8/8/2019 Excerpt From Dry Heat

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Excerpt from Dry HeatThe desert air is parching on the best of days, but today carries with it the harshest kind of heat – 

dry heat. I lie here in my bed of sand, my skin wrinkled with salt, and my eyes puckered with their lids

crusted open. I am not dead, but one would think that I was if they saw me in this state, with limbs frozenseemingly in rigor and eyes staring up at the glare of the sun, a fiery ball in the misleadingly cool bluesky. I do not blink even when the wind blows the blistering sands across my face. I do not cringe from

the baking heat that surrounds me. I still breathe, but no one recognizes that fact, since the movements

are so shallow and I make no sound.

I am not alone in this ocean of eroded stone. There are others who lie still around me, awaiting a

similar fate, only they do not breathe any longer. Their spirits may linger, not willing to relinquish their 

tenuous hold which the priests strengthen with their magic, but their bodies hold no life. The priests tend

to me as well, thinking that I am just like the others. I cannot find my voice to tell them otherwise, and

they do not look closely enough at me to catch the odd twitch or tremor. They chant and raise their 

hands, occasionally shielding their faces from the blowing sands. They do not know how fortunate they

are to be able accomplish this meagre task. How I wish I could prevent the persistent bitter sting.

Anywhere but here, coated in the natron than absorbs any moisture that manages to rise to thesurface of my skin, and preserves the bodies of those already dead, the difference between me and the

others would have been obvious by now. They would be rotting and reeking, while I would remain

whole. Or I would be dead by now as well because I have not eaten or drunk in days, but the same sacredmagic that binds the spirits to the bodies of the dead nobility also prevents me from escaping my own

mortal coils, with just enough life remaining in me to separate me from the many corpses.

I would rather be dead, instead of existing in this living hell. A punishment of my own making,

you could say...