In the desert live a people made of sand. They rarely speak, for even the slightest movement of air sends their gritty forms into a cloud of dust. It takes weeks for them to coalesce. A child, I lost my way among sandstones and juniper trees and cried until no tears remained. A sand person found me.

“Drink,” they said, pointing at an unfamiliar cactus, and dissipated.

Prying open the fruit, I drank sage-tasting water and knew my way home. Again I find myself lost in a desert, panicked and uncertain. I think of the sand people and drink.