Tuesday 5 August 2014

Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 208


Chapter Thirty

                I stand on the crest of a sand dune and survey the blurred horizon with shielded eyes. I see Elle’s pink hair glisten in the sunlight on the next dune over. As soon as dawn had broken, I suggested going out to join the hunt for peoples tuck in between worlds. Our presence out there might just help Yates to our side.

                Elle had been glad to agree. Being here with her, even for a short amount of time seems to have mended some of the cracks in our friendship. More and more I see that I’d been self-centred, dragging her and Yates around the world searching for my girlfriend. I have to leave it to fate. I’d asked around at dinner on the quiet the night before. I like how they still call it dinner here despite the distinct lack of food. Old habits die hard.

                After asking several people in this tight knit community it became clear to me that Penny wasn’t here either. Elle waves at me and signals she’s going to search the next dune. It’s a rule to search the deserts in pairs and to always keep each other in sight. Losing sight of someone in a land where everything looks the same is just as bad as losing someone in a maze. I wonder how far this desert went on. Is this world a globe like ours? Did it stop and have an edge falling away into nothingness? Or did it simply stretch out into infinity? The idea baffled me and unsettled my rational mind. I know our universe is infinite, and that logic dictates that it holds secrets and corners that I can’t possibly fathom with my small human mind, but an infinitely stretching land hovering between this world and the next? Somehow my belief doesn’t quite stretch to holding that as the truth.

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