt it when his deep voice now drifted towards her, speaking of steps and footprints in the sand. She followed their pattern, invisible to all but her. Some were the steps she had taken before, some were just there. Okoth looked up to the sun, not begging her for water, just greeting her in feverish excitement.

She danced around her lifeless son, while in the distance still, but so much closer now, gunshots and screams echoed over the wide valleys and hills of the desert. For a moment, gunshots were her rhythm and screams were her melody. And then, when the men passed over the dunes, blood became her costume.

And in her mind, the sun cried, and when she looked at Jimiyu there was water on his cheeks. She didn’t notice that it was red.

----------------------------------

I don't know; that turned out a bit weirder than intended. 

According to thenamemeaning.com, both names in the story are Kenyan. Okoth means "born when it was raining" and Jimiyu means "born during summer". I can't tell how accurate this webside is. And the story certainly doesn't try to immitate or invoke Kenyan culture in any way or form. I just thought the names were fitting.

[Baron]

Gah, I've still got forty reports to write this weekend.  Any chance of an extension?

[Reiter]

Indeed there is! I hereby use my imperium to extend the context by four days, in the interest of attracting more entries.

The new dead-line is Midnight on Thursday, 11th of June.

Excellent entires, by the by, Sinitrena and Ess2s2! And by Jove, Ess, your entry was very quick indeed!

[Ess2s2]

What can I say? I was itching for a new Fortnightly. I also live in the desert, so as soon as I saw the topic, my wheels started turning and I was writing before I even knew half of what was in my head!

I loved Sinitrena's entry and can't wait to see what else we get!

[Baron]

Well, I'm about halfway done.  I will probably be submitting late tomorrow night.

Edit:

The Parch of Woe

   Three moons lit the night sky of Woe, slivers of hope in a cold and empty realm.  Three candles lit the grave for the Parting Vigil, flickers of hope in a similarly empty landscape.  Three brothers of the family Sol stood holding the candles, thinking thoughts of emptiness now that their father was dead.

   Ansol, the eldest, clove closely to the beliefs of his father.  Life was simple: toil hard and build the honour of the family.  He could not help his gaze wandering past the grave to the caked earth beyond, a hard and dry land of broken dreams and fleeting potential.  His father's land, and his father's dream.  Did he dare take up the mantle of the land-debt?  It was his family's only real asset, the only thing separating the family from the utter destitution of the helji, the landless labourers who eeked out a pittance working the mines, the salt pans, or on the farms of the wealthy merchant lords down in the oasis.  The helji lived hand-to-mouth, never more than a day or two away from outright starvation.  Theirs was a hopeless existence.  And yet the price of hope was high: the cost of the land-debt was precious gallons that the family could not easily afford. 

   Barsol, the second son, was lost in his own thoughts as well.  He had never seen the point of the Game of Rocks and Dirt, as the radical sermonizer called it.  Land was an obligation more than an asset, its value negligible and its costs taxing.  He worked the same long hours in the mines as his helji friends for two measly gallons per day.  But they could drink one outright and trade the other for their food, while three quarts of poor Barsol's water was siphoned off to help his father pay an endless land-debt for a wretched plot of sand and rock.  For all the good it did him, his father might as well have just dumped the water on the dunes themselves.

   Cabasol, the youngest son, was lost in his own thoughts, too.  He was young still, barely a man, and brimming with the idealism of youth.  When he looked at the family plot his mind's eye saw not a modest farm or a sandy debt-trap, but a garden of possibility complete with the pools and fountains and palm trees that he had seen during his short time at the schools in the oasis.  Alas, more than one teacher had concluded that Cabasol's head was full of nothing but empty dreams. 

   The eastern sky began to glow above the horizon, and the distant bells of Woe began their doleful summons to wakefulness and work.  Soon the blazing sun would be upon them, bearing down on all the land and all the people with a searing weight that grew relentlessly by the hour, baking the water and the life out of all but the richest of men.

   â€œGood bye dear Father,” Ansol intoned respectfully.  “May your soul be ever quenched in paradise.”  He ended the ritual by wetting his fingers with his mouth and pinching out his candle flame.  His two brothers followed his lead.

   â€œAnd now life goes on,” Barsol muttered, clapping his younger brother on the shoulder and picking up his pick-axe.

   â€œShow some respect!” Ansol shot back.  The two brothers glared at each other across the fresh earth.

   â€œWhat shall we do now?” Cabasol asked, blinking as if suddenly realizing the hard choices ahead of him.

   â€œIndeed!” called a voice from behind them.  All three brothers turned to see the silhouette of a large man stumbling towards them in the half-light of the pre-dawn.

   â€œWho are you?” Ansol challenged the unknown man, retrieving his shovel from the grave in case he needed a weapon.  “And how do you come through our land?”

   â€œPeace be with you, lads,” the man said, coming to stop at the edge of the grave.  “I am Darnys the Lender of clan Flo, and I hold the land-debt to this plot.  I am here by right of interest on this, the day of your father's Great Rest.”  Darnys made a solemn gesture towards the grave.

   The three brothers stared at the man.  He was quite large, now that they could see him up close.  Indeed, if they robbed him of his fancy clothes they could all three of them fit inside comfortably.  His face was plump beneath a layer of stubble that would no doubt be shaved when better light afforded the opportunity, and his skin positively glowed in the twilight, indicating days spent in the gentle shade of his counting room.

   â€œWe thank you for your respects,” Ansol told him, at a loss for anything else to say.

   â€œHmmmmm,” Darnys replied, frowning.  “And now to business.  Your father was a proud man who always paid his land-debts on time.  His dream of raising his family to full yeoji status may have been someway off, but he believed in the power of the family Sol.  So much so that he paid an extra premium for kobei.  Do you know what that means?”

   The three brothers shook their heads in unison. 

   â€œIt means,” Darnys continued, “that he made a wager with the clan Flo.  In the event of his untimely demise, clan Flo would pay life-water to his heirs for one year and a day if they swear to uphold the terms of the land-debt jointly thereafter.  So, do you?”

   â€œWait,” Barsol said.  “Do you mean you'll pay us life-water for a year if we agree to take over the land-debt?”

   â€œYes.  But all three of you must agree.  Do you?”

   The brothers stared at each other, again lost in thought.  Ansol was sorely tempted, mostly because it was his father's dream that he and his brothers work together for the family's honour, but also because it would get him out of working the hated salt-pans for a year.  Barsol was tempted as well, not at all because it was his father's dream but because it would get him out of working the hated mines for a year.  He was under no illusions about making a go of farming the desert, but he assumed they could default after the year was up.  Cabasol was tempted as well, for a whole year's worth of life-water would surely fill the pleasure pool that they could dig.  He could close his eyes and feel himself floating in those cool, blue waters....

   â€œYes,” all brothers spoke at once, surprising each other.  And so the deal was struck.

*   *   *   *   *   *

   â€œOK, so we've got one year to make a go of this,” Ansol said as the heavy form of Darnys laboured back towards the road, the sun now piercing the horizon.  “Barsol, you will use your pick-axe to mine the shaft of father's well, and I will use my bucket to haul the stone to the surface.  Cabasol will go to town to fetch a rope to speed our work.”

   â€œNot likely,” Barsol responded, sitting himself down on a rock to enjoy the last few minutes of shade.  “We could mine a thousand feet down and still not hit water.  I don't intend to sweat away my only year of free life-water on a fantasy.”

   Ansol bit his tongue.  Arguing with Barsol would only beget more arguing, which was exactly what his father had not intended.  Sighing, Ansol sat down on a nearby rock.  “The farm won't work without water,” was all he said.

   â€œWe've got lots of water!” Cabasol said brightly, joining them.  “We could use the year of life-water to grow a forest!”

   The two older brothers merely exchanged a glance.  A couple thousand gallons of water would keep the three of them alive for a year as well as allowing them to trade for food and a few simple tools.  But any real crack at farming would need much, much more water.  Ansol pondered his strategy for several long minutes, allowing the sun to rise enough to start its merciless assault upon them. 

   At last he struck.  “How far down do you think father dug?” he asked cunningly.

   Oblivious to the danger, Barsol reflected on the question.  He was the mining expert in the family, after all.  And truth be told it was one of his more favourite topics to debate and discuss.  “I'd say a hundred and twenty feet,” he said at last.  “At least, that's where I'd reckon he was at a month ago when I was last down the hole.”  Barsol wiped the sweat from his brow in the intensifying heat.  Usually he was deep underground by this time of day....

   â€œWhen did Darnys say the first of the water was arriving?” Cabasol asked, suddenly thirsty as well.  Usually by this time of day he was looking for a place to nap in the shade of Lord Crohn's orchard where he had recently found work.

   â€œNot until this evening,” Ansol sighed, making a show of gauging the hour by measuring the distance of the sun over the horizon.  “It'd be cooler inspecting the last of father's work,” he suggested.

   Barsol stared at his brother, beginning to suspect his guile.  And yet if they didn't go to work there was precious little other shelter for them out here.  The plot had a very short stone wall along the roadside which tapered to nothing more than a line of boundary stones along the other edges, stretching into the distance.  The only other structure on the property was the simple tent that housed them, which would be beyond sweltering in the full sun.  “Agreed,” Barsol said at length.

   Compared to the sun-baked surface, the well-shaft was mercifully cool.  Indeed, at its base, it was almost chilly.  Their father could barely afford the five stalks of bamboo that held their tent up, and so the ladder to the base of the well-shaft was nothing but a series of hand and foot holds carved into the rock itself.  Each piece of rock he dislodged would be lashed to his back with a small length of weary cord and hauled up by hand to the surface.

   â€œHow did he even see enough to work down here?” Cabasol asked. 

   â€œGlow stone,” Barsol explained, revealing his.  “Leave it in the sun for an hour, and you get a faint glow for about as long underground.”

   â€œYou can't get much digging done in an hour,” Ansol commented.

   â€œWell, in the mines we keep swapping them,” Barsol continued.  “But you're right, father probably only mined an hour at a time.  I'd say we're down about one-forty, by the way.  Not bad for one old guy in his spare time after work.”

   â€œWait,” Ansol interrupted.  “Are you saying he dug twenty feet in the last month?  Just in his spare time after work?  For something approaching an hour a day?”

   Barsol considered his brothers words.  “Yeah, I guess I am saying that.  It's possible, I guess.  If you were really moving.  You'd have to be really motivated to work at that pace, though.”

   â€œSo what if you were working, say, five times as long each day,” Ansol suggested.  “Not all day, mind, but say half-a-day.  You'd be able to dig, what, a hundred feet in a month?”

   Barsol squinted in the pale light at his fingers, trying to do the math.

   â€œAnd after ten months you'd be more than a thousand feet deeper....” Ansol continued. 

   Barsol shook his head.  “No, it takes a lot longer the deeper you go.  Because each foot deeper means you have to carry material out that much farther.  And who's to say how long it might take if you hit harder rock.”

   â€œBut what if it wasn't just you?” Ansol asked.  “What if you had two other motivated workers doing the carrying?  Or helping with the mining?”

   Barsol was still trying to work out the sums on his fingers.  “Dung cakes.  You know, it might just work.”

*   *   *   *   *   *

   Day 126.  The well-shaft was now a spectacular 500 feet deep.  They'd saved money on rope â€" none would stretch that far anyway â€" and instead invested in several old warrior shields which Barsol had cleverly rigged over his head as he worked to deflect any rocks dropped or accidentally dislodged by his brothers as they lugged his tailings laboriously to the surface.  They would travel up and down in pairs, one above the other, for there was no way to cross on the rock-hole ladder, but it was always a harrowing trip for the lower brother.  Well, at least until one of the brothers disappeared to nap.  To where, Ansol never did find out.

   In the bright light each morning before work Barsol would carefully examine the rock dug up the day before, looking for signs of any ore or jewels that might make their mining endeavour worth-while, but sadly he never found anything of value, save for a few oddly shaped fossils of insect shells.  “Not even the right type of rock,” he would mutter to himself.

   All morning they would work, Barsol with his pick in the gloom of the shaft's bottom, Ansol hauling the rocks dislodged to the surface, sometimes even with the help of lazy Cabasol.  In the early days when the climb was shorter Ansol and Cabasol busied themselves between trips stacking the rocks into two parallel walls, which they then covered with the poles and fabric of their tent.  This little shelter was a great improvement over their old tent as its walls allowed the wind to waft through.  But now that the climb up the well was 500 feet sheer there was no spare time to be had.  No sooner was a load deposited at the surface than they had to start the long descent once more.

   In the afternoon they would rest in the shade of the new shelter, munching on whatever fruit they could trade for, drinking away the precious life-water, and speculating on their success or failure.  Ansol was convinced that a lake of water lapped the rocks just below their shaft.  Cabasol would doze some more, dreaming of forests and pools and fountains. Barsol oscillated between barely believing that they might succeed to dreading their certain failure.  He had even taken to cutting his rations short again, gambling his savings in the evening markets in hopes of hedging his prospects (though he never won). 

   In the beginning they would spend their evenings walking to market or visiting friends, like in the old days.  But as the months passed by increasingly they found themselves back digging in the well-shaft, grunting, hacking, hauling, hoping.  A minute not spent in the hole became a minute forsaken to the land-debt holder.  They measured their days no longer in hours but in inches of rock rent from the deepest bowels of Woe.

   And the desert around them seethed with rage that they might dare defy its inhospitality.  The sun pounded down so fiercely at times that the wind felt like the air escaping a furnace, and at sometimes great clouds of wind and sand swallowed their plot, each grain a tiny nugget of spite sent to scour their dreams away.  The days dripped by like sand in a glass, but still the brothers laboured on.  Day 154.  Day 198.  Day 237.

   And then on Day 282 it happened.  At an astonishing 845 feet below the surface Barsol's pick pried a rock from the base of the shaft to the sound of gurgling fluid.  Squinting in the gloom of his glow stone he could make out the faintest reflection of light.  Hurriedly he hacked and pried another stone out of the way so that he could scoop the shallow film of water into his hand.  At this depth it was uncomfortably cold once he stopped moving, but he could not help but marvel at the wobbly wetness pooled in the cup of his palm.  “Bucket!” he shouted.

*   *   *   *   *

   All three brothers peered into the bucket, now raised to the bright mid-morning light at the surface.  The bucket was about a quarter full with a cloudy fluid that certainly might be water if it were allowed to settle.  It didn't smell funny, which was lucky as some of the known waters of Woe carried the foul stench of dissolved minerals that were poisonous to man and beast alike.  But nor did it appear particularly appetizing.

   â€œLet it settle,” Ansol said as Barsol shook the bucket for the umpteenth time.

   â€œGet a rag for a filter,” Barsol replied, marvelling at how the fluid caught the light.

   â€œShouldn't we test it on an animal?” Cabasol suggested, poking at the water with a small stem that had once been attached to their midday fruit meal.

   â€œWe'll just try a drop,” Ansol said finally, sticking his finger into the bucket and raising it out with a small droplet dangling precariously off of it.  “This one's for you, Father.”  Ansol dipped his finger into his mouth, letting the moistness wet his palette.  A moment later he spit it out again.  “Brine,” he swore, kicking the bucket over so that its contents spilled over a large rock.  “I tasted similar many a time when I worked the salt pans.  Dung cakes!”

   Barsol cursed as well, handing a drink of fresh water to his brother.

   â€œWait, it's not water?” Cabasol asked.  “What is brine?”

   â€œSalt water,” Ansol explained.  “No good for farming.  Or for anything really.  Except making salt.  Watch the rock and you'll see the crystals form as the water dries.”

   Cabasol turned to stare at the thin film of water on the rock that was visibly shrinking in the intense heat from the sun.  Indeed, there was a tiny crust of white where the water had been.

   â€œI'm going drinking,” Barsol said, tossing his pick-axe on to the ground.  “And I don't mean water!”

*   *   *   *   *

   â€œWhat in the burning sands are you doing?” Ansol asked from the shade of the shelter.  By now it was mid-afternoon and the heat in the sun was nigh unbearable.  Still, his youngest brother had made two trips down to the bottom of the well since their discovery that morning, each time returning with a partial bucket of brine.  Again he poured the liquid into the shallow bowl of a rock, only to watch the water slowly disappear in a matter of minutes to leave a thin white film caked to the rock.

   â€œWhere does the water go?” Cabasol asked.

   â€œThe sun hates men,” Ansol told him.  “And so it steals their water wherever it can find it.  Have you never listened to a sermonizer, boy?”

   â€œBut the sun doesn't take the water from our amphorae....” Cabasol wondered.

   â€œThey are sealed, so the sun can't get at it,” Ansol explained.  “But it has other ways.  Leave a vessel with water in it in the full sun and it will burst the seal, mark my words.”

   â€œBut the sun leaves the salt?” Cabasol pressed.

   â€œThe sun doesn't want the damned salt,” Ansol said in exasperation.  “Only our water.”

*   *   *   *   *

   The next morning before dawn Ansol headed down to the salt-pans to work his old job again.  He told his brothers he might as well be paid for his hard labour if all he was hauling was brine.  Barasol merely groaned, hungover, and Cabasol waived him goodbye.

   â€œYou'd do well to join me,” Ansol said to his youngest brother.  “There is nothing for us here.”

   â€œI still have 82 days of free life-water,” Cabasol told him, “and I intend to enjoy it.”

   â€œFifty three, actually,” Barsol admitted, rubbing his temples tenderly.  “Sorry, I got to gambling last night as well as drinking.”  With that he rolled over and fell back asleep.

   â€œSuit yourself,” Ansol told him.  “But there's a reckoning coming.  In the desert there always is, they say.  When the water runs out you will need to earn your own keep.”  With that he was off.
   
*   *   *   *   *

   â€œAnsol's right, you know,” Barsol called from the shade of their shelter.  He was sipping on fresh water and still nursing the mother of all hangovers.  “We'd all do best to get into work and get out of this land-debt.  We played the Game of Rocks and Dirt and we lost.  It's over.”  He turned to squint out into the brightness.  “What the deuce are you doing, anyway?”

   Cabasol had a line of bottles on the rock filled with various amounts of brine, some plugged, some open.  The open ones did indeed seem to be losing their water.  Pop!  He turned his attention to one of the closed bottles that had blown its seal.  “Have you ever noticed how the droplets of a sealed bottle stick to the sides?” he asked his brother.

   Barsol groaned and lay back down.  This was a hard world, and his brother seemed at times too soft for it. 

   â€œIt's fresh!” Cabasol marvelled, carefully sampling the droplets nearest to bottle's opening with his finger.  “The sun has sucked the pure water completely free of the brine below.  If we could tip the bottle somehow without mixing the brine back in....”

   Barsol just snored.

*   *   *   *   *

   Day 287.  Ansol rose at the pre-dawn bells to find Barsol hacking at the ground next to their father's grave with his pick-axe.  “Bit overly dramatic, isn't it?  Digging a new grave,” Ansol asked, yawning in the twilight.

   â€œI was down the mines yesterday,” Barsol said.  “Asking after my old job and any ex-yeoji who might be working there.  So this old-timer tells me there are no ex-yeoji.  He said once you taste free life-water you're bound to the land for life.  You and your family carry that land-debt into your grave.”

   Ansol stared at his brother, trying to process what he was saying.  “So you're.... helping the process along then?”

   Barsol hacked the earth again, pulling his pick-axe through the now loosened earth with a grim look on his face.  He held his tongue, instead stooping to uncover something from the shallow pit.  Solemnly he tossed a white rock at Ansol's feet.  Only Ansol could see clearly that the white rock was hollow with the unmistakable sockets of a human skull.

   â€œThat's our uncle, I reckon,” Barsol said, wiping the sweat from his brow.  “The old-timer told me they ensnare the whole family, and then kill them one by one until those remaining pay up.  Do you remember his name from when you were a kid?”

   Ansol furrowed his brow in concentration.  “Davisol,” he muttered.  “I thought he'd run away to join the caravans.”

   â€œHe probably did,” Barsol said.  “This old-timer said that was an age-old trick to jump the land-debt.  But he said the lender clans are wise to that, and always bring the body back as proof.”

   â€œDung cakes!” Ansol cursed.  “The caravans are the only way out of Woe....”

   â€œThat's right,” Barsol replied.  “There's no place to run, and there's no place to hide.  I'd bet gallons this pathetic plot is littered with the bones of our ancestors.  We are royally scorched.”

   â€œNo more gambling!” Cabasol called, emerging from the shelter.  He stumbled up to the grave site.  “Starting a new well, are we?”

   The two older brothers exchanged glances.  “We've got to talk,” Ansol said to his youngest brother.

   â€œIndeed we do!” Cabasol replied.  “Fancy a bit of water as we speak?”

*   *   *   *   *

   Ansol and Barsol shared their grim news with Cabasol as the sun rose.  The young man took the news quite well, smiling and nodding despite their dire assessment of the situation.  Speculative details about land-loan hit-men and debt-serfdom didn't really seem to phase him either.  At last in exasperation Barsol asked if any of this was sinking into his thick brain.

   â€œNot sinking, brother,” Cabasol smiled.  “Floating through the ether!  Is it my turn to share?”

   The two elders just stared stone-faced at their youngest brother.  But Cabasol paid them no heed, instead excitedly waving their attention towards his ever growing collection of vessels on the rock next to the well.  “Brine goes in here,” he showed them, pouring a bucket of the mucky brine from the well into an amphora, which he then resealed.  “I've whittled an elbow shaped hole in the plug that joins this hollow bamboo pole that I borrowed from the roof â€" I'm glad no one noticed.  As the sun gains strength it warms the vessel, pulling the water from the salt.  If left sealed the water would eventually push its way out, but now it is caught following the length of the hollow bamboo pole, which gently slopes downward into the cool air of the well.  Come, come look at the end!”

   The elder brothers reluctantly came to stand by the edge of the well to notice the slow dribble of water from the end of the pole into a cup carefully tied beneath it.  “So?” asked Barsol, looking to Ansol for support.

   â€œTry it!” Cabasol said excitedly, gently pulling the cup free of the pole to offer it to his brothers.     Barsol tasted it first and then frowned.  “It doesn't taste like anything,” he said flatly.

   Ansol tried it next.  “It's....fresh!” he said, turning to look back at the mechanism Cabasol had constructed.

   â€œNow imagine a bunch of amphora working all day long,” Cabasol continued, “with a new well to hold all the drippings.  We'll have to run some tests, but I don't think we'll be able to haul the brine up fast enough.  This amphora alone cleared three gallons yesterday!”

   Barsol fiddled with his fingers, trying to do the math.  Ansol just stared at Cabasol, jaw agape.

   The desert of Woe is as empty as you make it.

[Reiter]

Ladies and gentlemen! We now have three splendid entries to the competition! The entry phase is now closed, and we shall vote over which one is best.

Since Baron mentioned his work was en route, I thought it best to quietly wait until it arrived to close the posts. More entries are always welcome.

The entries and contestants are:

Dear Ben, by Ess2s2.
Sundancer, by Sinitrena.
and
The Parch of Woe, by Baron.

Well done! Well done, indeed!

Now, then! Read and vote on each piece, as according to the categories below:

Character: Who are they, and how well are they written?
Plot: What happens in the story, and how well is it realised?
Writing Style: Which story is the most well-written and built? This would include turns of phrases, spelling, narrative tricks and turns, etc.
Atmosphere: What is the atmosphere and the ambience of the piece like?
Theme: How well does the text connect to the theme of Deserts, or what other clever things does it do with the theme?

I added the fifth voting category as an experigument, of sorts. We shall see how it goes, but I thought it could be novel.

You have until midnight, 19th of June (up until your midnight) to post your votes in this thread. After that, we will tally the votes and celebrate the winner!

[Ess2s2]

Wow! Some tough contenders and beautifully crafted stories, it's been very difficult to pick my favorites, but here goes!

In two-way decisions, I like to give some constructive criticism to the piece I didn't choose and why, in the spirit of collaboration and constructive discussion. I hope I don't offend anyone, and everything is meant in the most respectful and hopefully helpful way.

Character: I have to give this one to Baron; the personalities of the three brothers were excellently varied, believable, and interplayed nicely. I think in particular, the characters here helped facilitate the story greatly. Sinitrena's character felt less defined, and other than her reactions and panic-stricken choices, I didn't feel like I knew anything about her.

Plot: Again, Baron takes the nomination with a plot that was at once cryptic, interesting, and grounded. The development is steady, from the spark of hope with the annuity, to the crash of disappointment with the salt water, to the triumph of the youngest brother's discovery, the story kept me well engaged throughout. Sundancer had some lush descriptions, but was fairly straightforward and quite dark. The snapshot we get is unfortunately too short to really get a sense of the people we are just beginning to learn about. The ending was best taken with a shot of hard liquor.

Writing Style: Baron juuuust eeks into first for me here. The writing is very accessible while still communicating a foreign world and family to us, and the in-culture phrasing was organically conveyed to the reader. The fairly simple phrasing coupled with the very well crafted dialogue made this a treat to read. Sinitrena's writing was lush and almost poetic at times, but at others seemed disjointedly elementary, which pulled me out of the story. The names of the characters being so symbolic was awesome though, amazing touch, and the sense of doom was impeccable.

Atmosphere: Sinitrena manages to knock this one out of the park for me, and by the time I got done reading, I had chills. The sense of ever-approaching doom was all too palpable, and the crushing feel of the desert and the inevitability of the horrors was well communicated. The constant reminder of the starving baby was a jarring reality check that kept the atmosphere dark and urgent at all times. Baron's story also had a great atmosphere, and communicated the feel of the world terrifically, but simply couldn't hold up to the absolute curtain of darkness that Sinitrena managed to weave.

Theme: A true toss-up here, but I think I like Baron's interpretation and connection to the theme. The water-debt, varying attitudes to the viability of the desert from the brothers, and the theme of ingenuity and survival were all well served by the dire environment. Sinitrena's held many of the same survival themes, and explored some interesting lore, and ultimately felt the most tribal and raw. This was the toughest choice out of all, and the only reason Baron got this one is because his was a bit more upbeat, and I've been needing some more upbeat stuff in my life. :/

Fantastic stories all the way around!

[Sinitrena]

In two-way decisions, I like to give some constructive criticism to the piece I didn't choose and why, in the spirit of collaboration and constructive discussion. I hope I don't offend anyone, and everything is meant in the most respectful and hopefully helpful way.

Don't worry, I personally will always prefer some kind of critizism, no matter how positive or negative, to none at all. Besides, all you said seemed pretty fair.


Character: Baron - Without a doubt, all three main characters here have a distinct personality, their own goals and setbacks, ideas and problems. Ess's character, on the other hand, doesn't develop quite a distinct personality, despite the story revolving only around him. We get so see some of his motivations, but they don't seem to lead to much. Example: He finds this obilisk with writing and seems to be curious about it, but doesn't go on to study native languages of his region, despite (seemingly) young enough to still choose a career when he discovers it. None of what he finds seems to make him change. In other words, a character arc is difficult to see, which might also come from the fact that we are told everything after the fact from Jim himself.

Plot: Baron - Very different from Baron's usual writing. First of all, this story actually has a defined beginning, middle and end (of special note is that there is an end. Baron tends to stop his stories too early  ). I especially liked how all brothers had to offer their own knowledge and experiences to move the plot forward and how it all fit so well together in a world with traditions and history. All around well thought out plot here. Ess's story is the exploration of a cave; which is nice but little plot happens here. As a matter of fact, the stakes for the main character are so low, that it comes down to just being a description of the cave. Jim doesn't run from anything, he's never in any danger (especially not because we, as readers, know that he will later be able to write a letter in a fairly neutral tone) and even later, when he has decided to protect the cave, the few people that show up never seem like a threat. In short, this story lacks suspense, despite setting up for it: Jim leaves the house because of his father's drug business, but that never poses a danger, he explores the desert, but he is used to it and never fears for his life for lack of water, he stumbles into an unknown cave, but the cave feels dangerous either and the people coming too close later are dealt with in one sentence as well.

Writing Style: Baron - Completely different from Baron's usual work. No quirky characters, no over-the-top absurdist humour. But it works. It pulles the reader in and leaves him wanting more. Even though, for once, the story actually ends at a logical place. Ess's writing isn't bad in any way or form. There might be a way to add suspense without putting the protagonist in danger by using a less neutral tone (and, in general, I don't think an exploration story is best told in the form of a letter where we know the outcome already) and hammering up the fascination and wonder a bit. But ultimately, the story reads quite well. It does keep the reader engaged, despite little to no stakes for the main character.

Atmosphere: Following from above, this leads me to the category I found most difficult to decide. Both stories have a great atmosphere, without a doubt, and both keep the reader engaged in their own way. Nonetheless, I have to decide, and I chose Ess2s2, mainly because they managed to create an atmosphere without the plot demanding one.

Theme: Baron - You can almost feel the desert here. It's demanding, dangerous, deadly. It almost seems to have a will of its own. Ess's desert is... just there. It serves no purpose. Jim could be running into the mountains and find his cave, or go swimming in the ocean and find it underground  'Fate of Atlantis' style, he could be crawling through the ice. It doesn't matter. The desert really has no relevance to the story. (I have to wonder if this has something to do with Ess's comment that they live in the desert and it has therefore a certain status of normality and at the same time a no-need-to-explain-the-dangers attitude?)

I added the fifth voting category as an experigument, of sorts. We shall see how it goes, but I thought it could be novel.

It's not unusual to have this fifth category. Sometimes, theme is part of other categories (when you specify that an old woman should be the protagonist, then combining character and theme makes sense, for example) and in other cases it's better to keep them seperate. Here, I might have combined theme with atmosphere, but I don't mind at all that they are seperate. I think it's good to have several categories to better look at all the merits of the stories, but more than five and it gets a bit tedious.

[JudasFm]

Character: Baron, as I never felt we really got to know Sinitrena's characters all that well. Ess2s2's was good, and I liked the touches of humor, but I felt the entry focused far too much on the setting and not on the characters. It's hard, because we never really see Jim interact with anyone.
Plot: Hard to choose. I'll go with Sinitrena, though, as her story had a definite arc. Baron's ended a bit too abruptly: I would have liked to see how the others reacted to their new wealth and how it changed things.
Writing Style: Ess2s2. I was torn between all three. I love Sinitrena's style in general (Baron's can be a little too out-there for me, but that wasn't the case this time). However, in terms of easy to read, this time Ess2s2 just squeaked into first place. There was only one thing that didn't make sense: the last line of the letter reads, "And it goes without saying of course, but tell no one. I think it would make the energy down there...angry." It's a nice way to end it, but Jim's already told Ben about it in his letter. Wouldn't that count as 'making the energy angry?'
Atmosphere: Sinitrena, definitely. Baron's was slightly sparse, and Ess2s2's entry was a little too descriptive. There's nothing wrong with that, but it makes it harder to get into the piece.
Theme: Again, Sinitrena. With Baron, we sort of knew that we were in a desert, but it was very much in the background, particularly as the main characters don't have to worry about water. Ess2s2's entry was far more about the city, which was certainly intriguing, but apart from a few descriptions, the desert never featured at all.

[Baron]

Wow, two great entries to choose from!

Character: I vote Sinitrena for Okoth.  Symbolically she is a desert herself, empty (in terms of love) and barren (in terms of milk).  And like a desert she sees the illusion of hope just beyond the horizon, while the ugliness of her reality is almost unbelievably harsh.  The parallels between her character and the process of desertification are also intriguing, as her story-arc seems to be a long slide of degradation and despair.  I found Ess2s2's Rambling Jim folksy but a little too boyscout-ish to be believable.

Plot: I vote Sinitrena again.  The story within a story foreshadowed the arc of the broader story nicely, and the ending was gripping (although incredibly sad).  I thought Ess2s2's story had a very intriguing premise, but then nothing really happened in the subterranean oasis town, or to the character that found it.

Writing Style: I vote Ess2s2 in this category.  His playful use of words to describe the townsfolk as venomous and the trees as "Seussian" keep the reader engaged.  Sinitrena had her own moments (my favourite was the water as brown broth), but I found Ess2s2 had more of them.

Atmosphere: I struggled with this category.  Sinitrena has an all pervasive atmosphere of overwhelming despair.  It weighs down on the reader almost from the first word, and is unrelenting throughout.  But is this an atmosphere that I can be drawn into?  Is it engaging and stimulating for the reader?  To be honest I think it's just a little too dystopian for me to feel a connection.  Ess2s2 creates more of an atmosphere of wonder, which although much less powerful than Sinitrena's, still creates a more vivid world that I would be interested in visiting.  So I suppose what I'm saying is I vote Ess2s2 by a hair.

Theme: My vote easily goes to Sinitrena for a tale of society mirroring a dying environment.  Most of Ess2s2's story actually took place in a mountain wonderland.  And while oases are certainly an integral part of a desert, I found his oddly alien town a step beyond Reiter's theme of "Desert".

[Ess2s2]

So, in reading the reviews, I'm realizing that I had a much clearer "mental map" of the story than I ever gave to the reader, and reading back, I rushed my story because I was so enchanted with myself I didn't stop to lay it out or describe it properly.

Given that do-overs aren't a thing, I may wait until voting's done to post a little surprise.

[Baron]

I'd be interested to see how you rework the text, Ess2s2.  As a last-minute writer, I rarely have time for anything other than an extremely superficial edit.  Which is regrettable, given that that's often where a story makes the jump from ok to good or from good to great... 

...(of special note is that there is an end. Baron tends to stop his stories too early  ). I 

Always leave the fans wanting more, I always say!     Truthfully, I struggled working outside of my so-called baronesque style.  Without the manic absurdity to keep the plot going, I found myself grasping for plausible developments and character traits to keep the ship afloat.  I'm still not at all happy with how I turned the slacker-brother into a scientist in the course of a few paragraphs, but I have every confidence that Ess2s2 can resolve that and other issues during his extensive rewrite initiative.   

[Ess2s2]

I, too hate going back and rewriting, and I think it's been one of my own greatest weaknesses. With that in mind, fleshing out what was in my head didn't involve a rewrite. I may not have addressed all the points made in the votes, but I didn't feel like anyone really got to share in the world that I got to enjoy in my head, and I wanted to expand on a lot of points I left unsatisfied in my first little scribble.

[Reiter]

Forgive me for the lateness in concluding this competition, but I quite forgot that yesterday night was midsummer's eve. Truly, my spelling is erratic enough under clear conditions.

Now then, my votes.

Character: I believe Baron's three brothers in general, and clever-clogs Cabasol in particular, wins the award. They had to work for it, however, as the brave Okoth and the mysterious Jim were both at their heels.

Plot: I chalk one more point for Baron, in this department. It was a nice and clever tale, and the three sons archetype was put to excellent use, here. I also like how Cabasol is an inspiration for us all; he was thinking like a true point & click adventurer!
Meanwhile, Sinitrena's far darker tale is a damned good runner-up. Like Baron's addition, it strikes one as a tale within a tale. The Sundancer looks after those that sings it, after all.
Ess2s2's epistolary tale, by its nature, could not provide a matching plot, but what such tales lose on that particular round-about they may gain on the swings.

Writing Style: As always, there is something oddly compelling about Sinitrena's style of writing. I cannot say what it is, if it is in the rhythm or the terms of phrase, but it simply flows, steadily and clearly. Indeed, there is a lot of inference and suggestions in this text, painting a picture that is larger and more colourful when you see it. The ending, too, is splendidly veiled yet also glowingly clear. Excellent!

Atmosphere: It is peculiar, but the feeling that Ess2s2 conjures up in his piece is very compelling. I have not spent much of my days in deserts, yet it feels very familiar to the text. Then, there is the thrill of discovery, and the welcoming strangeness of the Oasis itself. It is familiar, in a very peculiar way. It is splendid!

Theme: I do believe Baron wins this category, by a strand of camel hair. It is a splendid theme of heat, water and not letting the sun bake you bitter. Most excellent, indeed!

Conclusion

The winner of this competition is none other than Baron!

Step forward, Baron Oil Sheik, and take your prize! Enjoy the shade of your gold pavilion!

And our Clever Cow-girl for this desert trail is none other than Sinitrena! May your silver spurs ever jingle!

And our courageous camel-driver for this caravan is good old Ess2s2! May the bronzen skies always smile upon you on homeward trails!

Well done, everyone!

Thus, it now falls to Baron to choose the theme for the next leg of the competition, and post it in a new thread. Best of luck, o Sheik!

Additional little notes.

Dear Ben. An excellent little epistolary! Rather reminds me of Myst, in a strange and homely manner. The Oasis is a fascinating place, and I hope Jim will find a worthy guardian to succeed him, one day. Brief, fanciful and quite pleasing.

Sundancer. A strange desert tale, but one I quite like. It is a rather grim fable, but it carries it very well indeed. I can only hope for the best for Mrs Okoth and baby, but I imagine it ended as well as the desert spirits can abide. Excellent work!

The Parch of Woe. A splendid little yarn! Undoubtedly my favourite of the three. It is unusually 'grounded', by Baron standards, but I still think it captures that.... Je ne sais quois, the 'you', I believe. I really like the 'point' of the tale. It is indeed as empty as you make it. Hats off for clever master Cabasol!

[Ess2s2]

Now that voting is over, and the winners have received their deserved accolades (congrats again!) here is a companion piece to Dear Ben. This is what I envisioned but was in too much of a hurry to properly share.

Dear June:

Please see the attached diary entries in connection with the disappearances of Mr. Benjamin Lacey and Mr. James Corburn. These entries may shed some light on an investigation which still seems to harbor more questions than answers. As you are now current Lead Investigator in the wake of Mr. Darwish’s unexpected sabbatical, I require you report any new findings to me directly and immediately.

This is a weird one J. You know I’d work it myself if I didn’t need to be there for that political nonsense in D.C.

Be safe, and remember that you’re the only one in the field for this one, so if anyone claims to be us, you know what to do.

*TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW*

*

August 8, 2008 (Day 1)
Stopped for the night. Had to. My feet are sore, I’m sunburnt, I have a headache, and I’m definitely right at the fuckin’ junction of “Nowhere in Particular” and “Where the Fuck am I”. I gotta tell ya Jimmy, I’m not sure why I’m out here in the first place, because if there is some sort of energy like you say, it feels like it’s pissed at me already. This desert is just hill after dusty hill of nothing. Dried up old dead weeds, thorns, rocks, smaller rocks…just…barren, dry bullshit as far as the eye can see. My eyes hurt because everything is overbright from the relentless bastard sun and this alien sky that feels like it’s as sunfaded as everything else. Watching the sun go over the nearby mountains, even they look angry. They aren’t like the Swiss Alps man, these are lower, rockier, with deep eroded canyons workin’ through the foothills. If they do have any plants growing on them, it’s just low, prickly shrubs, all dried out and waiting for the next random rainstorm. Mountains but desert. What will Mother Nature think of next, eh? I’m puttin’ pen to paper right here and now and declare that I haven’t the slightest fucking idea why people would want to come out here to camp or sightsee or whatever. Not trying to slight where you lived Jimmy, but…damn, talk about ass-end of nowhere.

I’m sorry, I’m venting. I just wish you could be here to explain all this shit to me, and maybe even guide me into this magical fucking place you described, because if your directions weren’t cryptic enough, leaving my condo in Malibu to traipse all over the devil’s asshole isn’t helping. Maybe if you’d found this place in a cave in Aspen, it would be one thing, hell, I have a time-share up there…go skiing right from the cave, whatever, but naw, it had to be this fucking desert.

But what do we do for friends who send a paper letter in the digital age, and then just stop responding to texts, calls, anything?

I guess we run our dumbass out into the desert and cook to death.

*

August 9, 2008
Thank Christ, I found the river fork and the boulder. Jim, it’s a good thing you made sure to use SUPER descriptive terms such as dry river and boulder. There’s certainly not THOUSANDS of those out here.

I did realize one thing though, when you said “until I don’t hear the chirping of birds”, I thought that was a place, but it isn’t, it’s a time of day…you clever bastard. I kept wondering how there could be no birds in the…you know…fuckin’ wilderness until about noon, when I didn’t hear anything…too fuckin’ hot. I looked, and the hills were dead ahead.
 
This place…grinds on you, the sandy ground is like a hot cheese grater, and feeling the rocks crunch under your shoes, it seems like your bones are doing the crunching, instead of the rocks. I stopped earlier than yesterday because this place is still just Mars with fuckin’ oxygen and the heat catches in your throat like a piece of dry bread, and I fucking hate it. The breeze out here is like a blast furnace and it just withers away any desire I have of moving forward. Call me soft, but at least I didn’t live in the fucking desert Jim. You say this place doesn’t impart any wealth, but if we’re being honest, aside from you, that’s pretty much the only reason I’m out here. If this place is anything like you said it is, I can at least get a finder’s fee for the archaeological find or get a little press out of it. And come on dude, not wanting to share it with the world? That’s insane, it’ll get found sooner or later, everything does. At least have the forethought to be the guy that gets his name on it.

If you aren’t going to get anything else out of this wasteland, at least get that. Corburn’s Cave would have had a nice ring to it, but if you don’t want it, Lacey’s Cave sounds just as good in my opinion.

*

Aug. 10, 2008
Looks like I fuckin’ did it now Jimmy.

What started as some weekend fuckery is probably now going to cost me my life. I was working my way up the ravine, put my hand on a rock to steady myself and got bit by a rattler. Fuck me. Maybe it serves me right. Looking back through the last couple of pages, I haven’t been real fair to you or this place. Don’t get me wrong, getting bitten on the hand isn’t budging me much, but when you’re sitting alone with a sunset in front of you, and it might be one of the last ones you ever see, you force yourself to appreciate the beauty.

I’m sorry Jim, for a lot of things. Mostly for making you keep up the contact after college. I never was good at reaching out, but thinking back, I should have made more of an effort, maybe then, I’d know where you went, or what’s happened to you. It really sucks that you don’t take stock of your life until you might be staring death in the face. I did my best with the bite kit. Never thought I’d need it, but I’m glad as fuck the kid at the store pushed it on me. Best five dollar upsell ever.

But here’s the shit of it: I’ve gotten out as much venom as I could with the kit, and I put a tourniquet on my arm, but I’m three days in the wilderness and I’ve only bought myself a day or two at the absolute most; probably not even that.

I can’t make it out in time.

So I’m going in. I’m going to press on, so if this place is as real as you say, this trip won’t be for nothing and I can at least see it myself with my own eyes. Foolish? Maybe, but so was running out into the desert to find a magical cave and possibly an old friend. I’m a helluva lot closer to the cave than I am to civilization, so once I’m done writing this, I’m going to try and cover as much ground as I can, it’ll be less stressful moving at night now that I can just follow the ravine, and I’m racing against the clock. Good luck future-me…

*

Aug. 10??
Okay. Found rocks, found cave. Went inside and crawled through because crouching made my vision go dark. Slid on my butt for at least a half-mile while I dragged my bitten hand as low to the ground as possible. It hurts to breathe. I found the big antechamber though. High water marks on the cave walls and everything. Fuckin’ amazing. Erosion? Carved? Hard to tell, but still awesome. Have a splitting headache, but can’t take aspirin, they thin the blood. Going to rest and then I’m going to try to make my way down the hole.

*

“Day 1”
Here’s what I remember:

I barely remember sliding down the hole, along the path.

I remember hearing water and being thirstier than I’d ever been.

I remember washing my hand in the water and laying on my belly on the shore, knowing I was going to die but leaving my hand dangling in the water so I could keep it lower than my heart, just because it felt so good. I remember the tingling chill of the water on my skin as I blacked out.

I remember waking up here, and thinking I had died, and I was in heaven, or dreaming my last dream.

But I’m here now, and I’m reading back through, and it’s like some other man had been writing those things. My hand still hurts like I’ve never known, and I’m weak, hungry and sick, but for some incomprehensible reason, I’m still suckin’ air.

And I can say without a doubt that this trip was not a fucking waste.

Holy shit Jim, I thought you had a way with words, but even you couldn’t do justice to this thing. I’ve never seen anything like it, just the countertops on the buildings alone would sell for thousands of dollars. The carvings, the pillars, everything about this place is incredible. It’s so BIG. Once I figure out my situation and make sure I’m not still going to die, I want to see as much of this place as I can. Now I know why I didn’t hear from you for days or weeks at a time.

Also, thank God I scheduled a week for this, and prepared for as much. I packed in enough food to last me until I can think of what to do next, which will consist of getting my bearings. This comes with two challenges:

1. I don’t remember how I got in here. I see a number of paths leading into the surrounding wall, and I don’t know which one I came in from.

2. My phone’s battery is dead, the spare is damaged, and the Boy Scout-style compass I brought as a backup is literally trying to point up through the glass, so traditional bearings are useless.

Thanks to preventative planning, I do have a full first aid kit, a crank flashlight/radio thing the kid also sold me, some emergency calorie bars on top of the camping meals I packed in, a folding army surplus shovel, and my tent and bedroll. The backpack is also a fancy external-frame job…if worse comes to worse, I can tear it down for emergency wraps, splints and anything else I can think of. Listen to me…using all that fuckin’ Bear Grylls know-how…who says reality TV is useless?

*

“Day 2”
Spent the rest of yesterday and today resting up, eating, and tending to the bite on my hand. I’ve been feeling stronger and stronger, which is completely contrary to where I should be with a bite like that. Unless that old rattler was low on venom herself, by all accounts, I should have died without medical help, and yet here I am. I started writing in this thing as a lark, because I felt like some movie adventurer, searching for treasure. At this point, writing in this diary is important just so I don’t think I was dreaming whenâ€"if…this is all over. I know me from four days ago would tell me I was out of my fucking mind, but me from four days ago also hadn’t seen what I’ve seen.

I’ve seen my bite get less swollen and go from a deathly black to purple. I’ve seen my strength return much faster than it should if I’d gotten prompt medical attention, which I haven’t. I’ve seen…shadows moving between the buildings nearby, but that could just be tricks of the strange light, the snake venom doing whatever it’s doing, or the water here that seems to heal. A big part of me wonders how much a teaspoonful of this would go for on the open market. Unless I have big digestive problems coming down the pipe soon, the water here seems safe to drink and has a taste that is faintly sweet, but doesn’t at all seem rotten or tainted. You can almost feel a strange vigor run through you when you drink it, but that just might be my body reacting to the venom, exhaustion, or insanity of what I’m seeing down here.

I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on this place, and how you managed to find it, Jim, and I think for you to come all this way as a kid, you must have had some additional demons at home. Really, no kid in his right mind would trek all the way out into the desert just because his pops was into some drug shit. No way man. You downplayed how crazy getting here could possibly be, and I have a feeling there’s some more questions I’ll need to ask you before I can understand why you’d be lead all the way out here. I get that this is your home, and outsiders probably don’t understand it like you do, but for a kid to come this far out, maybe some of those walks weren’t ever supposed to end back at home…maybe you were hoping you would keep walking until…whatever. Maybe…perhaps, the cave…this Oasis, found you.

Or maybe there’s still a snakebite working its way through my system. Fuck, at this point who knows anymore.

*

“Day 3”
Honestly, no idea if it’s daytime or nighttime, I’m just basing this off my own sleep schedule now, which between the constant, low light in here or the effects of the snakebite, for all I know could be hours or minutes or days. I felt good enough to do a bit of walking around and found the obelisk you mentioned in your letter. I moved camp here because it’s one of the most well-lit areas, there’s a comfortable bit of a clearing to spread out camp, and the obelisk itself is interesting. I’m no scholar, but there’s languages on it that should not be there, and definitely do not belong in the southwestern US desert. I saw what appeared to be Hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, maybe Sanskrit, and all other kinds of pictograms and proto-writings. I’m really wishing my camera phone was working right about now. Jim, maybe you knew this, maybe you didn’t, but the significance of this thing is…immense. I’ve been working on any other clues, and I feel like the pictograms are the most familiar for some reason. One side is nothing but primitive pictures such as birds, spiders, cattle (maybe), even what appeared to be some primates.

If I had to guessâ€"and five days ago me would absolutely think I’m a loonâ€"I’d think this might actually be some sort of…worldwide marketplace. It sounds completely nutbag, but it all seems to point that way. Between the different languages on the obelisk, the open countertops in front of buildings, it just…feels like that’s what it is. If that’s true, this is truly one of the most important discoveries of the modern era! I wish I had more time and supplies to really look around! Unfortunately, I don’t have much of either and I need to come up with a plan of action.

I’ve decided I need to choose a direction and follow one of the paths to see if I can get out of here. I figure if I’m going to take a shot, I might as well do it while I’ve got plenty of food and aid in case things go sour. I’ve chosen a path that dives into the wall nearest the obelisk. I have no idea where it leads, but tomorrow I imagine I’ll find out. I’d wait one more day just for the snakebite, but almost all the swelling has already gone down and the color is closer to a mustard-colored bruise. One thing’s for fuckin’ sure, no matter what else happens, I’m taking a canteen full of the water from down here wherever I go.

*

“Day 4”
So, this might be a long entry.

I ate a full meal, cranked up the radiolight, and headed up the path. In minutes I was plodding up a stone staircase that was long enough to cause my ears to pop, not unlike what Jim described in his letter. I came into an antechamber that looked very similar to the one I originally came down, with high water marks and all, but once I continued up and made it out of the cave, I knew.

Pure, golden dunes, stretching out before me. I pulled out the small compass, which was finally working again. The dunes spanned out, relentlessly, infinitely to the west and south. They towered and dove into each other, creating a horizon of golden waves I’d only ever seen on television. The wind that hit me was hotter, the grit it carried was sharper. The earth had a wildly different scent here, a difference that helped drive home how real everything was. The clouds overhead were thin and pulled long across a gradient blue sky.

I’ve never been patently frightened in my whole life. When you grow up hearing your dad beat the shit out of your mom every day, you grow numb to the screams and the crying, and the loud thudding just fades into the background. The rest of life gets turned down. A drunken fratboy threatening you doesn’t mean shit when you’ve taken a full-face punch from your dad. A corporate merger is fuck-all compared to seeing your mom scrubbing her own blood out of the bathroom sink. Once you see the little horrors that can permeate a family, not a whole lot bothers you. Maybe why Jim and I seemed to get along so well, we both had a lot of strife growing up at home. Maybe Jim had a little more than I ever knew, maybe more than he ever let on. At any rate, speaking from experience, that kind of stuff hardens you, creates a thicker skin around your heart, and makes it harder to really shock or scare you. I guess all that to say, yeah, I’ve never been scared of much, and the snakebite was the new recent high, until this.

Magic isn’t scary until you experience it for yourself. Most people will never have to worry about that, because most people will never experience real magic. Real magic is an enormous thing; something so big you don’t realize it’s there until you feel it. I wasn’t standing in the southwest American desert I’d started out in…in fact, it wasn’t any desert I’d ever been in before. I felt like a rabbit who had been nibbling on grass in a field and who was suddenly dangling by their ears over a stage in front of a cheering crowd. I grabbed for the radiolight with numb hands and switched the radio receiver on. Static. I slowly cranked the dial, holding the gadget toward the sky like an offering to the fuckin’ sun-gods and slowly moved the needle down the range.

Nothing. Not even a whisper. I looked once again out over the arid expanse, trying to pick any details out of the undulating sand. Nothing but eyestrain. The horizon wavered sickeningly through the heat-shimmer, and with the bright, golden sand below, it looked like the whole world in front of me was gently ablaze. I called out, listening to my own voice die away over the open dunes, the sand eating my words. The wind once again whipped the heat into my face, and I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. I realized I wasn’t quite out of the woods yet with the snakebite as I felt the pulse of a headache beginning at my temples.

On rubbery legs and still not believing my senses, I chanced a walk towards the north where the jagged seam between the sandy dunes and low, rocky hills stretched on over the horizon. I clambered to the top of a hill and looked across the entire panorama, noting to my dismay no signs of civilization at all. I began my climb down and--like a dumbshit--slipped and twisted my ankle. Thank fuck I didn’t break it, although with how things have been going, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I figured that was enough fun for one day and hobbled my ass back down to camp, but not before I learned the compass had been broken during my fall. Damn my bad luck, but at least it wasn’t another snake. So here we are, a bit wiser for our troubles, and licking fresh wounds. I also came back to find some things in camp not quite where I’d left them. I’m torn between harmless critters, wind that doesn’t exist down here, or something else. Hopefully if they’re critters or something else, they’re nice, because dumbass me only brought a shovel.

*

“Day 5”
Another question for you Jim, did you ever take any of these paths? Is that where you got off to? Do you know where they lead? I took another one today, and now I know for sure.

Nazca. Some of the pictograms on the obelisk are Nazca lines.

The hummingbird, the spider, the monkey…The Peruvian desert. I saw it all with my own eyes when I came out of the cave.

It wasn’t easy, I was limping a bit from yesterday’s escapade, but again, this water seems to get you back on your feet much quicker than normal. The folding shovel, along with some pieces of the frame from the backpack gave me a shitty kind of a cane that didn’t look pretty, but got me up that path a lot easier and helped with the pain that was still there. It also helped me pry away the very, very old and thankfully rusted grate that had been crudely hammered into the opening leading out of the antechamber. I was forced to stop and rest a few times on the way up to the surface, not only from my lingering ankle injury, but also because I ain’t no young buck these days, and I’m really not used to this kind of exertion.

When I finally emerged topside, and my eyes adjusted to the glare, I was struck once again by that giant magic washing over me.

The barren, rocky plains spread away from where I stood, partway up a hillside. A short distance down the slope, the desert floor took on a dull brown color and stretched away to meet the sky somewhere far in the distance. I could just make out two giant converging lines traversing toward the horizon, spreading out as they went. As I followed them back from the horizon with my gaze, I saw they joined in a perfect point below the cave I’d come out of. I once again clambered up to higher ground (a lot more carefully this time) and that’s when I saw it, the hummingbird, nestled in the circular valley below. My brain struggled with what was entering my eyes.

I pulled out the radio and started tuning. Almost immediately I got a burst of music, a lively marimba beat that felt completely alien. Urging trumpets and a Latin chorus pierced the silence, startling me and sounding like broken glass after days of nothing. I twisted the volume knob down so hard I nearly broke it off, but it had served its purpose. I had my bearings. Over some hills behind me, I saw a glimmer, a highway maybe, or a small town. I marveled at how these caves had stayed hidden for so long, then thought about it; perhaps, with everything else going on about this place, the caves staying secret wasn’t so hard to believe. Once you’ve felt that real magic, you might believe a bit of anything.

This really was The Oasis. The Oasis. A travel and trading hub connecting what seemed all the deserts of the world, hidden from modern eyes. Goddamnit Jim, I’m sitting here now, looking over the obelisk, feeling the fading heat on my skin from the harsh Peruvian sun, and I’m sure as shit you knew. You had to have known after a while. Hell, I’m still dealing with my first visit and my mind is bursting with new knowledge. There’s no way you didn’t know. Fuckin’ asshole, wherever you are…If you hadn’t been so cagey, I probably would have been back to work already instead of nursing life-threatening wounds and being lost. I wonder if you’re still out there, down one of these paths and out into one of these godforsaken deserts…somewhere I can come kick your ass then give you a hug…and not necessarily in that order.

*

“Day 6”
Good news and bad news.

First the good news: I’m pretty sure the way the languages are laid out on the obelisk, it serves as a “signpost” of sorts. If that’s right, then I’m pretty sure I know which path I need to take to get home.

Bad news: The path that I’m sure leads back home is currently vomiting rainwater, I’m almost out of food, and I want to save trekking home from Peru as a last resort. I mean, I’m not exactly poor, but I’m not “fuck off, I vanished and reappeared in Peru” rich either.

I have one meal and the calorie bars remaining, which will last me another couple days if I’m careful. I’ve searched around the market and haven’t found anything useful, the plants here aren’t edible, and there’s no other good sources of food. The fish and stuff in the water are too small to really make a meal out of, and the whole glowing thing doesn’t make me want to eat them, but push comes to shove, who knows. My ankle still hurts a bit but I’ve been drinking plenty of the water.

I still see the shadows in between the buildings here and there, so it isn’t the snake venom, although that could be the water somehow now that I think about it. No way to tell since I don’t have any other water source right now, so probably best not to think about it too hard. The shadows themselves, they don’t seem threatening, just…curious. Still, I have a feeling it’s not the best idea to try and make contact.

The longer you’re down here, the more you learn to act on feeling. The more you learn to just kind of…accept things the way they are. Maybe I’ll write a book when I get back; 10 Survival Tips for the World Oasis…

*

7
A land of plenty…
A crossroads for all…
Something eternal…
The sounds of feet scraping across cobble, the sound of voices, of trading, of children…

The first time I’ve dreamt since I’ve been down here, and I can’t say I’m a fan. Camp was a little shuffled when I woke, and while my path is still a waterfall, someone or something has brought me a gift. Next to my pack this morning was a tied cloth, and inside was a cake made of dates and honey. Again, I wonder if Jim made friends during his time down here or if I’m just special.

Still, gifts are gifts, and it will come in very handy since I’ll be working into the last camp meal today and the path is only just letting up. If it clears enough by tonight I might make a run for it. If not, I’ll have to start seriously rationing my food because I’ve still got to hike out of the middle of nowhere before I can say I’m in the clear.

Reading back again, I came down here because I honestly thought it would be the last thing I ever saw, now I’m scared this place will become my tomb no matter what miracles I’m privy to. I guess a lot has changed in the last few days, including myself. Maybe it was the dream last night, but…Like you said in your letter Jim, this place isn’t dead, and I’m feeling that other thing planted inside me that you mentioned. Maybe it’s having seen for myself that there’s still magic in this world, maybe it’s from having just been down here and…absorbed the energy from this place. Having tasted the water, and touched the stones. I look around and I feel like I’m not alone, or if I am, that I just missed whoever else. I feel…timeless down here.

*

No go on tonight, the water has slowed to a trickle, but path is too slick. My kingdom for some rope and climbing bolts. Wish my food supply was as timeless as this place…

*

8
Woke up to realize yesterday wasn’t a gift, it was a trade. My radiolight is gone, and with it any chance of me navigating my way back up through the cave to the surface. I finished the camp meal today and I’m getting into the calorie bars. The water coming out of the path has finally stopped completely. I tested the path as far as the cave light reached and it’s slippery, but getting better. Using the makeshift cane helps, also, I bunched up some of the ferns and found I can use them as a sort of broom to brush away the dried sand and sediment. Still the wetter, muddier areas are too difficult for me to pass. Peru is starting to look better all the time.

I will say one thing Jim, you were absolutely right. This place gives you something really different. It’s something inside, and it’s pretty damn great. There’s something about this place that is…priceless. No one should know about this place, it’s…too special, too perfect. Spoiling that would be some kind of sacrilege, and I don’t want that on my hands.

All the same, I’d kill for a hamburger right about now, and a shower, and a proper bed. Oh, and a flashlight.

*

Well, I’ll give this place another thing, it gives you time to think. I scooped up a few of those little fish and a handful of them is almost enough to read by. If I can get enough of them in one of the old camp meal bags, I might have enough light to get myself out of here. I’ve also devised a plan to grab sediment sand from the drier parts of the path in some of the meal bags and using it to clear some of the wetter, slicker parts of the path, like salting a driveway. I can then use my fern-broom to sweep a walkable path. It’s slow, and it sounds stupid, but it beats the shit out of starving to death.

*

9
All I have left is the honey cake and one calorie bar. I’m packing out, whether I make it or fall and break my neck, I’m getting out today. I need to get back to my life and my contacts so I can make sense of this place and figure out what to do next. I feel like I’m going to see this place again soon.

*

August 20, 2008
Home. I can’t believe I’m home. I can’t believe the comfort, the cool air puffing out of little vents in the ceiling. The cushy, sinking feeling of an overstuffed couch. The smell of freshly-delivered pizza lingering in the room. The number and urgency of all the messages and voicemails that were waiting for me to charge my phone back up again.

Reading back over this is like being transported to a dream, and I feel this ripping urge to go back, even now, not more than a day back home. It pulls at me, tugging on my mind with invisible hooks.

I feel like I traded more than just my time or a radio down there. In that old, dusty expanse, I traded a piece of myself. I feel him back there, old me, sitting next to that obelisk, working out his place, maybe even sitting next to a piece of Jim.

Jim. I know you’re out there. I could feel your presence down there like it was pressed into the strange stones of those buildings, like you were one of those very shadows that moved at the edge of my vision. I think you use that oasis now to move freely around this world. A new man, with a new life…or perhaps an old one.

These pages will go into a safe deposit box, where they’ll be secure, and I’m going to find you Jim, I owe you a hug and an ass-kicking.

See you on the other side.

****

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. See you all in the next Fortnightly!

[Sinitrena]

Okay, that was a long re-write. Or, is it a re-write? The whole time reading, I wasn't sure if I, as the reader, was supposed to know Jim's letter or not. On the one hand, there's a lot more suspense if I don't know it, on the other hand, there would be a lot that needs aditional explanations without this letter.

Anyway, thoughts I had while reading, in no particular order:
- Most of the time, throughout nearly to whole text, Ben adresses Jim directly in his diary ("Jim, it’s a good thing you made sure to use SUPER descriptive terms such as dry river and boulder.") but then, on Day 4 this suddenly changes into writing about Jim ("Maybe why Jim and I seemed to get along so well") and then you go back to adressing him for Day 5 and 6 and back to writing about him on Day 7. In short, it's inconsistent. Of course, people are not always consistent when writing (especially in) a diary, but it took me out of the story for a moment.
- Character development! There's character development. Well done. Ben starts out thinking about how much money he could make from this oasis at the beginning (it's not a dominant character trait but it's there) to seeing the Oasis as something sacret and worthy of protection. It's not a huge change but it's there.
- Which makes me question why he left his diary in a safe deposit box insted of taking it with him in the end or destroying it. Why did he leave a trace to the oasis for outsiders to find?
- Which leads directly into the next point: Why do we need June and the beginning of this text? It serves no purpose except telling us that Ben and Jim have disappeared, but that's really not necessary. June serves absolutly no purpose and the story could do fine without her. As a matter of fact, she's a distraction, because one has to wonder when she will show up again, but she never does. And teasing a thread in the form of someone else investigating is just frustrating.
- How can Ben tell that the plants are not edible? He doesn't seem like someone who knows about plants, so the only way to figure this out is by eating them (and then getting sick), which he didn't do. Same with the fish. He says they aren't big enough to eat, but when you're starving, all is better than nothing.
- Ben wants a shower? There's enough water in the oasis isn't there? It might not be a shower and the water might be cold, but his whining about a shower sounds like he feels filthy, not that he's specifically missing the sensation of warm water trickling down on his head. Take a bath, man!
- Something that is only questionable when you are supposed to know the letter: Jim doesn't know what the languages on the obelisk are but Ben takes one look at them and knows? Jim really is not of the curious sort, is he?

All in all, there's way more suspense than in the original text and way more at stake. Again, the frame story takes some of it away. How could the diary end up with June, unless it somehow found its way out of the cave, and because the cave is still unknown, it wasn't found there. I also got a better sense of the magic surrounding this place and the dangers of the desert are far more prevalent, which also makes the atmospheric element stronger, in my opinion. All in all, a pretty good rewrite.



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Congratulations to Baron for the win. See you all next round.