and now for something completely different

from Invisible, the official povray.off-topic mascot who had a bit of a bad day. Posted 'cos I like it and in no way because he complimented me. Puts me in a frame of mind to write something too, I'll see if it's worthy of posting.


The sun is relentless. Hour after hour its cruel rays beat down mercilessly upon the dessicated earth below. Temperatures skyrocket. Horizons melt. Here and there, cruel mirages bewitch the weary traveler with their empty promises of water. Punishing winds race across the flat ground, sandblasting your legs. Sweat pours off your unprotected body, evaporating with unbelievable speed. Soon your roasted skin is coated in gritty, corrosive salt crystals. And still the temperature rises. Thirty five degrees. Forty degrees. Forty five degrees. Fifty degrees. The ground scalds your feet. The very air you breathe burns your nose and lungs. You begin to shiver in spite of the heat. The air is as dry as blotting paper. Indefatigably it extracts every last molecule of moisture from your feeble body. Helplessly you struggle on, hoping to find help, hoping to find water, hoping to find shade. Anything! But there is no hope to be found here. Nobody will save you. No river will be your salvation. There is no living thing for over eight thousand miles in every single direction. No people, no cattle, no snakes, no mice, no trees, no shrubs, no cacti, no grasses, not even lichens. There is no living thing to be found anywhere in this hellish inferno. And there is not a molecule of water anywhere. Not even as vapor. You will not even find shelter from the malevolent sun, for there is not even a rock to hide behind. There is nothing but endless, uniform, unbroken sand, blown to a mathematically flat plane, for thousands of miles all around. Death cannot be far now. The air you breathe has reached an insane fifty seven degrees centigrade. Your muscles scream in anguish as your electrolyte levels become hopelessly unbalanced. You are shaking all over. Very soon now, you will be utterly unable to move at all. And then you will helplessly collapse into the sand and die a slow excruciating death of dust and dryness...