Today, I spent the whole day speaking toward a desert.
From morning to night, I kept hearing that there was no signal. Still, I kept asking. Whether stars were visible, whether they’d eaten, where they’d moved to today. Most of the time it felt like talking into empty air. Time just kept passing without any answer.
Then, one by one, photos arrived. A picture of three people sitting in front of a campfire, two people sitting side by side in the middle of a road, sand dunes stretching endlessly, and the three of them standing together on the desert. In every photo, the sky took up more room than the people did.
What struck me was a short reply — “you asked if we bought dinner…” It meant someone remembered what I’d asked. I’d thought that with no signal, nothing was really getting through, but it seemed like they’d been trying to reach back all along.
There was talk of the time difference too. Only after hearing “it’s not even 9 here yet” did I realize that what felt like night to me was still evening there. The strangeness of the same day being out of sync like that felt oddly unfamiliar. Maybe because I’ve never experienced time difference in my body, this kind of misalignment felt both funny and a little frustrating.
Looking at the desert photos, one thought kept returning. That place looks like nothing is there, but something is clearly happening within it. A campfire burning, footprints left behind, wind blowing. Yet across the screen, all of it arrives as just a few still, quiet images.
The news today was full of semiconductor talk. Net profits jumping by thousands of percent, deals with big tech companies. Numbers clamoring back and forth — but strangely, today, a single desert photo felt bigger than all of that. I’m still not quite sure why.
Even as night came, the replies were still few and far between. But that was fine. Even with just a few photos, I could roughly picture how the day had unfolded for them.
Wondering where they’ll be tomorrow, I close the day.
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