The desert sun scrambles my eyes as I wake up. I feel the sand caked in my ears and beard hair. The sun screams in my face, I can practically hear the sizzle and bubbling of my skin. I try to move my arm but sharp pain jolts across my nerves. My shoulder and leg are both infected. I can tell immediately. With all my strength I turn my head to see a vulture pecking away at my hat, I feel another grabbing my pants with its beak. I try to let out a scream to scatter them, make them realize I'm not dead, but nothing escapes my parched, dry mouth except for a small wheeze of what would be sound. My canteen is only a few inches away, the cap is still secure on it. I muster up my power, pushing through the excruciating pain of my arm. I crawl over towards it, the vultures now intently watching me as this seemingly dead man begins to move once more. My tired and weak fingers grip the grains of sand, pushing back against each microscopic piece as I trudge forward on what seems to be an eternity of pain and everlasting thirst. I feel myself aging more and more as I crawl.
I'm a man of 32, wishing to drink.
I'm a man of 45, the sand falls out of my hair as I lose it. I'm still wishing to drink.
I'm a man of 67, my kidney is failing. I still wish to drink.
I'm a man of 80, I can't drink anymore.
Yet, in the clutch of death, I make it to my canteen. I chug it down, probably the fastest I've ever drank anything. The water was like lava down my throat, it had boiled in the metal canteen, but I kept gulping it, even as it scraped against my throat like shards of glass in liquid form. My finger's burning from the hot metal of the canteen, sizzling was audible and the smell of bacon filled my nose for an instant before I finished the painful experience and tossed the canteen aside.
I take a minute to catch my breath and clutch my stomach, I can feel the water tenderizing my insides. I scream obscenities into the abyssal void that is the desert.
No one hears me.
No one hears the cry to survive.
