Dawn in the Mojave

Dawn woke me up.

I was sleeping in the Mojave Desert, on my way to Utah. I hadn't bothered to set up my tent, which meant that star, and then moon, and then sunlight was bright enough to wake me. I was completely alone--the nearest road was six miles away, where I could hear an occasional car sling past.

The wire towers had hummed, loudly, last night. They were still going when I fell asleep, just three hours after dark--5:30 p.m. in early November. But when the moon rose, I slowly realized that I couldn't hear a sound. The wires were quiet, and so was everything else. As I listened, a few small animal sounds skittered toward me, or away, and then were gone. The emptiness of sound was complete.