The Sahara, by Gustave Guillaumet (France) 1867

 

On Guillaumet’s Sahara​

The world must have begun like this. “Without form and void,” we are told. In the beginning, life was not just missing—it was rejected, as the camel is rejected: You do not belong here. The beauty of emptiness must remain uncorrupted.

Any life here is ephemeral. The distant caravan passes through the landscape, does not dwell in it, cannot survive on it. The camel did not. Others, too, if they do not feel urgency, will lie rejected here. Not decaying, never decaying, for few microbes avail to consume and digest in this aridness. The camel will remain desiccated instead, a warning as Ozymandias was warned: Only distance is eternal, life is not.

The world must have begun like this, with only dawn to remove the chill of night, only dusk to grant its restoration. Void, and without form.

Ron Wetherington

Ron Wetherington is a retired professor of anthropology living in Dallas, Texas. After more than half a century of university teaching and research, he has settled on replacing scientific journals with literary magazines as an outlet for his writing efforts. He has a novel, Kiva, and numerous short fiction pieces in this second career. He also enjoys writing creative non-fiction. Among his published pieces are three in this Review.