The near-full Moon lay down lunar light all over the arid landscape. It gave everything a milky tone, sharply contrasting with the midnight blue shadows, which ran from the Moon’s gaze. Low shrubs and rolling rocky meadows dominated the plateau here, all bound tight under the Milky Way above—a convex strip seemingly securing the serene night sky. With the scene barely varying in its tone of sparse monotony, he decided to press on until dawn encroached on the horizon.
With the slender fingers of a new day beginning to filigree the morning sky, he acknowledged it was time to pause and set up camp. The hobbled camels made a fuss, as they always do. It was understandable, he empathised with their collective animosity. Several bellowed in contempt, then others signalled their approval of this disapproval with long low lamentations.
As the Moon sunk lower, he began to gather nearby scrub to start a fire. Once the orange flickers had warmed his fingers, he set a brass teapot right into the flames. Covered in dents and scratches—a knowing, a world-weary patina—he had carried it with him for at least a decade now. A small handful of leaves were retrieved from a tin tucked away in a pair of saddlebags slung across an unhappy camel. Boiling water ricocheted inside teapot, the steam announcing that tea was soon to follow. Easily he held the teacup in his hand, holding it up level with the horizon, and directed the spout towards the vessel’s waiting lip. Deliberately he sipped, savouring the smokey essence; a flavour that seemed to transcend time, as if tinged with the experiences of centuries past.
Using the sleeve of his flannel shirt, he wiped the last vestiges of tea from his beard. Kicking away a few of the larger rocks, he laid down a small, intricate yet well-loved rug—the oasis towns in the area were famed for their textiles and carpets—on a flat area of red earth. His tired legs effortlessly lowered him, and then crossed themselves in front of him. As if almost to steady himself—physically, yes; but more importantly, metaphysically—he anchored his palms squarely over his knees. He paused; then emptied his lungs of their last remnants of oxygen. Again he paused, before closing his eyes, and ever so slowly inhaling. As he gently opened his eyes, his vision was filled with the innumerable stars above, though bit-by-bit they were being consumed by dawn’s light. Like a silhouette burned into the eyes from too bright a light, the Milky Way was seared across the sky; though ghostly, two-dimensional. His thinking gradually faded—the cogs of thought, the constant clockwork of analysis, grinding to a halt under the immense presence of the cobalt half-dome overhead. A laminar flow of awareness spiralled upward—inward—into space, into nothingness.
