I moved my hands through the blue, papery flames. The desert sun was blistering overhead in the brilliant desert sky, casting angry, yellow rays that baked the rough sand and us. The cold fire helped a bit. 

My eyes fluttered from object to insulating object before resting on the nomad sitting cross-legged on the insulating cloth floor of the tent. He was clad in the general nomad fashion, oily garments, thick-leather boots, a resilient yet beaten-down turban, and respirators resembling the face of some sickly insect dead in the desert’s heat.

“Tell me,” I began, knowing that I did not have to finish. Articulating my questions was completely arbitrary; by some peculiar design or the other, he was always aware of my queries beforehand, and had always spared me the need to vocalise them. It made matters simpler, renouncing redundancies is the survivalists motto in these vapid surroundings.

Today, however, he was silent, almost deliberately oblivious of my icebreaker. He sat still, unmoving, spine-straight, his eyes crinkled behind the respirates, his breathing slow and rasping.

The silence stretched on but was not uncomfortable. We had spent hundreds of hours in unbroken silence during the course of our travels and had grown used to, even fond of, the bated stillness of the desert.

Beyond the thick curtains of the tent, the sun slowly ambled its way behind the giant mounds of sand; and inside the thick curtains of the tent, the light changed from a fierce, shielded yellow to a matte gold. The temperature dropped a couple of degrees, partly due to the sunset and partly due to the heat-sucking blue flames, though for miles and miles around our little camp the rolling waves of sand would maintain a steady sixty degree celsius for a good while still.

I looked away from the curtains and attempted to catch my friend’s gaze. He let it be caught easily, like a fisherman allowing his catch to swallow the bait. We remained in this manner for some time, watching each other placidly, me trying to ask a question, him knowing my question and adamantly refusing to answer it.

“Yes?” He encouraged me.

“Hm.”

Silence again.

“I-I” I had fallen out of practice speaking, “Th-the flame, why is it cold?”

“Do you mean, how is it cold?”

“Ye-” I stopped myself, and nodded.

“The fire is burning Kalkacite. It’s a kind of organic matter we grow in trees. We have positioned it in such a manner, mathematically speaking, that it is simultaneously in our dimension and in the Seventh Dimension. Or rather, the beginning of the fire is with us, and the end in the Seventh Dimension. Have I told you about the Seventh? Or did I call it the Nether? Doesn’t matter. The wood takes in heat from our surroundings, but the heat from the combustion stays in the Nether. The Nether warms up, and we, much deservedly, cool down. Do you understand?”

It was unnecessary for him to ask. I shook my head at him but he was purposefully looking away. I shook harder, and then harder still. Finally, I took the hint that he wasn’t going to take the hint.

“No,”

“The Kalkacite wood needs to take in heat to burn, so that takes away some heat from around us. The combustion would release significantly more heat, however that heat is released in the Nether and cannot reach us, thus we have a net cooling effect.”

“What is the Nether?”

“It’s a dimension with its down dimensions. For our purposes, imagine it as an alternate reality.”

He lapsed back into silence in that abrupt fashion of his. All around us, the weary band of nomads shuffled around and made camp. We would be staying here for a while, and the tents needed insulation, layers upon layers of it, and a myriad of traps to catch the desert mice.

“Say,“ I say after much rehearsal, “why do the lengths of our days fluctuate so wildly?”

“It’s complicated, for it is only loosely related to astronomy and more entangled with the history of our species, and that’s something we don’t talk about.”

“Why not?”

“It’s formed of events and incidences best left buried.”

“Your planet- our planet- it has two stars, doesn’t it? In a circumbinary orbit. It’s evident that the Yellow Star, as you call it, is slightly altered after every-”

“Listen, you are very smart. Far smarter than we were at your age; but that comes with its own cons. I wish you could know of our mistakes, and avoid them; however it is better to erase them from the planet’s memory, so that you will keep from ever dreaming them up altogether. This home of ours was not always so barren; when I was young my grandmother would tell me stories of roaring oceans teeming with life and green plains more widespread than the deserts. Maybe you deserved that world more than we did; maybe you would have created a worse hellscape than this. Either way, it doesn’t matter. That reality is now so far behind it might’ve just been a dream. I wish it were, you cannot destroy dreams. I cannot give you the old world back, but I can give you something else.”

I waited for him to continue.

“Your water bearer, I’m taking him with us.”

“Excuse me?”

“We leave soon.”

I glanced over at the figure sitting placidly hunched over in the corner. He belonged to a species different from us, but not completely dissimilar from us. He, like many of his species, was short and muscular, with brown, leathery skin and lanky arms, a snubby tail, and lungs robust enough to withstand the torrefied desert air. His pupils were coal black and kilometres deep, surrounded by a bright-blue retina and an ever present glint of intellect that never truly sparked into genius. Strapped around his waist and held fast by a leather belt was a butcher’s knife, a mouse trap, a handgun (for when the knife was not enough), and, most prominently, a flask of fresh water. 

“Why? What do you mean taking away, we are both travelling to the city, aren’t we?”

“No, just you are. We- and I speak for all members of our tribe, those still with us and those departed- have grown tired of cities. We will take the long road and head north; check if there really is a great sea leftover, or if it is all some idle fantasy. I wish to see the roaring waves and compact sand, I wish to feel a breeze on my face, I wish to breathe real air for a change.” 

“I still don’t understand, we were always aiming for the city; and why are you taking him with you!”

“Two reasons.”

“And they are?”

He looked at me oddly for a moment before answering, “You don’t need a water-bearer, you can bring your water yourself.”

“Myself?”

“Yes.”

“And why not him?”

“Because it is a tedious job, and not one that requires an entire post to itself.”

“But Jason likes bringing water!”

“It’s all he knows but not all he will love.”

“He is my friend, I can bring water for myself, but how will I move through this sweltering hellscape without companionship?”

The nomad smiled, “That is the second reason, I want you to feel loss.”

“Why?”

“For the greater good, of course.”

“That is not a valid argument, that is never a valid argument, you yourself taught me that,” I sat up on my knees, my fingers unconsciously curled up into fists on my thighs.

“What is this anger for?”

“Huh?”

“Your anger, does it stem from the loss of a friend, or are you vexed that I am taking something away from you.”

I calmed down a little, “I still don’t understand.”

“You will, one day. For now, I need you to tell me how you feel.”

“Sorry?”

“Your emotions, in detail if you will.”

“I feel-” and obviously I had no clue how to describe my feelings. I didn't even know how I was supposed to feel. Come to think of it, since our acquaintance I had left it up to the nomad to direct my feelings. 

“I don’t know how I feel,” I answered honestly.

“Think.”

“For what purpose? We are a stone’s throw away from the city and its air-conditioners, we have a week of rest to rejuvenate ourselves and two entire weeks to complete our travels. Why this sudden shift in-”

“Think,” he cut me off with a wave of his wrinkled hand, “back to the time when we started our journey. How many companions did you have back then?”

“Several.”

“And how many are still with us?”

I opened my mouth to respond and exhaled empty air through the filters of my respirator. How many of us were left? I had lost count weeks ago, and it had been a while since I had conversed with my companions; or, for that matter, with anyone other than the silent nomad and the faithful Jason.

I pulled my backpack close and fished out a small cloth sack from the far depths of my belongings. I untied the knot at the mouth and emptied the rubies on the carpet. They had belonged to the hilts of my fallen comrade’s swords, and although we had been forced to leave the bodies behind for the desert rats and whatever vermins still thrived in this necropolis, the gems were too precious.

I caressed each shiny bit of rock gently and arranged them single file in a neat arc. Twenty-three. The day we had escaped the fire that had swept across our village we had counted ourselves to be twenty five strong.

“We’re the only ones left, me and Jason.”

“Yes, yes you are.”

“God.”

“You hadn’t even noticed, had you?”

“I did, peripherally, but not really; I hadn’t registered it internally.”

“Do you remember your companions, can you recall how they fell?”

“Yes, yes of course. Sharon fell prey to dysentery midway through the desert, Jacob succumbed to an infected bite, Horace went peacefully in his sleep. I remember them all, it’s just that I lost count midway through.”

“Did you grieve for them?”

“What?”

“Did you grieve for them after their passing?”

“No, why?”

“You blocked them out of your minds instantly so that they won’t hurt you. It’s almost as if they had never existed, isn’t it?”

“Well-”

“And I thought we were heartless; we would at least mourn for a few days before trying to move on. You do it instantly.”

I bowed my head, abashed and unsure of how to act appropriately at the scolding, “Why are you telling me this? Why all of a sudden? What good is it to feel pain when the heat and exhaustion already dominate our beings.”

“None, presumably. I haven’t been able to decipher the correct response to loss,  but I am an expert in the incorrect responses to loss. It doesn’t do any good to bury the memories so ruthlessly. Let them live a bit longer, if only in our memories.”

“I suppose,” is the best answer I can patch together.

He sighed, closed his eyes, adjusted his respirator, and continued in a toned-down, almost apologetic voice, “It is not your fault. We’re the ones that put you in this hell hole and now I am getting mad at you for adapting to it. When your generation was young there was too much loss to go around, and so you grew desensitised to it. You opted to erase the dead from your minds so that you might not share the same fate, but you don’t have to live like that anymore.

“We will leave tomorrow, in search of the ocean, in pursuit of that which we have destroyed; and you can go on to your cities and budding metropolises. Maybe your brutal history will give you the perspective to do things differently. You will make mistakes, you will make plenty of mistakes, but hopefully you won’t make them in as conceited a manner as we did.  I doubt you will have the chance, because God knows there is little left to demolish. Only the sand and the rock, and you won’t have the technology to face them for a millenia yet. What worries me is the havoc you might wreck upon yourself, upon each other. That is why I want you to experience loss, to live it and not stifle it down. It would be hilarious if we came this far to restoring our godforsaken home only to have you botch it all up due to the same mistakes we did. History repeats itself, but it cannot if we wipe it out entirely. Get your water yourself, and learn to experience loss so that you might retain the ability to love. God be willing, one day you and Jason will be reunited, and if you are able then to love together, and grieve together, and bring water and food and comfort to one another, then even the sun might return to its designated path.”

“To each other?”

The nomad sank his head, almost burying it in his stomach. 

“Of course that is the first objection you raise; I suppose that too is our fault. If only we hadn’t made so many mistakes while trying to fix our mistakes. Yes, for each other, Jason to you, and you to Jason. I am sorry you find that such outlandish a prospect. We did too, once, and annihilated ourselves in the process.”

He paused to lick his lips and I could sense him restraining himself.

“I’ve said too much already. Experience is richer than lectures. Go on then, go on and build a better world for your children than that we built for our children; though in truth we did more destroying than building.”

I seated myself comfortably on the cushions again. The ensuing silence was both natural and meditative. Silence had been a major instrument in their quest for restoration, and it would continue to be that for us. The heat has evaporated the desire to speak from our souls, and the resulting quietude has opened for us a novel mode of communication and enabled us to understand and commune with one another almost telepathically. 

“And yet increasing you are reluctant to do even that,” the nomad interjected, once again reading flawlessly through the folds of my brain. 

“Mhm?”

But he smiles, “No, no, I have said too much already, that lesson is for another time, or hopefully you will have figured it out before I get the chance to lecture you on it.”

He looked at me with those odd, wrinkled eyes and I knew the time to part would be soon. 

“Should I then prepare to part with Jason?”

A final smile, probably the last of his that I will ever be able to witness.

“Yes, yes you should, and God bless you, your forebears, and all those who will come after you.”