It didn't make me glow. I felt more like I was fading away, like the world had forgotten me.

I thought you wanted to catch a camel," you tried again. "No." "I want to." "Well, you go then." You laughed. "I want your beautiful face where I can see it

When the darkness gets easier, you know you're sinking deeper, becoming dead yourself.

The sand stretched out gray and ghostlike and illuminated, a column of light leading forward. It was like something a dead person would see, a tunnel leading toward heaven.

I thought you didn't want to let me go.

Your eyes were too intense to stare into for long.

When I write this in bed, I can almost hear the echo of the wind over the sand, or the groans of wooden panels around me. I can almost smell the dustiness of the camel, taste the bitterness of saltbush. And when I dream, your warm hands cover my shoulders. Your whispers carry stories and sound like the rustle of spinifex. I still wear that ring, you know... at night, when no one is watching.