by RON WETHERINGTON
I generally avoid deserts. They are reflections of a time before life, yet life abounds here, adapted to an unforgiving landscape. The desert threatens only the ill-prepared, however, and the Mojave is no exception, tamed solely by this narrow path of asphalt slicing through it. I’m both repelled by the desert and strangely attracted to it. I pause in mid-transit, drawn by its starkness, reflecting on its brooding beauty. It is a serene, quiet place, craggy in its etched, primeval patterns. I’m uneasy here.
There is a sense of purgatory in its torrid heat. I wander a short distance into it, a small gecko skittering before me. Creosote bushes pepper the landscape, prickly pear cacti scattered among them, keeping their blossoms closed, biding time, awaiting the monsoons. Waiting is what deserts most encourage.
I’m struck by the utter silence, and perhaps this is part of my unease. The life I’m used to is noisy, and so it might be that silence itself is where the threat lies. It folds in upon itself, leaving me naked. Undistracted. I shudder as I recall Tom Wolfe’s warning: the seeds of our destruction blossom here. As if some demon lurks just below its surface, and below mine. I nervously look behind me, knowing I do not belong here. Knowing I need distraction to clothe me. But silence is what best becomes a desert.
Another thought intrudes as I absorb the scene: It’s not really life that’s noisy, it’s all of life’s machinery. The rumblings and whistles and ringing. It’s things moving. It’s impatience. It’s restlessness. So, this too troubles me as I stand here. Being still has an inertia all its own, and I fear if I linger, I may become prisoner to it. Idleness, I think, is what preserves a desert.
Once long ago, creaky wagons crept across this place, seeking to colonize the distant hills, watched by lizard eyes, fathomed by slithered tongues. They, too, feared lingering. They, too, hastened across its desolation. Later, we bulldozed a narrow path, blackened it with pitch, bounded it with lines. Is it enough to say we leave it pure, this barren place, unspoiled except for this? Highways often reject the places they bypass, but I believe in the case of deserts it’s reversed: rejection is what deserts foster best.
I continue on my journey, and in the distance the asphalt shimmers, the hazy Sierras floating. The desert, I know, occupies an important place in the ecology of life. But it is not my place. I have a sense that the desert knows this.
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Ron Wetherington is a retired professor of anthropology. He has published a novel, Kiva (Sunstone Press), and numerous short fiction, prose poems and literary essays. Read some of his work at https://www.rwetheri.com/
© 2026, Ron Wetherington
Halfway Down the Stairs 