A Great Escape

We found a little nook hidden up, back, behind, and within the gigantic penile sand structures. My friend and I settled ourselves on pink sand that hadn't been touched since the last load of school kids had been bused in on bright yellow buses. Middle-school-sized footprints ran around the space, light pouring through from a skylight in the rock directly above us. Another small window in the putty-colored rock just next to us revealed the angles of jutting sandstone all around.

I pulled out a 1/4-inch socket from a socket-wrench set out of my jean cutoffs pocket. The set was part of some crap tool kit I kept for emergencies. My sister, Natalie, had given me that set as a Christmas gift a couple years earlier. The quarter-inch socket was never intact. I always hoped I'd never need it, because the inside of it was coated with resin, and I wasn't ever quite sure how it'd handle doing the real work of a socket.

My friend drew out a lighter. The pipe was already loaded. I simultaneously handed it to her and set down my camera. She was a friend that rarely ever smoked, and my room mate had grown this stuff himself. We got thoroughly stoned, and then we heard voices from below. I peaked out the window next to us. Not much to see--- rock blocking our view. I threw some gum in my mouth and we exited back the way we came, descending down a narrow trail back onto the valley floor of the goblins.

Kids from junior high, probably from some desert suburb an hour or two drive away supplied the voices we'd heard. They giggled and strolled in huddled groups or ran round and round the valley. Their shoes leaving marks looking like moon boots in moon sand. We began to have a game with them, shooting their pictures, darting past the goblin penile sentries. After awhile we realized that the goblin sentries themselves were much more interesting than pubescent astronauts, and that's when we began shooting and cataloging them instead. And when we were sick of being stoned and playing games, we left the valley and went away. That day it was easy to get out of the Desert.