Flat Land

The land is flat, stretching on and on for miles and miles.  Going to places I cannot imagine. The earth is pale brown. Parched. It has settled on a hue where yellow, white and brown converge into a shade so lacking in green it can only produce dust. For as far as I can see, the earth is bare and mute, lacking trees, shrubs, blades of grass.
No houses, cars, buildings of any sort.  It is pure flat dusty earth.  The only signs of human life are the two lane highway and an old bus stop.
The wind is continuous, blowing gusts of super fine, dry earth up in pale sandy curtains that at times become so furious they momentarily fade the glare of the sun. 
The road is just in front of me.  A narrow strip of tar once bright black, but now dulled by creeping sandy earth, coming in not just from erosion on the sides, but also by the wind.  As it blows over the highway, a slightly darker canvas than the earth itself, I can see where the wind turns in spirals.  Mini cyclones, small dances. 
I am standing next to a bus stop.  A narrow structure made of clear plastic.  A curved roof, three walls designed to protect against rain and wind.  Its brightness has worn from the sun, a force shining down without clouds to buffer its bright light.  Pure brutal heat. 
Behind the bus stop are four dozen flower pots of various sizes.  There are some short stacks, but most of them sit on the ground.  They are empty vessels, worn and awaiting soil and water.  Some are deep and made of terracotta, others are so shallow, if it were not for the small drainage hole at the bottom they could be mistaken for salad bowls.  There are tiny pots made of blue and white porcelain, the shallow ones are glass, looking like cheap crystal candy dishes.
I am moving them one by one, taking them from the area several feet behind the bus stop and moving them closer to the road.  I am stacking them one on top of the other, creating three piles. 
The wind continues to blow, swooshing in my ears, sounding like a roaring ocean.
I am alone here.  Moving my pots into piles, waiting for a car to pass.

Pool

The sky was perfectly blue and warm, its color matching the bright rectangular pool below a cloudless sky.

The pool was alive with bright blue waters, rippling and bouncing off blue painted cement that had begun to fade and looked like the skin of an old person, splotched and uneven in color. There were speckles of pale blue, spots of cream and white, though the overall image was that of bright blue.

On the cement ground beside the pool sat a deep mesh net on the end of a long metal pole. The net was lined with a few inches of soggy leaves and small dead bugs that had been filtered out of the pool. It sat now silently in a stain of water, a shallow puddle that marked its journey.

The long rectangular pool lapped just a few feet to the right of the white painted house. Closest to one length of the waters were the French doors and side windows of a teenage boy’s room. The shades were drawn oven the door, as were the tiny shades specially made for the two five inch windows on each side of the double doors.

The other long length of the pool was edged with a four-foot high stucco wall. Behind the wall was a wide sloping landscaped hillside covered in lavender and large bushes that were every color of green and yellow. Bees moved purposefully between lavender flowers, staying close to their nectar and never veering away from the boundary of plants to human domain. At the top of the hill were large pine and birch trees and barely visible beyond them was the geometric roof of the neighboring house.

There was a girl floating in the pool. Her lower half was covered in a small orange, yellow and green narrow Brazilian bikini bottom. Her pale white breasts were covered in a shiny black bra. She was in the pool, in the center of a hot pink inner tube made of clear plastic that was opaque enough to look through and see the light filled waters below.

The only other thing in the water with her was the fleshy plastic mouth of a pool pump that sucked on the cement edges of the submerged floor. It was attached to a long white plastic hose that was connected like an umbilical cord to one vertical wall of the pool.

She held onto the float with her arms while her feet propelled her across the length of the pool. She was breathing heavily while she moved her legs in an amphibian way, drawing her touching soles together and towards her crotch, then pushing them apart and out, and then, completing the circle, drawing them in once again.

Amidst her laps, she would look occasionally to the French doors covered in shades. There was just a foot of non-covered window at the very bottom of the door and she would look towards it, searching for eyes.

The water was a perfect balance of warmth and refreshing coolness. It lapped across the edges of the pool and spilled over onto the cement floor of the walkways surrounding it. Long streaks of it continued past the black metal gate several feet from the end of the pool. The gate stretched from the pale stucco wall edging the lavender and ended beside the wall of the house, very close to the kitchen door that led to the patio.

Beyond the metal gate was the formal patio area with a floor of red bricks that had been heated by the sun. As water from the pool spilled over the edges and past the metal gate, it met the hot red bricks and some of it turned immediately into steam.

The formal patio was cluttered with various pieces of outdoor furniture. A wrought iron circular table and six matching chairs sat close to the metal fence, as did a small circular fire pit and two chairs made out of metal and gray plastic fabric.

Across the fifteen feet of red bricks, on the edge, by the grass, were two chairs and matching ottomans that were made of espresso colored rattan and padded with thick beige pillows. Perpendicular to them, against the white wall of the house, was a long sofa made of the same style and covered with the same beige pillows.

The girl drifted in the pool. There was only the sound of the lapping water. She made lazy laps and protected her sensitive lips from the sun whenever she turned towards it.

The Wet Mountain

There is a rocky mountainside, covered halfway up in stones the size of human heads. All the boulders are dark gray and cold and slightly wet. The mountain is wide and tall, but it connects to an even larger mountain range to the north. In the distance, the mountains are brown and barren and covered only in scattered patches of dry grass. The sun is hiding somewhere behind a thick haze of clouds. The light is still very bright, the kind of light that requires squinting. The day seems new, but slightly drained in energy, as though something very intense has just vanished and what remains is slightly diminished. At the base of the mountain range is a receding sea. The water is dark blue and choppy with white caps. It flows out towards the horizon in a hurry, as though something was waiting for it beyond the thin line of sight. The wide mountain is mostly covered in heavy rocks, but as the mound moves closer to a tip, the rocks become smaller and smaller, until they are just small pebbles hidden between blades of dried grass. There is one four foot trail that travels the length of earth from peak to ocean, but there are other scattered trails that are much thinner, only wide enough for one person at a time. Close to the shore is a thicket of trees beside a clearing thirty feet wide. They are as tall and thin as eucalyptus, only they have darker and wider leaves and more full reaching boughs that create a wide canopy. The clearing is smooth and flat and free of all rocks. Because of the trees, it is covered in a nearly green-black shade. The earth here is damp and smells of wet bark. To the left of the clearing and trees is a grouping of dark wood condominiums. The singular structure is angular and modern and would give off a very cold emotion if not for the wood used to construct it. The collection of two-story houses each have double pane windows and wide sliding glass doorways that face the seashore and the thicket of trees. On the lower floor, beside a sliding glass door, is a dead white horse laying on the ground. Its legs are curled close to its body in the fetal position. The glass doors reveal the occupants of the houses. There are people. They are swollen and pale and laying on their backs on the damp linoleum of their kitchens. Their bodies are moist, as are the T-shirts and shorts which clothe their bloated bodies.

Stalker

Beneath a boundless blue sky, there is a small pond in the center of a large grassy field. The yellowed grass is the color and height of mature wheat on an open plane. The tops of the blades sway and ripple in the wind, moving in a thousand directions at once; their constant rustling creates a murmur that adds to the stillness of the land. There is a small tree by the pond, its trunk is thin and its branches are easily bendable in the wind, and although its still young, its canopy is broad enough to provide shade from the relentless sunlight. The pond is shallow and dark blue. At the bottom, the soft earth has turned to a silky soft mud that leaves trails of its black sediment across the feet that step on it. Small bits of algae dot the surface of the water and nearly translucent guppies skip along just below the surface. Small ripples from the wind scatter the waters towards the shoreline, a boundary which is lined with long thin reeds and tiny sprouts of green grass.
There are two sisters wading in the pond. One is tall and lean, her long blond hair blows like the tall grasses around her, her firm breasts are covered by a thin red tube top. Her sister is nearly identical, but just slightly smaller; shorter legs, smaller breasts, tinier waist. The girls are in the center of the pond, their long white legs bare except for their jeans shorts. The water line tickles the skin on their calves. They move their feet up and down like marching soldiers, squeezing the mud between their toes. They are silent, their attention engrossed in the dark water below. They stare at the water and at their buried feet.
There is a man in the distance, he is by the side of a two lane highway a short distance away from the grassy field. He sits upon the hood of his small, beat-up red car. He looks towards the girls in the field through squinted eyes. In his hand is a snapshot of the blond young woman. The highway is deserted, the sun sends heat waves cascading above the asphalt. The man is wearing long blue jeans and an old stained T-shirt. In the sun, the lines of his thirty year old face are just beginning to show. His eyes squint in the bright sunlight. He stares at the girls who are oblivious to his presence. The wind rattles through the air, like a muted siren among the grass.