Gold
The sands were gold. It was a shade of colour that could not be explained in all the poems or images of the world. The closet comaprison was gold turned into dusted sugar, then sculpted by the wind's hands into a flowing landscape that never remained the same day to day. It was by no means safe--nothing truly beautiful was ever safe. The very disguised savagery of the deceptively empty landscape was just a part of what drew her to it day after day. But the colour of it, here in the setting sun, was nothing she could show to anyone except by witnessing it themselves.
The sand was the reason she loved being brought to the pyramids. They took on a unique, clear hue here, compared to the dirty streets of home. An archeologist father meant trips everywhere, and the pyramids drew her like no other structures in all of Egypt. From this far away, you could almost imagine their carefully sculpted sides were whole and that the souls of the Pharoahs still rested undisturbed underneath. From this far away, you couldn't see the ant-like forms of people clamouring over sacred ground, the cracks in the stone, the worn away sides or the dug out excavation sites. No, you could almost imagine that they were brand new. That they were still pillars of accomplishment in a society centuries before ironworking. The image, of the pyramids whole, comforted her. For hours she'd sit on the golden sands of her home, staring out at them with a faraway look in her eyes until the sun dissapeared and left the desert to the cold.
She couldn't imagine a world not sunk knee deep in sand. Staring at Ra's golden caress along the sands as he sunk beyong the horizon, the thought that anywhere else existed dissapeared to a small pinprick of awareness. This would be the last time she would see them for a very, very long time. She sifted the cooling sand between her fingers, the unique rough texture sliding across her skin and sticking to the soles of her feet. A letter lay discarded, only half of it visibile above the sand that had buried it, almost as if the desert was tasting the foreign words, the roman letters, and had decided to slowly absorb them. She much preferred the ancient hand of her mother's ancestors, the clean lines and careful turns of the brush to create the old symbols, to the sterile letters of her father's native tongue. But it was her father's heritage that was calling her--that deep, wide desperate urge for knowledge inherited from both sides of her family.
The word Kansas twisted on her tongue, thin and lacking taste like purified water. Cairo was sweeter, thicker. Staring out at the dying horizon, the unique shades of colour drawn against the sky, she put out of her mind the fact she'd be on the plane in just a few hours. Her body would leave Egypt, would fly across the long seas to a place that was flat and cold, and American.
But her soul would stay here, buried in the gold sands, waiting for her return to claim it back again.
The sand was the reason she loved being brought to the pyramids. They took on a unique, clear hue here, compared to the dirty streets of home. An archeologist father meant trips everywhere, and the pyramids drew her like no other structures in all of Egypt. From this far away, you could almost imagine their carefully sculpted sides were whole and that the souls of the Pharoahs still rested undisturbed underneath. From this far away, you couldn't see the ant-like forms of people clamouring over sacred ground, the cracks in the stone, the worn away sides or the dug out excavation sites. No, you could almost imagine that they were brand new. That they were still pillars of accomplishment in a society centuries before ironworking. The image, of the pyramids whole, comforted her. For hours she'd sit on the golden sands of her home, staring out at them with a faraway look in her eyes until the sun dissapeared and left the desert to the cold.
She couldn't imagine a world not sunk knee deep in sand. Staring at Ra's golden caress along the sands as he sunk beyong the horizon, the thought that anywhere else existed dissapeared to a small pinprick of awareness. This would be the last time she would see them for a very, very long time. She sifted the cooling sand between her fingers, the unique rough texture sliding across her skin and sticking to the soles of her feet. A letter lay discarded, only half of it visibile above the sand that had buried it, almost as if the desert was tasting the foreign words, the roman letters, and had decided to slowly absorb them. She much preferred the ancient hand of her mother's ancestors, the clean lines and careful turns of the brush to create the old symbols, to the sterile letters of her father's native tongue. But it was her father's heritage that was calling her--that deep, wide desperate urge for knowledge inherited from both sides of her family.
The word Kansas twisted on her tongue, thin and lacking taste like purified water. Cairo was sweeter, thicker. Staring out at the dying horizon, the unique shades of colour drawn against the sky, she put out of her mind the fact she'd be on the plane in just a few hours. Her body would leave Egypt, would fly across the long seas to a place that was flat and cold, and American.
But her soul would stay here, buried in the gold sands, waiting for her return to claim it back again.