Punctured

part i & ii
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He stood still, taking pleasure for a moment in the cool summer breeze coming from the west. He then turned to look east, though with little hope of seeing a vehicle. This was deserted terrain. The dust gathered up then in a feverish flurry of sand that inhabited this land for as far as his eye could see. He rubbed his eyes, cursed and kicked the tire with the toe of his leather boot. That never accomplished much and it wouldn’t go far in mending the puncture in his tire. But it’s what you did when you found yourself in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go.

When the sun started to descend on the distant mountain range, he rummaged through the old Chev for something resembling a sleeping bag. It got cold in the desert at night, that much he remembered. He’d been up and down these roads before, in another lifetime it seemed to him now. He found two blankets, one of them a heavy wool-blend Mexican throw.

He laid that one down first to keep him dry from the moisture which had already begun to make its way up through the desert sand. He sat on the blanket and took in the beauty of the orange sky. And soon after, with just a few drops left in his water bottle, the man fell into a deep sleep and he dreamt of orange stars and rabid wolves.
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