Two graves in the desert: stories to tell in the dark

It’s as they say: all at the right time. That’s more or less what I did, and also much of the reason why I didn’t really post anything in the last three weeks. 

Short update though: in the interim I finished the second draft of a novel that I plan to have out there in May of this year. Title: The Caves, sideways inspired by the plague of 2020. More about that at a later time (or click the link here if you’re interested to find out more).

On to the desert, two graves and scary stories

We’re not done with the desert as yet though; that vast unforgiving region, the locale of tall tales, folklore and legend. The territory of The X-Files, Westerns, prospecting and the closest resemblance to what life might be like in outer space: dry, dusty and miserably hot (depending on which direction you go, obviously).

There’s something about it though, about a place that’s intrinsically hostile to life in every possible way. A lack of water, a lack of fertile soil and a lack of a decent temperature. Basically: a lack of a lot of the comforts of our everyday lives. Hang out there long enough though and the thing that you had never expected actually happens: it gets under your skin. 

This isn’t so much because you get hooked on the hardship, because that never gives way. It also isn’t the incessant heat or the fine dust that gets in between everything. What does happen is that you start to live around corners. You take on a slower pace. You shift your attention towards different things. You take on more of a can-do mentality. That’s when things start taking shape of which you’d never thought it possible before. 

This is also where it ties in to our current times, where we need to do more legwork to redefine some of the things that made us who we are. Or those things that we always considered as a well established part of how we see ourselves in the greater scheme of things. 

That may sort of be what’s in the middle when a lot of unnecessary stuff just kind of falls away, and it’s then that you realize how little you really need to make ends meet. 

The X-Files, Westerns and all other fiction

That whole notion of the desert as a place to return to, on and off, may just be most of the reason why it’s so powerful as a base-line in many works of fiction. Having grown up in the 90s, it most notably ties in with Area 51 and The X-Files. It really was the show to watch back in those days with a new episode every Thursday night at 8.30 pm. 

The pilot of The X-Files starts in the Nevada desert, Area 51, at night, observing unidentified flying objects. It stated the whole dilemma of the protagonist, because he isn’t just obsessed with alien life, but he believes that his younger sister was actually abducted by aliens. That, and other unexplained phenomena like strange creatures that live here and there ------- all that gave more than enough room to play with and for things to be figured out.

That’s exactly where it ties in with that whole other notion of the desert, with wanting to find some sort of truth and all that stuff: it’s as much about what’s known as about what’s unknown. Much like life and such isn’t just about what’s at the surface, but it’s as much about what’s known and unknown, and all of that stuff that’s between the lines. And then it moved on, and it returned on and off.

Westerns are a case apart 

Then there are times when I watch a ton of westerns, or skim through, because that era was also one of pulp fiction, with some stories that were as thin as cardboard and a re-iteration of the same thing over and over, and with lines that never really stick. Except for something like this, maybe, “If you plan to take revenge Mr, you better dig two graves.”

On some level, I think that those stories are more about hardship as an idea, but also that other folks have it more rough than us. It’s also about a ‘before’ when things were simpler.

That’s to say that the desert can be a hard place, and not a place to work up a sweat over things that aren’t ultimately important. That’s at least one take on it, and that’s good advise for any time. It’s also a contradiction, because a desert can also be a place of vast riches when it comes to prospecting and all such things. But you have to know where to look.

The actual desert

The desert is also a place of campfires under a sky with more stars than the eye can count. It’s where those tall tales come back in and where we connect back to the ancients. In a way, that’s always something to look for: that link that ties us back to a distant past, not just because it helps us see our place in the greater scheme of things, but because it’s something that will always be there.

That’s the link and that’s the continuity, which is always one step behind, but it will always be more current than the most modern man-made structure, be it some great structure, or a prefab hotel where we spend a few nights when vacationing.

That’s where a campfire in the desert becomes a preferred place for stories that are best told in the dark, the kind of stories that have always been told around campfires, about rogue men or restless spirits that are out for revenge, sadistic murderers that lives in the hills or a group of folks that have come out to this very same desert, and it turned out that one person in the group started to have certain tendencies. If you go rogue anywhere, it might just as well be the desert, right?

That’s not the point though, and maybe it never was: even in a gore-horror-flick it’s never so much about all the bad stuff, but it’s more about a place that opens your mind to other possibilities. That’s where a monster isn’t just a monster----------.

In summary

- our current times tie into the desert, because we currently need to do more legwork to redefine some of the things that define who we are.

- the desert is interesting because it’s intrinsically hostile to life.

- a story told under the stars in the desert isn’t just a story, because the desert in itself is a place that opens your mind to other possibilities

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