The most notable thing about the desert is its profound sense emptiness. It builds slowly on a man, indefinable at first. Then one day it creeps up on you, sudden and powerful, and whether you have the words to describe it or not, you know one thing for sure.
You feel absolutely alone.
That morning as the man stood on the crest of a hill, not a quarter of a mile from the highway hotel at which he had been staying, it struck him; he’d give anything to see another human being. Somebody. Anybody. He might have even settled for some quality time with that crazy eye.
He stood there in the middle of the road, and looked at the sunrise. The sky was a magnificent blue in contrast with the rocky brown earth beneath it, beautiful and terrible. In every direction the emptiness of the desert stood like a insurmountable wall. The mountains to the west seemed to be only one way out. He didn’t realize it but he already subconsciously decided that they were his goal. What he would find there was irrelevant, they were a touchstone, and trekking towards those mountains seemed like a lot better option then going out over the open desert.
He knew this wasn’t his day to leave; he knew he would have to go back to the way station, but it felt good to be out in the morning air before it became unbearably hot, and after looking at the sunrise for a while his eyes began to wander over the surrounding landscape, rising and falling with the hills, taking in the scrubs and withered trees until...
Until he saw something…
Someone. (Someone!)
He was looking south. Seventy yards past the edge of the old road the terrain dropped off into a sort of shallow gorge that crookedly wound towards the mountains. The gorge itself was no more then a mile long. Standing on the opposite ridge, silhouetted against the horizon was a figure, a person.
The man razed his hand to the sky and began to frantically wave it.
A person! he thought. A PERSON!
When the figure did not respond to his waving, he began to shout.
“Hey! HEY! Over here! I’m over here! Buddy! Look over HERE!”
The figure didn’t respond even in the slightest, only stood there like a statue.
Watching.
Probably watching. The man could make out both shoulders so either the person was looking right at him or directly away from him, but surely the figure would have turned at the sound of the shouting. Wouldn’t it have? His arm’s waving pace began to slow and then altogether stopped; he didn’t like the way it was watching him.
The figure lingered for a few moments longer, turned (Oh he'd been watching alright), and started walking away from the man, slowly disappearing behind the ridge.
Well that was freaking creepy, the man thought. Ain’t gonna follow you buddy, and you better not follow me. Maybe being alone isn’t so bad after all.
The man was almost as fast going back to the way station as he had been leaving it.