When Paris woke, he was still cocooned inside his blanket.  The air trapped under his cover was hot, and stale. His skin was damp and sticky from sweat.  His first thought was to throw off the cloth shell, and expose himself to fresh cool air.  However, the thought that immediately followed this, that which reminded him of the storm, reassured his clenching of the blanket over top of him.

Very uncomfortably, Paris waited.

While his internal count rose, Paris felt no gusts of wind buffeting the cloth, nor the pelting of grainy sand and pebbles again his shelter.  After a sweaty eternity, once Paris was considerably sure that the storm had passed, he eased the blanket over himself, and transferred to a seated position on his bed roll.

He was expecting pale illumination of his surroundings, from a low on the horizon, sun.  Instead the burning orb was closer to its apex at noon.

Paris softly uttered curses at the lateness of the day, at the poor night of sleep that he had experienced, and the storm that had disrupted him for hours, before he was able to drift into unconsciousness.

He shuffled back and forth, shifting so that he placed his back against the giant rock.  He retrieved a light breakfast/brunch of jerky and a handful of dried berries and nuts from his food bag.  As he chewed on his meager breakfast, Paris thought on his fortuitousness, to have been able to resupply at the oasis, when his food stock had dwindled to crumbs.

Though he had shed his blanket, the heat of the day and the sleepless night made him feel lethargic.  He took his time with his breakfast, chewing methodically, chasing swallows of food with small sips from his water skin.  He stared out into the great waste sea, seeing the heat shimmering over the rippling sienna ground, golden sands,  grey colored buoys, and pewter shark fins bobbing in the desert ocean.   Paris shifted his gaze from the distance, to look at his bubble of shade vanish into this expanse of heat, sand, and dirt, feeling a welling of melancholy in his stomach, rise to his heart, then gush into and saturate his mind.  His closed his eyes, breathed in and out, slowly, through his nostrils, and slowly manducated the morsels in his mouth.  He savored the flavors from each grind of his teeth and jaw, then, when the victuals were thoroughly ground, he let his saliva encourage this bite down his throat, accompanied by a slow forceful gulp.  Without opening his eyes, he raised the skin to his mouth, took a long pull, then uttered a satisfied “Ahhhh.”

Whether from an aversion to the waste, or from an affinity for the shade provided by the rock, or, from his weariness due to a fitful, sleepless night, Paris felt a heavy resistance to travel.

He slowly tucked away his parcel of food into the larger bag.  He held the water skin for a long while, considered taking another drink, or two, then finally secured it around the outside of his pack.  He knelt next to his roll, considered laying back down for a quick snooze, shook his head rapidly back and force, then haltingly furled his bedding, and secured it to the bottom of his pack.

He hoisted the pack onto his shoulders, turned to the right, and began following the curve of the boulder towards the road.

Though the weariness pressed upon him when sheltered in the shade, and persisted on his short walk to meet the path, once Paris’s feet found the brown, dusty, road, he felt a slight boost to his demeanor, and to his step.

This lasted several hours, during which time Paris covered many event-free miles.  When daylight waned, Paris sought a piece of barren ground, a short distance from the road, and made his camp for the night.

In the morning, the cry of a distant bird of prey roused him from a heavy, serene, dreamless sleep, and sun pried his eyelids from their shuttered darkness, to soak in the warm glow of desert dawn.

Paris rose with vigor, quickly ingested his morning sustenance, and nipped at his water skin. He rose to his feet, then rapidly, and emphatically, slapped the outsides of his thighs.   Paris then squated to gather his supplies, whereupon he swung his pack over his shoulders, and strode to the russet path.

The rhythmic shuffling sound of his feet, occasional caw from a buzzard, and the swooshing sound of wind upon sand, were the only sounds he heard that day, at the end of which, Paris found a, not-shockingly undisturbed patch of grit and dirt just aft of the trail, and made camp for the evening.

Paris found that his first waking moments, were similar to those of his prior day. Yet, he performed the same routine, and set his feet to the path.

One foot in front of the other, he willed himself forward. Another featureless day passed, and Paris laid himself on his bedroll near the road.

This pattern continued for four more days, and when Paris made camp on that night, he made casual note of his dwindling food supply. Afterwards, he squeezed his water skin, feeling the limited sloshing within.

But, he slept soundly that night, hopeful that the path would lead him to a place where he could replenish his supplies.   He had found this at the oasis, when he was in most dire need.

The next day, he realized that he had a heightened sense of awareness.  His eyes were searching the horizon for sources of water, food, or, hopefully, both.

But he found none.  And the day passed the same way as those in very recent memory.  When the sun set, Paris found himself again, near the trail, in a barren patch, making his island camp on a patch looking identical, to the surrounding, now dark, wasteland sea.

Paris had no way to gauge how long he had been among the plane of unconsciousness, but he knew that when he was roused from the clouds, the moon was full, and high above him, and he could hear faint, rhythmic, shuffling, and clattering sounds.