Alone I walk in the valley between reality and fantasy. The sky is the brightest of blues, cloudless, yet it has no colour. The wind rustles the leaves of the maple and elm trees and the blades of grass dance to the sounds of birds singing and wind blowing. Yet beneath my feet are motionless grains of sand and the only sound is that of the steady beating of my own heart. The hills roll and tumble over each other, but the ground is flat. There is no horizon, the endless sand continues in all directions as if it were growing to try and touch every cloud in the clear sky and every star in the empty night.
             I feel so hopeless, so alone, but the breath of friends and family are all around me. I reach out and touch shoulders and faces that I know aren't there. I smile at the dull sand that surrounds me. I am alone. In the distance I see a figure walking towards me, but it gets no closer. I try to approach it, but the distance is unchanging. Closer I walk towards the figure, closer he walks towards me, but we still have the entire desert between us.
             I sit on my own folded legs and weep dry tears. The walking, the endless walking, stole my breath and won't give it back. I sit to try and catch the few gasps of air that may come, but the hot sun and the weight of the sky crushed my lungs and sucks out my own breath as I struggle to inhale more. Dry tears form a parched river alongside me as I sob from hopelessness. I look up and the figure, still approaching, gets no closer. I look down at the motionless sand that I ride on as if I were floating on a sand ocean.
             My gaze floats upward and the sun and the moon stare at me. The sun filled with heat and passion, and the moon intense with sincerity and warmth. The mountains and hills come closer to enclose me in the safety of the arms of my environment, but the emptiness and sand amid desert reach out to the edges of the universe. Only the eyes watching over me make me feel safe, safe enough ...