Lochlan Bloom - Dust - Sandstorms

My eyes were forced shut by a thousand lacerating particles of dust.

It was thick. Choking. I arrived on the borders of the town at dusk. I had been driving some time since I left Daniel but how long exactly was hard to tell. Days? I tell myself sometimes that it is the dust that has eroded my memories. As if it has somehow seeped into my head, clogging my brain with dirt. Details are blurred, twisted, ends no longer join up. Already the details of my escape were vague. None of it hung together properly.

Would my captor’s simply leave the door to my cell open? After torturing Daniel? After killing Daniel? It made no sense. I could hardly trust that version of events. There was no point in them holding me only to let me go in such a way. If they did not think they needed me, why had the guards not taken advantage of the opportunity to at least relieve their needs upon me.

It didn’t make much sense as I thought about it but then there could have been other steps, factors I had misremembered, intentionally forgotten. Where had I found the keys to this vehicle for instance? Surely no-one could have given me those without a fight? Had I even seen Daniels body? Or convinced myself he was dead simply to assuage my own guilt in some sick way?

But I had been there once before in that city, years before. It looked different. Everything had changed with the intervening years. The first time I had been young. I was enthusiastic. I was optimistic. I am tempted to say naïve but that is not the case. I had a different outlook that first time, that is all, a perspective which I now can no longer fathom, but I was not naïve.

I parked my vehicle in the space outside a looming building that I took to be a hotel. The wind as always was whipping the dust in great clouds between the buildings. As I entered I noticed the entrance area was covered in a layer of sediment, and obviously had not been looked after in a long time. The entire place was a remnant from a time when people cared about things.

The receptionist leered at me.

‘You want a room,’ he said, a large sore stood out on the side of his face. ‘I’ll give you a special rate.’

I looked him over. He had lived in this filthy place for too long. His clothes, his face, his hair everything was filled with that thick dust that clogged the air.

‘No.’ I asked him for directions to my destination. He blinked twice, rapidly.

‘You won’t get there,’ he said. I could tell he was put out by my presence. He didn’t believe me. That someone like me would be capable of reaching somewhere so difficult, so obscure.

‘You don’t think I’ll get there?’ I asked.

‘It’s not that,’ he replied, ‘the roads are closed. Since they declared the state of emergency.’

It was true what he said, the roads would be closed, but I had battled through worse. In any case, I had no choice Abel was behind the lines, I had to get there.

‘Just show me the way.’ I laid the map on the desk.

The receptionist was a cretin. He clearly had no idea how to read a map and yet he traced his finger over the contours, humming and hawing, in any case.

I bought some supplies from his meagre store. Enough to last me for a few days. I didn’t know how far it would be before I came across the next settlement.

‘You can stay here for free,’ he grinned at me. ‘We’re quiet here at the moment. There’s a spare room you can have for the night. Rest a bit before going all the way up there.’

I looked at him steadily. No doubt it was quiet. I could scarcely imagine anyone in their right mind choosing to stay in such a lamentable place. He clearly seemed to think he was offering me a bargain. God only knew what sexual payment he was calculating in return, what price he would attempt to extract if I were stupid enough to accept his offer. He lowered his gaze, embarrassed.

I had a good vehicle. I had taken it four days earlier and I had driven nearly constantly since then. The man I took it from was no doubt dead. I pictured his body quickly enveloped in a layer of dust, disappearing from the world.

As I drove away from the hotel I recognized the town. Memories crept out of street corners. I had lived in this region for a spell. Six months one summer. It had a been a bright place. Clear as diamond but cold. That’s what my memory told me. There had been a crystal blue sky that stretched on forever and sharp stars at night.

I had been there on a scientific mission, researching polar winds. It had seemed so exotic to me then. The locals had been salty, tough customers, they didn’t suffer fools gladly. I had felt at home. I didn’t suffer fools gladly either.

We had come to this town to get supplies. Months we had spent in the area collecting data. Wasted effort, as was so much now. I had known a boy then. I remembered his arms. Thick, strong arms, he had held me effortlessly. That at least had not been wasted. I imagined myself nestled in the arms of an oak tree, the boughs protecting me from the steely cold outside.

I wondered, was he now dead? No doubt. For all his strength and sturdy arms he lacked the intelligence it took to stay alive these days. The determination. To make any headway in this world was a battle. To achieve even the simplest things could take an entire day sometimes. To raise the necessary energy to get things done was not always easy. It was not like it used to be.

It felt like a dream, another place. The air now was thick, unbreathable. I had a respirator but I didn’t like to use it. I was sure Abel didn’t use his either. I preferred to take my chances. In a small way, this was my refusal to accept that the air was not going to return to the way it was.

Debris and wreckage filled the streets. Detritus left over as people evacuated the town. Items that quickly devalued to junk the moment that no-one was there to covet them. In the dimming light, I made a cursory check of the obvious locations but, as expected, any weapons had long since been taken.

We had lived far out in the wilderness. Our small research group. The boy amongst them.

‘Look at that,’ he had said pointing out the window. ‘Does it not make you feel so tiny. Nature.’

He was filled with an almost childlike wonder for these things. For him Nature was a giant, unfathomable being that was essentially good and noble. I didn’t have much of an opinion in those days and normally tolerated his exclamations but I had just received a letter from Abel and was in a disagreeable mood.

‘It won’t last long,’ I said. ‘We are destroying the planet.’

He had seemed genuinely distressed at this thought. ‘We can save it. Is that not why we’re here? This research, it will make a difference, let people know.’

When he wasn’t holding me in his arms there was something irritatingly guileless about him. ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘People don’t want to know. Who wants to hear that sort of thing.’

‘But look,’ he motioned across the sweeping headland and out at the ice flows in the deep green sea. ‘If they could only see. It’s so … majestic.’ He struggled with his words.

‘Come here, hold me,’ I said. He was better when he didn’t speak. Sensitivity did not suit him.

I don’t know where that line came from, about destroying the planet. I had never particularly believed the environmentalists and as it turned out they were wrong on nearly all the specifics. That the end result was strikingly similar to their prognosis was nothing more than a coincidence.

A wind swept across the town and I drove out, on into the hazy darkness. There was a long way still to go before I reached Abel. He was no doubt well protected, out of harm’s way. I was seized by a vision of him, his face, severe. It would not be easy to get there.