I breathe in the evening air, cold and clean. In, and out. The sand sinks beneath my feet, and I raise my eyes towards the desert aurora. If I try, I could hear it sing of ages past and eons to come, combined together in a soft, wordless melody. Behind me, the blue forest trees would join the chorus in their high voices. Below me, the dunes will rumble the deepest tones in the world.
 
It is a strange land.
 
In the blue forests I have left behind me, flowers are made of sapphire, and small metallic wasps feed on them. If you dig through the ground you'll quickly hit a concrete floor, where the tree roots simply stop. If you drink the water, your voice would never be the same again. If you pray in one of the many abandoned cobalt shrines, the clouds in the sky will welcome you as one of them.
 
Above me, the aurora is hidden by lightning again. A dazzling display, arranging and re-arranging itself to form letters. I've never seen it arrange into a word I know, but I am new here. Soon enough the thunder is heard, and scatters the lightning to the wind. Always squabbling, the two great twins.
 
It is a strange land.
 
I walk onwards through the seemingly endless desert, trying to make out any shape on the horizon, but I see nothing. Not even mountains lie ahead, just the eternal sand.
I try to think of home, of a fire crackling in a hearth, a tall glass of rum, a woman laughing - but the images all slip away before me, giving way to shifting, grey dunes. If I continue on in this polar desert, will I fall off the edge of the world?
 
I stop in place, almost as if someone had stopped me.
Is there fear in me?
Doubt?
No, I left those behind, at home.
 
As if by command, my hand thrusts to the air, traces of gold staying in the air behind it. My legs turn and sway, given over to my new state of mind. Without warning, so far from home, in a nameless polar desert, beneath the aurora, it has struck me, a dance of serenity and ultimate acceptance. Final harmony.
 
It is a strange land, but I am stranger still.