In the night, I was plagued by a sickeningly comfortable dream of my family’s house on the East coast. The white-washed walls, the sound of surf audible from the deck. Father and mother’s uniformly disapproving stares. Jane’s sandy white dresses, and Jay turning blue in the face from the tightness of his bow tie.
As a child, it had always seemed a long walk to the shore, but it was just over the hill. My adult legs trod carelessly over the flowers and insects I used to examine. I quickly reached the crest to take in that familiar view of the surf stretching across the horizon.
It was only just then, as I blinked in the sunlight, that I realized I heard a howling wind, and not the waves. In place of the ocean, lay a vast and crooked desert. It creeped up the shore, killing the grass and the flowers as it went, and my skin blistered in the light. I felt a hoof on my shoulder, and there stood the horse on its hind legs, tongue hanging out and stumbling, neighing intensely while it pointed out a dust storm in the distance. It’s big horse lips were on the verge of forming human speech. “Wahg op, ged! houhyhnm!” it said.
I opened my eyes and blinked away sandy tears, the taste of a nightmare on my tongue. My bearded companion was shaking me by the collar. I pleaded with him: “What!? What did you say?”
“Ah sed ‘wake up, Kid!’” he said, “’Gimletsville’s ahn farr!’”
And it was. Winding towers of ash twisted into the stratosphere. I couldn’t muster much sympathy for such a place, but we set out to see what was the matter, regardless.
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