THE DUNE
You crawl up the dune on hands and knees. Your clothes are in tatters. Your heart hammers in your chest, and your breathing is labored, like a faltering steam engine trying to haul a hundred cars of coal against a furious shrieking wind. Why are you there? You don’t know. You don’t remember. You are just … there, struggling uphill, sliding, slipping, digging in, advancing. Grains of sand whirl in attack, peckling your face with tiny stings. You sink supine, then summon a last flicker of courage, turn onto your belly and snake toward the crest of the dune. At last you elbow your way up and over. A sudden cessation of the shrieking wind greets you. You pause to rest. You can almost remember your name, but not quite. Down the slope at the bottom of the dune is a cottage. You throw yourself at it, tumbling and rolling down the hill. You slide to a stop at the very door of the cottage. You lift your head in hope. The door opens. There she is.
You die.
