Writing Prompt: The heat was intense.

Morning all, Friday is finally here. So buckle up it is the last prompt of the week. Lets see what we can make of it. Timers set and off we go.

I like this. I have no idea what is going on but I expect betrayal and soon, something magical. Even if it is just a person with a water jug. I may have to spend some time with this story later. I like the set up and I sort of like the character too. Or at least I want to know more about them.

Friday, October 27^th: The heat was intense.

The heat was intense.  I felt like my bones were melting inside my skin.  I wondered if my skin was the only thing keeping my body together.  ‘Like boil in a bag soup,’ I thought.  ‘Or is that rice.’

I gave a dry chuckle and only then realized how parched I was.  I licked my lips, sandpaper tongue on sandblasted lips.  I closed my mouth to keep what little moisture I had left from escaping out of my mouth. 

I suspected the sunglasses currently melting permanent divots into the skin of my nose weren’t doing much to keep the moisture from evaporating out of my eyeballs.  I imagined that soon they would be dry shriveled things, like raisins rattling around in my skull.

‘But at least the glasses keep the sand out,’ I thought.  ‘And they help me see.’  The glasses cut the glare and kept the sun from blinding me which is the only reason I tolerated them on my face.  To keep my ears free of sand I plugged them with wadded cloth.  It kept the sand clear and it kept the constant drone of the wind across the desert dunes from driving me mad.

‘Well further mad than I already am,’ I amended.

I didn’t waste the moisture of my breath on a sigh.  This trip had not been my idea.  In fact, I was against it.  I thought it was madness from the start.  I was satisfied with my meager wealth.  It wasn’t much and to be fair most of it had been earned through illegal ventures.  But they had been modest illegal ventures.  Ones that slid beneath the notice of cop and criminal alike.  I was the jaywalker of criminal activity.  If actual criminals heard someone naming me among their number they would simply roll their eyes and keep going without bothering to retort.

I was happy with that.  I never claimed to innocent and pure. I wasn’t that any more than I was evil and nefarious.  I didn’t take any higher ground.  I simply wanted to go unnoticed and then take what I managed to save and leave, going somewhere quiet and peaceful where I didn’t have to worry about anything for the rest of my days.  I wanted to sit in the shade, napping or fishing between bouts of margaritas. I had no grand plans. I just wanted to find some place where I could exist quietly until my liver gave out.  Considering it had been fifteen years since my last drink, I figured I had some time before that happened.  The life I was living now may have been below the radar but it required a sharpness and even the slight dulling of booze was more danger than I felt comfortable with.  The margaritas would not only be a pleasant haze, but an sign that I was in a place where I could let my guard down.  I hadn’t been drunk since my best friend and I stole a bottle of my father’s scotch in the eight grade. I was looking forward to giving extended inebriation a go.

But then there was Harold.  He had dreams, aspirations and even worse, plans. And he needed my help.  He promised a big payday.     He wouldn’t take no for an answer.  I tried to give it to him and yet somehow he managed to steamroll over me. 

I wondered if that meant I wasn’t as immune to the big score as all of those fortune hunters I made fun of over the years. As I always thought them a ridiculous lot, the thought did not sit well.

Still I ended up going along with Harold.  But now Harold was dead and his entire plan went pear shaped.