We decide to head back south down the centre, taking the highway. We know it will be hotter than the coast road, that there will be no cooling breeze. The four-wheel drive clatters over the ruts. Dust flies up, leaving a soupy smear of bugs splattered across the windscreen. 

cloudless sky
a buzzard swoops
on a goanna

Anthills flash by, tall as trees and wreathed in desert powder. No cars go past along the highway and I begin to wish we’d taken the coast road. What if the four-wheel drive breaks down? Red dust billows in the hot breeze, the sky sucks up the air, the road shimmers with a watery mirage.

Without warning, a truck appears, heading in our direction. Followed by another. And another. Soon a stream of vehicles leaves us cocooned within ochre fog. Stones ping against the windscreen. A swathe of khaki and green trundles by and, through the mist of army grit, a roadhouse surges.

heat haze
the illusion of water
in desert sand

The four-wheel drive rattles to a halt. Squinting and coughing, I brush myself down. Inside the squat building, a television blares beneath a creaking ceiling fan. Soldiers yell and scream, urging a local swimmer to gold on the other side of the planet.