Everything Included

In Which the Sand Never Stops to Help a Suffocating Soul

Sand. Buckets of sand. The stuff was falling down, falling up. A wind that didn't seem to start or end anywhere blew it sideways, all ways, into your eyeballs, up your nostrils, through your ears and out the other side.

It was never ending in its assault, each breath I took was more sand than oxygen. I could almost feel it coating my lungs in tiny, rigid granules. I was sure we'd all be suffocated by the stuff. And if that didn't kill us, I was sure the fact that we were wading through three feet of the stuff-- no, wait. Three and a half feet-- and that it was falling quicker than I could describe how it fell, we would be buried alive. A hodgepodge of heavenly and magical corpses preserved forever in their sandy tombs.

Oh, what was the saying? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Yes, that was exactly where we had landed, a never ending sea of sandy hell. I think I'd prefer the fire.

My father told me to keep moving.

Sure. I'll just trudge through this now four feet of sand while trying to catch my breath as sand clouds my vision and chokes the life out of me.

Crispen took the sand, well, with a grain of sand. He walked with a certain, aggravating nonchalance, over the mounds of sand, his sneakers never getting sucked into the dark depths below. How did he manage to make even this look effortless?

His umbrella was over me, though he hadn't had it during the beetle battle with Gideon, and it too, sank miserably with the weight of all the sand. I saw through the veil of sand Cripsen reaching into his pant pocket.

Don't you dare, Heavensley, I thought. Don't you light up a cigarette like this is just another boring day for you. 

He stopped rustling through his pocket as my thought reached his ears.

"Good," I mumbled; the word was laced with sand as soon as it exited my mouth and fell to the ground, dying before it could reach anyone's ears.

Even my father, whose soles of his boots glowed with the blue of his magic, managed to sail through the sand, barely annoyed by how it pelted his face. Why was no one using their magic to help me sustain a sand-free existence?

"Try to help yourself," Crispen whispered. My eyes immediately rested upon his face, tiny darts lining up their target, aimed, readied, and... fire!

"Really?" I growled as I gave him the best glower I could. For a second, I thought I saw him shudder. "Now's the time you decide to coach me on magic?"

Bits of sand fell into my open mouth--a consequence of being so wordy-- and lodged in between my teeth. They felt awful, the tiny buggers were more annoying than stuck corn kernels. Next time I was forced to come to a layer dripping with sand, I would be sure to bring floss. Mountains of floss.

"You're an owl. You can fly. Fly again," Crispen remarked.

He was a few feet in front of me, his back turned away, the headphones of his walkman placed around his neck. I wanted to give that cord a good pull and watch as the mighty fell.

Cute little cat Chantham meowed in agreement in my arms. I gave him a good rub down, removing the inch of sand that had started to coat his tiny, ivory body. In front of me, I heard my father laugh.

"She flew? Goodness, I bet she almost died," he said, in a playful tone. What was happening? Had madness grabbed the both of them?

The only other person that seemed as bothered by all the sand as I was, was Captain Stormholden. He stood to my left, arms raised above his head, a poor attempt to keep the sand at bay. It coated him like he was nothing more than a dusty bookcase that had been forgotten because of the uninteresting books that graced it's shelves.