well i have "finished" my short story, in the sense that i have submitted it. knowing me i could keep changing things basically forever, but i think this version has everything i wanted to say in it. i also hit on the bright idea of splitting it into three chapters, because this makes it clear that it is deliberately split into vignettes, and that it is not just disjointed because i am a bad writer.

Carson was lost. He'd tried turning back to follow his own tracks, but based on the way his shadow moved and the distant mesas, he had a pretty good idea that he wasn't getting anywhere. He wasn't really sure how his tracks could endlessly circle in on themselves. He had to have gotten out here somehow, and so the tracks should lead him back to wherever that was, eventually. He liked this theory, but the argument was over when he found what looked an awful lot like a set of his tracks following another, older set of his tracks. He was going in circles alright, or a figure eight anyway, since he eventually found a point where four sets of his tracks seemed to cross each other. He'd heard the shape called an analemma once, by someone he'd met in a cantina, talking about navigating by the sun or the stars or something like that. Apparently it was the shape the sun traced as it moved around the sky over the course of a year, and there he was copying it, while the sun glared down at him jealously. If the rays beating down on him were any indication, his tribute was not appreciated. The way the heat haze shimmered around him and the horizon curved around in every direction made him feel like he was trapped in a giant snow globe, sans the snow, with the sun staring in at him with all the intensity of a blowtorch. Then, from time to time, everything seemed to shrink in until the sun was hovering just inches behind him, blasting him with waves of heat and making him feel a touch claustrophobic, even in such an open space. He was at the bottom of an ocean of hot air, pressing down on his shoulders, wandering in circles, and no wonder he couldn't get anywhere when someone kept shaking every damn thing up.

---

He'd shot his horse. This was not an easy decision to make. No horse meant he wasn't going to be getting anywhere quick, but without anything left for the horse to eat, and a very limited supply of water, it became a choice between watching the horse starve or dying of thirst together. Now he'd given up on riding into town, any town, but at least without having to share the water he could still hope someone would find him before he died of exposure anyway. Even on foot, he kept on walking. He'd come around to the idea that it might be nice to find a patch of shadow bigger than the one cast by his hat, so he put the sun to his back, and hoped his shadow would keep him pointed in a straight line. There was a mesa more or less in that direction, and that should cast plenty of shadow for him to stretch out on and lay down, and more besides. He'd build a house there, dig out a well and never have to leave the shade again.

For a while he'd been spacing sips from his water with swigs from his hipflask, but this was just making his feet less steady beneath him and his plans more grandiose. The house had grown from a roof over a dirt floor to a mansion, and the well was now a bubbling spring that emptied into a swimming hole. The ideas got bigger and bigger, and for a while this created the illusion that they were getting closer, but desperation set in, the whiskey ran out and the ideas shrank back down, disappearing right back out towards the horizon, leaving Carson more sober than he'd ever been. Now all he wanted was a full waterskin, but this was about as close to his grasp as a solid gold governor's mansion.


---

The whisky was gone, the waterskin was practically empty, and as a final insult his hat had blown away too. Since he could no longer stand, let alone walk, it was time to get practical. Carson had picked out a spot where a quirk of the dunes seemed to almost cast a shadow and that came with a cactus that would do as a headstone. As the sun finally set he started dragging himself over, which took him the whole night. As the sun rose again, he found that spot he'd chosen did not disappoint. Maybe it was the lack of any other landmarks but he be darned if this wasn't the most fascinating cactus he'd ever seen. Some bees had made their hive in the hollow part where an arm had fallen off, and as he watched, a wasp flew in. The bees just clustered around it, beating their wings wildly as the press and the heat of their bodies smothered the outsider to death. Carson couldn't help but see this as an analogy for his own situation, so he tore his gaze away from the only new thing he'd had to look at for as long as he could remember. He'd never really paid much attention to sand before, but now it was his whole world. He watched as the ants crawled around moving grains. Up this close each grain was like a jewel and their anthill was a fabulous palace.

Briefly forgetting himself, he reached for his waterskin for a drink, and was as surprised as he ever had been when a drop of water collected at the nozzle. He was filled with terror that it would fall as it dangled there, but surface tension held it in place. Light passed through the drop and it shone like the brightest, most beautiful pearl he'd ever seen, reflecting the whole world back at him. He'd heard how drowning swimmers saw their life flash before their eyes, and Carson saw himself and his life reflected in the drop as he brought it his lips and drank the tiny trickle of water. He'd never tasted anything so sweet, he'd didn't think he would ever feel so refreshed ever again.

The story I chose to rewrite was a pretty obscure one, and one thing that came up in the peer assessments was that people would like to know what I was re-writing. I don't know the name, author or even where I first read it, but this is a version I managed to find on the internet:

“A Buddhist monk, being hotly pursued by a vicious tiger, fell off a cliff. By good fortune, he landed on a ledge. He could see the tiger waiting hungrily above him, but even if the tiger departed, he knew that the slope was too steep for him to climb. Since there was no escape from above and a sheer drop below, he realized his fate was sealed. No sooner did he have this thought, then the ledge that was supporting him began to develop cracks in it, and it was apparent that it would shortly fall away and hurtle him to his death. As he looked about, he spied a strawberry plant growing out of a crevice in the rock. He plucked a berry from it, ate it very slowly to savor its taste, and thought, "How delicious!"...”