I am a grain of sand

I am a grain of sand: ocean-bred, sun-baked, wind-blown and older than history. Once I lay hidden, motionless below an ancient sea, longing for the kiss of the sun, as a vague and distant prize through the silt. Over time, I grew to accept my abjectness and the complaining of my peers. But the world changed, rocks folded and the heat grew stronger, scalding away my captor: this brought me hope at first but soon the past purgatory seemed nothing against a new hell, as the aridity strangled and burned. Seeds would caress their mysterious tentacles about my edges, but be thwarted by my barrenness. The earth cracked into a wasteland of polygons. The caked layers peeled away, their rims arching skyward, giant saucers of ruddy brown. I dreamt instead of previous aeons, better times.

Freedom came hard and sudden when the soft breeze, usually barely a whisper, drummed up the courage. The storm whirled me into the air without mercy, where I dashed into rocks and plunged into vortices, blindly twisted, gyrated, ravaged. I passed into semi-consciousness from the roar and could fight no more.

But when I awoke, the sun was lost and the night sky reigned in silence. A billion stars turned cautiously above, and gave me bearings. The fading of far-flung lights outpaced the oncoming day, a glow of soft magenta from the east. And slowly I realised where the winds had left me. Why had I been chosen to be here and now? What had I done to occupy this place? And how longer would it be before the next shift in the masquerade and I was chosen for another purpose? The view across the plain was dazzling as an empire revealed itself: settlements strung along the banks of rivers; palms and oases; wadis and mountains; endless ridges of sand. Henceforth I vowed the sun could burn but never hurt, the storm could thrash and never kill my spirit, and the night air might freeze yet I would never be cold.

For despite the wrath of the wind across a million square miles of nothingness, I had been dropped with grace. The best place in the Sahara was mine: the very summit of its highest dune. In my own fashion, I could do nothing but give thanks for everything that had happened.