Sand Dunes
She stared up, intently, watching the Peruvian skies pass composedly above. She was dazed and disorganised about the steps leading her hither. Her eyes descended upon her hands, hands that were dry and sallow from the days of climbing. She clutched her fists searchingly, hoping that her two index fingers were still graced by her grandmother's heirloom. She surveyed the uncouth distance with its eerie remoteness and summoned all the remaining strength left in her limp body and continued the long expedition. She passed imposing mountainous regions and extended arid areas of desert. She felt the tepid wind with its suppleness play with her legs and she heard it sing echoed incantations as it passed on into the twilight. She stopped but for a moment, and wandered how, at this point of time, life had forged itself in its current form, in its current melody. She continued her long, galling walk - every step felt consigned to oblivion; every effort allayed the previous one. She felt the echoes of her long-lost love permeate like some record saddled in skip. She fixed her eyes on her shadow. 'How did you manifest? ' she would ask, speculatively, occasionally trying to shirk and weave her opaque reflection. She couldn't avert her mind from a particularly fond memory in which, on a very placid English afternoon, she would sit by the nearby river with her childhood friend, Ruby. She always had a penchant for memories of Ruby when she found herself addled and aggrieved by some hardship. But Ruby was not here, she was absent like her maudlin love - forsaken and remiss. The mirage enticed her, coerced her and terrorized. Tears began to fall like fragmented moments of yesteryear. The mistral gales howled hauntingly and the sun continued to blanch and braise. A bird, cowled and suspect, perched itself on a nearby tree and watched the lady clamber through the brazen sands, and asked itself: 'but, why? '
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