Arid

The Morning Light Cafe was bustling with its usual breakfast crowd when I walked in. I nodded at the familiar faces - the old timers reading their newspapers, the young professionals gulping down coffee before work. As I waited in line to order, I checked my phone nervously. Still nothing from Melanie.

We were supposed to meet for breakfast this morning to talk things through. Our relationship had been on the rocks lately and this breakfast was supposed to be a chance to reconnect. But it was already 15 minutes past our meeting time and my texts were going unanswered.

My heart sank as the minutes ticked by. The cheery cafe with its warm smells and friendly chatter now seemed to be closing in on me. I realized Melanie wasn't coming.

I wandered over to an empty table by the window overlooking the street. Outside, people hurried along the sidewalks, off to important meetings and busy days. Inside, I had nowhere to be.

The waitress came by with a pot of coffee and a sympathetic smile. "Meeting someone?" she asked kindly as she filled my cup. I nodded, not meeting her eyes. She left the pot and told me to holler if I needed a warm-up.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing. I stared blankly out the window, the sounds of the cafe fading into background noise. Maybe Melanie and I were never meant to be, I thought. We wanted such different things in life. She was the adventurous one, always looking for the next thrill. And me? I was content with my comfortable job, my familiar routines...

The vibration of my phone jolted me from my thoughts. A text from Melanie! My heart leapt as I opened it eagerly. But the words I saw sent my heart plummeting all over again. She wasn't coming. She needed time - space from me, space from us. I set the phone down with shaking hands.

Numbly, I paid my bill and headed out of the cafe, the door chiming behind me as it closed. I walked without thinking, without seeing, eager to get away from the inertia of my life.

I'm not sure how long or how far I walked. The bustling downtown streets gave way to residential areas, then finally to the outskirts of the city itself. I looked around, suddenly conscious of my surroundings. I was near the edge of town, where the urban sprawl ended abruptly, and the naked landscape began.

I walked towards it; drawn by some instinct I didn't understand. The houses dropped away behind me and then I was walking on the cracked soil, the city's skyline still visible behind me. The emptiness of the landscape opened up around me, more freeing than frightening. I kept going.

The sun beat down from directly overhead now. It must be noon, but I had no conception of time anymore. I was just moving forward through the shimmering heat, my thoughts blown about like tumbleweeds.

In the distance, I noticed a small building, separated from the city outskirts by several miles of barren terrain. As I got closer, I saw it was a rundown gas station, a forgotten relic from an earlier era. The windows were covered in dirt, and it clearly hadn't been operational in years.

I wandered around to the back of the gas station, moving slower now under the beating midday sun. There was an ancient Coke machine there, rusted and covered in cobwebs. And leaning up against it, to my complete astonishment, was a bright red Vespa scooter.

My mind could not make sense of this highly improbable scene - a shiny vintage scooter here in the middle of nowhere. It looked totally out of place against desolation, almost an affront to the emptiness.

I approached it slowly, expecting it to disappear like a mirage. But it remained solidly, improbably real. There was a helmet hanging on the handlebars, and when I picked it up, I saw keys in the ignition. Who would leave a working scooter out here like this? It felt like a message, a sign, an escape pod sent from some distant world. An opportunity.

Without thinking, I put on the helmet, threw my leg over and kick-started the bike. It roared to life beneath me, breaking the immense silence. I paused for just a moment, looking back at the dusty skyline of my old life. Then I revved the engine once, twice, and tore off across the barren landscape.

The dry ground streaked beneath me in a blur. The wind whipped against my skin, whistling through my clothes. The scooter bounced roughly over the rocky earth, but I pushed it faster, flying forward recklessly. I felt suddenly free of everything - my quiet life, my heartbreak, the person I thought I was supposed to be. Out here there were no expectations, no limits.

I rode until I came to a small canyon lined with eroded cliffs. A narrow trail ran down its center, covered in loose pebbles. I hesitated only a second before guiding the scooter down the steep path. The wheels kicked up a haze of dust as I descended sharply. The cliffs closed in around me, looming and ancient.

The trail emptied out into a wide valley hemmed in on all sides by weathered rock formations. Spectacular colored cliffs striated with mineral deposits rose sharply above the valley floor. I gazed up at them in awe for a moment before driving slowly onward.

The scooter's buzzing motor echoed off the canyon walls as I explored the remote valley. After the city, it felt like an alien planet here. It was totally silent apart from the scooter's engine. There was not a single sign of civilization - no power lines, no trails, no litter. No one ever came here. The isolation sent a shiver through me, but I pressed on.

I came upon a small, perfectly circular crater sunk into the valley floor. It looked almost like a meteor impact site. I parked the scooter at its rim and peered down cautiously. The crater's symmetry and smooth edges gave it an eerie, unnatural feel. I picked up a stone and dropped it over the edge, waiting for the sound of it striking the bottom. It never came. The rock disappeared into the inky darkness without a sound.

A prickle of fear finally pierced my adrenaline rush. Where was I? I hadn't passed another living soul since I left the city. For the first time, I considered what I was doing out here alone.

Just then, a menacing rumble echoed through the valley, shaking the ground beneath my feet. I looked up to see a wall of dark storm clouds rolling in rapidly from the west, swallowing up the bleached sky. The wind picked up, whistling through the valley's rocky fangs.

I raced back to the scooter as the first fat raindrops began splattering the parched ground. Within moments, the storm was upon me - drenching rain pounding down, wings blasting me from all sides. Forked lightning cracked through the sky above the valley walls. I gunned the scooter's engine, racing for cover.

I realized I had nowhere to escape the storm. My only choice was a small cave cut into the base of one of the rock walls. I turned the scooter and made for it as an earsplitting thunderclap shook the valley.

I reached the cave just as the worst of the storm was hitting. I parked the scooter inside and crawled as far back into the narrow cave as I could, my heart pounding. Outside, the tempest raged with primordial intensity. My adrenaline drained away, leaving me small and vulnerable. What was I doing here?

The storm pounded the valley for hours before slowly moving on. When it finally passed, I emerged from the cave on shaky legs to survey the flooded valley. It was nearing sunset. The clouds parted to reveal a brilliant bruise-colored sky. I knew I should head back, but I found myself wandering towards the valley's heart instead.

An otherworldly landscape opened up before me. Spires of eroded stone dotted the valley floor, burning blood red in the sunset. Strange, winding rock formations loomed all around like natural skyscrapers. And dotting the valley were countless craters just like the first - ancient-looking but perfectly symmetrical. This was a mystic, alien place. I moved through it in a daze, the Vespa forgotten.

The last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the cliffs and darkness fell over the valley. The rocks took on forbidding shapes in the shadows. A bone-deep isolation settled over me once again. But this time, it felt strangely familiar.

I imagined staying here forever, dissolving into the darkness and perfect silence. Becoming just another anonymous speck in this unknowable expanse.

I suddenly noticed my own light, tiny but surprisingly bright in the blackness. It was coming from a small gadget on my keychain - a cheap solar-powered flashlight I'd gotten at a conference. Its solar cells must have absorbed enough sunlight during the day to power it through the night.

Like me, it was lost and out of place here. But also like me, it refused to be extinguished. I clutched the tiny light like a talisman as I made my way back to the cave on feet made sure by instinct. The darkness felt crowded now, filled with unseen presences and echoes.

I found the cave again and collapsed gratefully onto the smooth rock floor. I fell asleep cradling my tiny light, its pale glow keeping the shadows at bay.

When I woke, sunlight was streaming into the cave entrance once more. The valley outside looked washed clean, the day's heat already rising in wavy lines off the rocks. I stepped outside hesitantly, like a time traveler returning to a changed world.

My sturdy little flashlight had kept me company through the night, but its light was fading now in the sun's glare. A powerful longing for home welled up in me - for light, for company, for the familiar shape of things. I hastily made my way back to the scarlet Vespa.

The ride back passed in a blur of jarring motion and swirling dust. The desolate landscape raced by on either side as I retraced my route through the outer valleys toward the city. Gradually the distant skyline appeared on the horizon once more. I gunned the scooter faster - back to civilization, back to everything I knew.

I left the scooter parked right where I had found it behind the abandoned gas station. Already the whole surreal adventure felt dreamlike, erased by the ordinary bustle of the city streets. Had I really ridden that scooter into the middle of nowhere, gotten caught in a storm, spent the night alone in a hidden valley? But my helmet and dusty clothes were undeniable proof.

I wandered back downtown in a thoughtful daze, not quite ready to return to my real life, whatever that was. Turning a corner, I found myself suddenly back in front of the Morning Light Cafe. I peered in the window, half-expecting to see my ghost self still sitting there waiting for Melanie. But of course it was a different day, a different crowd.

I went inside and took a seat at the counter, ordering my usual. When the waitress brought my food, I asked for an application as well. She looked surprised but handed one over.

A strange sensation had come over me, like I was seeing my life here with new eyes. I gazed out the window at the bustling city streets, marveling at their familiar strangeness. Everything seemed illuminated in the same way my little flashlight had lit up the darkness.

The desert adventure had somehow reset me. I felt ready now to choose where I belonged, instead of just drifting through. Maybe I'd work at the cafe for a while, save up for my own place. I'd join the neighborhood book club, hike the state parks on weekends. My life could be small but still bright. Like that indomitable little light, I realized I had a choice: allow the darkness to extinguish me, or keep shining however I could.

Back here, I was whole. Scarred, but wiser, I was ready to light up my little corner once more. I had learned from my adventure. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.