desert short 2

There’s an aching in my soul. I have one remedy. There is none other. Everett Ruess knows it. Edward Abbey wrote about it. It is an echo of a whisper of an ancient voice. Its source is somewhere in the country of blue shale and red stone. It is not found in the mountain or on the plains, nor on the ocean or underground; to the city it is a foreign voice with no meaning. To most it is nothing. They will never feel it.
The call of the desert has been with me since I was young. My earlier writings reflect it although my fascination at that time was with Jack London’s escapades in Alaska and the Yukon Territory and his stories there. As it was I still wrote about the desert. I long for its beauty, its romance, its unparalleled indifference toward man and his ways. The desert is patient. With her yellow and blue sands underfoot I trod lightly in search of adventure.
Before me she has painted the walls in the colors of war. Black streaks and red bodies on monoliths of stone ward off the faint of heart. In the distance she has heaved up the stone to appear as the teeth of a beast. And there, few venture. In early days the inhabitants forsook the land. Later, men who sought wealth also went there way out of the desert deceived. Today, on certain oases peopled by few there is trace of civilization and all that that means. But after a time they too will leave.
And the voice of the desert will tempt more men to come. They shall. Will they also leave? Will they also leave their trace? Will there be a day when the desert exists alone and sole as an outcast of the rest of the world? It seems that no civilization can abide its torrid patience.
But to those of us who are called by the echo of the ancient whisper there will be no other place of peace, solace, and security. We would die there than live without. The days of late have been especially trying because survival in this world has its requirements. Those demands have kept me here indolent to the echoes. But soon, to the desert I go again seeking that which cannot be found, only peace and fulfillment will I find. Neither of which can be found here.