Ruthless is the mental construct of a rushed intellect. Cruel is married to beauty. To the south is sand. Between the women palms are face up, dangling off brown arms. Sweat would cool them if it could, but air here is greedy.
Air snaps up that sweat.
At dawn shallow tracks of beetles and lizards, flies and lions threw shadow. Shadow paths tricked sand surface into maps forty miles wide and undulating on waves of silica particles, obsidian particles. The height of life stood within four millimeters of the thin plane of earth surface. The wide arc of a dune, the steep face to wind's lee appeared as high drama at dawn. Sun hurried up the sky, climbing high in order to flatten out those dunes.