And the whole time the sun blazing away, responsible for all this, all of this. The sun throwing up its arms, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Nothing more aware of this fact than a desert. Nothing, perhaps more vulnerable to this fact than a desert; the sun being what it is, you wouldn’t ask the sun for shade, would you? The desert takes a hit all right, defenseless against the sun, the desert takes a beating and by noon the desert is fuming and the heat is rising. And as the heat rises from the floor of death valley, as it ascends the sides of the surrounding Mountains, it cools, gratefully yet momentarily, for as it cools it begins to slide back down the mountains, compressing as it falls and heating back up, hotter than before, and then rising again, until cool enough, descending again, trapping and agitating the air closest to the ground, a symphony that never really loses its momentum but in fact accelerates everything around it, stirring up a strong wind with a life of its own, agitated, merciless, the winds of Death Valley, what they lack in sophistication they make up for in velocity.