Walking through the desert called my mind

Creativity has deserted what is left of my brain, leaving an arid place with few hills. There’s a mountain in the distance with no trees. I slog across waves of light beige desolation.

Beige — the Meh of color.

Cotton candy clouds float past on silver platters, refusing to share one drop of creation’s water.  No tumble-reads, no sar-cactus seem to grow in this place.

My journey is stopped by a sand dune the size of a pyramid.   I try to turn write, but a monolith inexplicably forms in front of that path. 

I have only one option:  Go back the same way I came, or take what’s left.

Oh…wait…that’s two options. 

More like NO options, if you consider the Indian dressed like Elvis manning a stand in the middle of nowhere that’s selling energy drinks. 

With all those sequins sparkling in the desert sun, he’s hard to miss.

“How,” he asks, as I try to walk past him.

“How what?”  I demand.

“How does a general fly?”

“With his armies,” I sneer.  “That joke is older than my grandma.”

“Would you like to buy…”

As he rattles on about his homemade coconut-tomato, avocado-raisin and strawberry-onion energy drinks, I notice they’re all beige.

“I don’t want to buy anything,” I reply.  “I just want to get out of this place.”

A black feather grows out the top of his head as he says, “Life is not all about you.”

Not knowing quite how to describe this sight, I say, “You’re a strange bird.”

“My raven is mad,” he chuckles.  “My drinks are to die for.”

I zone in on a dark spot at the bottom of an otherwise translucent beige liquid inside a clear bottle and reply, “I’m not ready to die.”

“You’ve found my locust-persimmon vitamin drink.  You do know that most civilizations eat insects.”

“They are welcome to ingest my share of bugs.”  Surprisingly — or not — I feel no sense of thirst.  “Seriously, is there a way out of this place?”

He points further up — down the road and says,  “That’s the exit.”

Just what I need, a floating door. 

“There’s a slight…problem,” I sigh, pointing toward said cloud holding my exit open.

“See the sand dune pyramid?” He asks.  “All you have to do is climb 1000 feet to the top and enter the door.”

“So then… I only have to walk through another 20 miles of desert with no water, and climb a steep grade to the top of a sand dune so that I can catch a ride with a cloud?” I ask.

“There is another way,” he says, holding his prized locust-persimmon vitamin surprise.  “Drink this, and eat the surprise inside.”

I stare into eyes filled with humor and reply, “I’m dead either way.”

Beige, beige and more beige… what should I do?  Drink the poison or die in the nothingness?

“Is there a 3rd choice?” I ask.  He frowns, a deep dark scowl covering his face.  “There IS a third choice?”

He looks up at the cloud and it trembles like a dog frightened of his master, and Indian Elvis points to the road.

I continue to slog through a prison of beige, wondering if I’m destined to live this colorless existence until I die.  Or…perhaps I’m dead and this is Karma?

No.  Karma would be a lot more interesting.

Writer’s block sucks.