Choices

The desert is an unforgiving place. This one is called Death Valley for a reason. Every living thing here has to fight for survival. Temperatures over 100 degrees, no clouds in the sky, no rain fall for months. It is a desolate, lonely place, where each being has to do whatever it can to survive. And we would have to fight too, or else our bones, bleached white by the unforgiving sun, would become just another set of bones found on the desert floor, tossed about by hungry animals, their tummies full and swollen.

“We should have stay with the car,” she whined. “At least there was shade in the car… and it is easier to find a car in the desert than two lost people.” She was tired, she was hot, and she was cranky.

I knew she was right. Staying with the car would have been a better choice than walking along this hot, desolate, windswept highway. Searching the horizon for life, or a building, or anything, the waves of heat shimmered just above the steaming blacktop of the highway. When I left the car, I was certain another car or biker or someone would come along before now.

Choosing to walk back along the highway was my idea. Mine alone. I couldn’t bear to just sit there, to watch her sweat, her shirt getting more and more damp, her breathing labored from the hot, dry air. Seeing her like that, I had to do something. I had to act.

So I chose to walk back along the highway. Back in the direction of the last person, last building we had seen on this bleak stretch of road. I was hoping to find help before the desert heat and glaring sun turned us into dry, brittle mummies. My need to do “something” probably killed us – set our death journey in motion.

She was right, as usual; we should have stayed with the car.

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