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April 24, 2017 - 171 words
While traveling alone through the American Southwest it occurred to me this was the longest I’d ever gone without companionship. I was determined to live untethered for a year, an arbitrary length of time but it made sense. I was a writer making a living with scraps from the magazine. When I set out I had fantasies of meeting other transient souls, wayward spirits who would intersect with my life and alter it in unforeseen ways. When I returned, I would be changed. I didn't know what I was doing but I trusted in trail magic.
This region of the United States was unlike any other in that it most closely represented my mental image of The Void: a vast indifferent expanse of indifference. I have no difficulty assigning human qualities to the grandeur of creation. The forest is nurturing, lively, musical. The ocean: moody, unpredictable, an alluring siren. Mountains: stoic, unyielding, unforgiving and judgmental. But the Southwest desert: nothing. A VOID. It’s a vacuum. A moon. Inhuman. I am alone.