When Paths Cross In the Desert

By Ithaka O.

In the middle of the desert, a giant dome stands, made of fortified glass.

 

Inside it: another, much smaller dome, black for privacy.

Outside: thirsty humans. Hundreds, possibly thousands.

 

Nora Haynes spends Eternal Summer inside. Luck blessed her that way. Timothy blessed her that way.

 

But as the knocking of the madpeople continues, clamoring for water, her little bitter trick of ignoring them threatens to fall apart...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imaginarium Kim
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637930960

Ithaka O.

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

Book preview

1

The first time someone knocks from the other side, you look up. It’s the natural reaction, one that your grandmother before you and her grandmother before her have gotten from her grandmother who came way before them, so they can survive. Looking in the direction of a sound: a simple way to make sure you see your enemy, who might bludgeon you to death to take what’s rightfully yours. Then you can fight, flight, freeze—whichever you prefer or are capable of doing. Simple.

But this was no natural situation. From here, I couldn’t take flight. From here, we couldn’t fight. I could freeze, sure. But there was no reason to, because no one could bludgeon me to death. I was very aware of that. I’d made myself be aware of that over many months, so that when someone knocked from the other side, I didn’t look up.

I’d thought I’d mastered this bitter trick. I watered the sweet little solitary yellow flower while the person kept knocking on the glass to get my attention. The person, because I resolutely refused to notice whether they were male, female, old, or young.

Here was how you did it. You looked down. Concentrated on the delicate oblong petals. Watched how, even when you aimed the narrow, quite precise stream of water right at the root of the flower, some of the water bounced off the arid ground. It behaved like extremely dry skin. You could put all the best moisturizing creams you wanted, it would still hurt and refuse to absorb most of the good ingredients, because it wasn’t functioning as it should. Such skin was broken. So was this ground. With its cracks so deep I couldn’t see the bottom, sometimes it just spat the water droplets right back out instead of letting them seep in.

Anyway, you looked down and watched the water and the flower. Admired the beautifully elegant curve of your copper watering can. Wondered that, had you been more interested in flowers and plants in general before the world came to this, if there would’ve been more little yellow flowers on this side, so this one here wouldn’t look so lonely. Or perhaps the seed of this particular yellow flower would’ve miraculously sensed that you were blessed with a green thumb, and would’ve grown closer to the home dome instead of the edge of the outer dome. In that case, since the home dome and outer dome were concentric, I could’ve stayed away from the madman (damn it, now I knew he was a man, I could