But not today, they told themselves as they hauled their sand and shook their planks. Not today, they said. And the pump beneath the shroud bowed its head in agreement.
Conner neared the outhaul tunnel that burrowed through the bowl’s lip and out to the other side. It was a public works project from a decade prior, a visible admission that the sand would one day win, that they could only dig so much, that the way out was too steep. Laughter echoed inside the tunnel as several of Conner’s peers returned for another load. Most of them worked slowly, shuffling their feet until dusk. Conner preferred to grind it out and get it over with.
He entered the cool shade of the tunnel and passed his friends without a word. He chewed on the grit in his mouth, the sand that had frustrated him when he was younger, that he’d wasted time scraping his tongue after and wasted precious fluids spitting from his mouth, but that he’d finally learned to grind to nothing between his teeth and swallow down. It was the sand that was trying to bury his town, the sand that wanted to work its way into pistons and gears until things fell apart, the sand that paid for his day’s water if he lugged enough of it out of the pit and into the dunes where tomorrow it would blow west. It would blow west while new sand flew in from the east to take its place. One grain for every grain. An even trade.
Out of the tunnel, Conner entered the weigh station and bent his knees until his haulpole caught in the crook of the scales. The assayer flicked weights down a long rod. “Don’t lean on the pole,” he ordered.
“I’m not,” Conner protested, showing his hands.
The assayer frowned and made a note in his ledger. “That’s your quota.” He almost sounded disappointed. Conner nearly sagged in relief. He lifted the pole again, was glad to be done for the day, and hiked off toward the edge of the steep rise known as Waterpump Ridge. It was a new dune they were building here, a man-made dune downwind of the pump, which itself stood on the leeward side of Springston’s Shantytown. Conner reached the lip, dumped his sand, and watched plumes of his hard work spiral toward the distant mountains beyond the dunes. Go, he urged the sand. Go and never come back.
As he watched his last load swirl on the wind, he considered what sand and man had in common. Both were forever disappearing over the horizon. Sand to the west and man to the east. More and more of the latter in recent years. Entire families. He’d seen them from the ridge heading off toward No Man’s Land with their belongings piled up on their backs, fleeing the bombs and the violence, the wars between neighbors, the uncertainty. It was the uncertainty that drove men away. Conner knew that now. He used to see the beyond as some great unknown, but the fickle tortures of life among the dunes were worse. What could be certain was that elsewhere was different. This was a fact. A compelling one. It drew souls to the east as fast as Springston could birth them.
A gust of wind whipped his hair into a frenzy and tugged at his ker. Conner turned away from the view and saw Gloralai heading up with her own sagging haulpole. He gave her a hand dumping the buckets.
“Thanks,” she said, wiping her forehead. “You done for the day?”
He nodded. “You?”
Gloralai laughed. Her hair hung down over her freckled face in sweaty clumps. She untied what was left of her ponytail, gathered the loose strands off her face, and began tying it back up. “I probably got two more hauls. Depending how much I spill. Don’t know how you haul as fast as you do.”
“It’s ’cause I don’t want to be here.” He hoped the here didn’t sound as general as he meant it. It was more than school or the pump-pit. It was all of Shantytown. He picked up his pole and adjusted one of the buckets in its notch so it wouldn’t slide out. “C’mon. We’ll haul one load each, and you can be done for the day.”
Gloralai smiled and finished knotting her hair. She was seventeen, a year younger than Conner, bronze-skinned and pretty with dark freckles across her nose. Conner didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but part of him didn’t want to leave the pump right then. And hauling one more load didn’t feel like hell when it wasn’t mandatory, when he could choose.
Over Gloralai’s shoulder, he spotted Ryder trudging up the slope. The boy seemed to catch this moment between his two classmates. He turned his haulpole sideways, the buckets heavy and swaying dangerously, and Conner had to dodge out of the way. He danced down the loose sand and nearly lost his footing.
“Watch it,” Gloralai said.
“Fuck off,” Ryder told her.
Gloralai caught up with Conner and the two of them marched down with their empty buckets. Out across the jumbled rooftops of Shantytown, a hammer beat a rhythmic tune and a gull cried out. Conner tried to soak it all up, the sights and sounds of home, as he followed Gloralai back into the tunnel.
“You were serious,” she said, eyeing him. “I thought you were eager to get out of here.”