When I was a little girl, sand meant days at the beach building castles with a bucket and spade. Once the work was done we’d sit back and admire our hard work, eat shrimp paste sandwiches with crusted nails as the sea undermined the foundations, as the walls softened and melted into the brine.
No castles here.
The sand is too dry – it sucks the moisture from my skin, grinds at my teeth and the corners of my eyes. It’s harder too, filled with the rubble of ancient cities, fragments of musty tombs returned to the light, the secret corners of a lustrous palace laid bare.
The castles melt away and city’s fall. Only the wind remains.
***
Written for What Pegman Saw, the prompt that uses Google Street View as its starting point. This week we visit Old Dongola, Sudan.
Years ago I was lucky enough to visit Egypt, to the north of Sudan. Venturing into the Sahara Desert, I can vouch that the sand is pretty much as I describe here – definitely not fit for making castles.
Word Shamble 
A perfect picture painted, Lynn. It encourages me not to exchange my local beach for anything south of the Med any time soon. 🙂
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Gosh, Lynn… you leave me ineffably sans words 😉
You have such a way to describe scenes that we can almost taste the sand and feel the grit.
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Splendid take, Lynn. I enjoyed the voice.
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Beautifully nostalgic and then bleak within a few lines. Love it, Lynn!
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You achieve a lovely contrast between the sand of a childhood holiday and the hostile sand of the desert. How little we understand of the forces of history that obliterate cities! We are, indeed, like children.
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Thank you So much Penny and how right you are – we’re a blink in the eye of the Earth
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Thanks for sharing your first-hand take of the prompt. Excellent writing as always, Lynn. It put me in mind of Ozymandias.
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Like the span of time in these few words, Lynn, the voice, too, and I am left wondering who the narrator is. This touch of mystery adds to the piece. Beautifully emotive writing.
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Thank you so much, Kelvin. You’re really very kind 🙂
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