Allegory

He could feel the bead of sweat forming on his forehead. It began to roll slowly down his face, gathering speed as it went. But it still wasn’t fast enough to avoid evaporating in the hot, dry desert air before being able to spring from his face to the sand below. Even in the shade it was hot. His body felt as though it was drying out, “probably like becoming a mummy,” he thought to himself. Even though the water he drank from his canteen was nearly the same temperature as the bowl of soup he had eaten in the diner they had stopped at on the way here last month, there was a sense of satisfaction as he felt the liquid rehydrating him from the inside out.

As the man sat quietly surveying the desert panorama spread out before him, he glanced over briefly to the woman sitting next to him. They had both been sitting there in silence, lost in their own thoughts for nearly half an hour. The sun was high overhead, so they had sought refuge in what little shade they could find beneath an overhang of rock. The grayish-tan stone behind them was stacked in thin, horizontal layers that reminded one of a pile of desiccated pancakes surrounded by a sea of sandy maple syrup. The edges of the rock outcrops had been carved into fantastic shapes by sand blowing over them relentlessly for eons.

The austere surroundings had seemed a wonderland only a few weeks before. The long journey to get here had been colored by anxious anticipation, and, once they had arrived, the breathtaking novelty of the topography, and the self-reliance that comes from experiencing a no-man’s-land extending to the horizon in every direction had made the desert seem like an infinity of possibility. Over the past week that excitement had dimmed until it settled into a pattern of repetitive monotony that always seemed to do the same thing without changing or deviating, just repeating over and over again. His boredom was profound, and he was disappointed at the thought that it didn’t matter whether he continued sitting here forever or walking another sixty miles; it would all look the same anyway.

Another twenty minutes passed. The couple remained immersed in their own thoughts, speaking only briefly to divvy up a granola bar. Another granola bar. Why is it that when you see the commercials, people always look so happy as they stare out at the natural world eating a granola bar? The man had eaten so many granola bars that he’d begun to view the act of eating one as a grudging duty he was performing for his body. As he peeled the wrapper down further to wrestle out the last bite, he was dreading the feeling of the granola sliding down his throat like swallowing a handful of pebbles. A plate full of nicely chilled coleslaw and a hot dog would hit the spot right now. Maybe that could be followed up by a popsicle. Or maybe a… Stop it! There was no sense daydreaming about foods that couldn’t be found within a hundred miles of here. Tepid water and a throat packed with granola. That was what was on the menu this afternoon.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement. A kit fox was eyeing them warily from a hundred yards away, its shaggy brown coat blending nicely with the rocks around it. Had it not been for the movement, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it sitting there. With a soft whisper and as little movement as possible, he called the woman’s attention to the animal. The two humans and the fox sat contemplating one another for a few moments before the fox finally took off and disappeared behind a rise. Kit foxes are typically nocturnal, which set the man’s train of thought down a new path. Forgetting his own discomfort for a moment, he wondered what had roused the animal from its relatively cool den to scan its surroundings. Maybe it was hungry. Maybe the scent of humans was too strong to avoid arousing its curiosity. Maybe it just needed some fresh air. How many of them were there? Was there an entire fox family living just around the next bend?

As he was considering the fox’s motivations, he shifted his position to relieve the pressure on his left buttock. The uneven surface he was sitting on had caused his leg to fall partially asleep. As he moved, he glanced down at his feet, where he noticed what looked like a patch of dirty sand. The sand was clumped together to resemble a dog’s fur caked with dried mud. Except this clump was alive. Barely distinguishable from the inanimate rock all around, this little patch of ground was home to countless billions of single-celled organisms living in a tight-knit community, all but ignored by the world around it. Even by the man who had been sitting next to it for nearly an hour now.

A shadow flitted over the soil crust, and the woman called the man’s attention to a red-tailed hawk drifting lazily on the thermals high above them. What was this hawk thinking as it surveyed the land below? Did it ever tire of the endless monotony of the desert landscape? Maybe not. Perhaps the hawk’s telescopic vision allowed it to probe every nook and cranny of this landscape, always finding something to stoke its curiosity, fire its imagination and nourish its being. Perhaps from the hawk’s point of view, this was a landscape characterized by endless variety and fulfillment.

Perhaps the man’s own discontent had come from not taking the time to scour the landscape with the same intensity as the hawk. The desert was alive around them, even when that fact was not immediately apparent. Even when that fact had been obscured by introverted self-observation.

“Let’s go,” said the man contentedly as the two of them stood up and began walking towards the horizon once again…