“The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” ~Joan Didion

The dashboard glowed faint and useless, the numbers flickering with a tired rhythm that offered no comfort. The gas gauge hovered above empty, the check engine light a steady, accusatory orange. I stared at the dash, willing it to tell me something, anything. But it only pulsed with the stubborn life of a machine too old to trust. I cut the engine. The silence that followed felt heavy and broken, pressing against the thin, dinted glass of the windshield.

The mesa unfolded in front of me, open and exposed, stretching endlessly under a bruised sky. The sun was already swallowed by the horizon, leaving only a thin line of fire on the edge of the world, burning away the last warmth of the day. A chill crept in, sharp and insistent, curling beneath my jacket and into my bones. The desert air tasted of dust and old dreams.

I sat still, knuckles pale against the steering wheel, watching as shadows drifted along the roadside. Out here, the distance wasn’t just space. It was a presence, looming and impossibly broad, a kind of emptiness I couldn’t drive through or leave behind. It was the kind of quiet that made you think of everything you’d ever lost.

I thought of the Gorge, miles and memories away. I thought of rain pounding down in thick sheets, of the river below roaring with purpose, carving its way through stone. There, everything felt alive, if only for a moment; water and wind and the scent of fir. But here, only dust floated, refusing to settle, shifting with every restless breath of wind. The sky seemed wider, the world more brittle.

Was anything left back home? Did the fog still roll in off the water, thick and forgiving? Or had even that faded, leaving behind only dry riverbeds and brittle grass? I tasted nostalgia like iron on my tongue—sharp, metallic, unyielding. Memory flickered, unreliable and distant. I tried to recall faces, voices, the weight of belonging, but the details slipped away, replaced by the drone of cicadas and the endless sigh of the wind.

Had I ever really belonged anywhere? Or was it only the illusion of belonging I missed? Or the comfort of a place that remembered me, even as I tried to forget it?

I opened the door, letting the cold rush in. The air outside was thin and empty, charged with a restlessness I couldn’t name. I stepped out, boots crunching on scattered gravel. My shadow stretched long and distorted, a thin echo on the faded earth. The land was silent except for the wind, which carried the faint smell of sage and something burnt.

I wandered a few steps from the car, eyes searching for some sign: a familiar rock, a twisted juniper, anything that would anchor me. But every landmark felt strange, hollowed out, as if the world itself had shifted in my absence. The land offered no comfort, only space and silence and the slow, creeping dread that whatever I was searching for was already gone.

Sometimes, in dreams, I saw the Gorge as it used to be; wet, green, alive. I saw my mother’s hands, my father’s boots by the door, the soft glow of lamplight on fogged windows. But here, the past felt unreachable, a different lifetime entirely.

Time felt heavier here, pressing down, flattening hope, flattening memory. I kept scanning the horizon, looking for signs. Anything that would tell me which direction was forward, which was back. But the desert gave nothing away. The world was pared down to essentials: rock, sky, wind, and the slow ache of longing.

I found myself thinking about the people I’d left behind. Friends I’d promised to write. A sister who never answered the phone. The neighbor with the old dog who always barked at dawn. Had they changed, too? Did they remember me, or was I just another name lost in a stack of mail, a number in an address book never dialed?

The stark beauty of the mesa cut deep. It was a beauty I couldn’t carry with me, only endure. I stood by the old 4Runner, staring west, wondering if the Gorge remembered me. Wondering if the dust there was still dark, still alive, or if it had turned to ash, scattered and lost by time and wind.

The wind shifted, colder now, bringing only the scent of stone and emptiness. I slipped back inside, shivering, my hands trembling against the cracked vinyl seat. The darkness outside pressed closer, hungry and vast, and the world I once knew felt impossibly distant, receding in the rearview.

Circling in dreams.