Thousand: Six Hundred Eighty-Three

few shadows out of the spiny shrubs and cacti, then tucks itself back under. But the stars are beginning to fade anyway. In the distance what the girl assumed were mountains resolve into something else. A city? Much closer than mountains. Are the people who live there friendly? It wasn’t lit up at night. Has it been abandoned? She rubs her hands together, tongue’s dry. The complaints of camels, the shouts of camel drivers, the jingling of chains. Below the city walls to the left of the road sand-colored tents hang from taut lines, upright poles. The sky whitens. All