My frizzy curls stuck to my temples and the back of my neck as I fished a sweaty bill from my pocket, but the merchant held up his hand against it like I was offering him a spider. Nothing but me, the merchant I’d caught a ride with in town, and that towering mass of structured stone in the distance that was to be my new home. They were all just the desert’s cruel trick. Or an Afar caravan carting slabs of salt cut from the desert’s floor to be sold in the market. Others, a snake looking to escape under a rock. Sometimes they came as ripples on a pool of water. Heat waves created illusions of life out on the sand. I clutched my satchel, squinting against the dying sun. Sweltering heat hit me like the sudden leap of a bonfire when I traded the protection of the mule-drawn cart’s tarp for burning sand.
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