He was - a dusty mote, lost in a sea of yellow sand.

He had been - walking, stumbling for what seemed like an eternity.

He felt - tired, hungry, thirsty, sunburned, at the limits of his endurance.

In the wavering heat ahead of him, something caught his eye. A dark fly-speck in the brilliant day. He squinted at it, trying to work out whether what he was seeing was real or just another mirage sent to befuddle and beguile. But the fly-speck became a dot, became a semicolon, became an exclamation mark!

He forced to his feet to take another step. Then another. Forcing his way through the sea of sand, pitching forward yet never falling. Tottering, tumbling; he picked himself up, then stumbled again. "Hey!" Dry words from a parchment throat. "Hey!"

And from far away came the answering cry: "Here! Here!"

They met. Two ragged scarecrows of flesh and cloth, out of place in the magnificent desolation.

"Are you - ?"

"Lost. Yes."

"How long?"

"I can't remember."

"How far?"

"I don't know."

Mirrored in the hot stillness, they stared at each other.

"So?"

"So."

Each turned a weary quarter-circle clockwise. Then they went on their ways.