To the Vanishing Point

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Desolation is magnified at seventy miles per hour. At that speed, colors that are normally separate and distinct tend to blend together like the test pattern on an old TV. Sharply defined objects melt into one another, precluding identification, forestalling recognition. Landscapes adopt the illusion of reality.

It’s worse in the desert because there is so little to focus on. Those creatures that don’t hide usually spend the daylight hours sleeping. For most of the year the plant life is dressed in a blistered gray hue that seems designed to confuse the eye. Nothing moves except the tormented air that rises in waves from the frying-pan pavement in front of you.

In summer, when the thermometer in the Mojave creeps past the 110 mark with threatening regularity, all activity ceases. Like the sidewinders and the kangaroo rats, the desert’s human inhabitants have gone to ground by eight A.M., embracing the protection of dark buildings and overstressed air conditioners.

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