the road to nowhere is paved with chance-

there is only one way to go, from morocco through mauritania. one spectacular road that is actually paved. the road turns to sand, the sand into stories, and the stories into figs for you to taste through these dehydrated words:

day 1- sometimes when the bus is driving through the desert at night, i wonder if it will veer off the path, through the dunes into the ocean, with a sleeping foot pressed down on the gas pedal and dreaming. at moments i feel so asleep that i don't know the difference between trust and the inevitable; then i am jolted into consciousness by the sudden movements of the bus, swirving to save our selves from smashing into a toppling truck stacked with hay; breaking too fast around an invisible corner or in avoidance of the wild camels sleeping in the streets.

i can see the shape of these flatlands emerging in the moonlight; see where the arid ends in ocean and the wind and moon meet on the crests of waves. occasionally, intense gusts of the desert storm will whip clouds of crystal into the air, scarring the sides of the bus and blinding the infinite road ahead.

day 2-dahkla

this town is like the skeleton of something that happened by accident, the ghost of a hasty mistake. the inhabitants are a resistant entourage of nomads seeking substance in the desert and finding it only in eachother, then leaving. the streets are broken, doors locked shut and clothes suspended on the line, bleached by the sun and waiting for bodies but warming only the wind. the children here play soccer alone, kicking the deflated balls against abandoned walls because they can't find eachother's feet..

day 3-there is nothing now but the occasional saharawi cayote. 360 degrees of flatlands, savage hawks perched upon low boulders; sand in the street; desert dying in the oppressed ocean. in the morning it is blue, lunar light illuminating the surface of the sand and the rocks repeating themselves to the horizon.