I spent another night in that house. The next morning I set out on another journey.

“By the way, there's one important thing we didn't mention,” Meir told me when I was approaching the gates. “Should you find the mountain, keep in mind – when you turn away, you'll lose sight of it. You'll have to go through the process of finding it again. This is just so that you were aware.”

I made a circle around the house, keeping it in sight to not get lost. I eventually stumbled upon a car's hood – it was just a hood, made of steel and plastic, torn or detached (whatever it was) from its host vehicle. I saw it lying in the sand, all white from the dust (underneath the dust it was indigo-blue), and I was excited, even though there wasn't much that I could do with this discovery.

I then spent another night in the house and then made another trip around. Then another one, and another one, and thus two weeks passed of me wondering the desert, backpack behind me, hoodie on my waist, watching, listening, making notes, drawings, and maps, searching for something-I-did-not-know-what-it-was-myself.

I found a lot of things though. Not far from the house, there appeared to be a gas station. Adrian and Mihai – two hearty pals of Romanian origin – were working there. A little to the north of the house, there was a one-story industrial building of white brick – a storehouse or something of the like. It was empty and dilapidated but still could go as a sturdy shelter.

Having acquired some more skills at navigating and having also discovered some more landmarks, I tried to venture a little further in the white. One day I found a well – an actual well with actual water at its bottom, which was a very precious finding in this desert. For the next few days, I tried to study the area around that well, but to no avail. Nothing seemed to be there, or rather – nothing seemed to be willing to open up to me there despite all my efforts at 'watching' and 'noting'. Additionally, it was far from the farm, so I eventually stopped coming there.

Further south from the house, I made an especially important discovery. A bunch of tracks were running through the sands from west to east in a straight line. Every ten minutes or so a car covered in white would race down those tracks lifting up a long cloud of dust. I figured, the cars were the taxis that Meir had told me about before, and the tracks were indicative of some kind of highway used on a regular basis.

Once at the end of my second week here I had to stay at 'Dead Fish'. I made an especially long trip that day and was not going to reach the farm in time. The sun was already down, I was already hellishly tired, and besides – the fact of me living off other's resources had been bugging me for a long time by then. I stood in front of the shop and thought that at a time like this spending, $130 for one night wouldn't hurt.

And so I did, and it was a fine night. In the morning I went out into the main hall; Ivan was sitting in his old place, at the table near the counter. I nodded to him, and he drunkenly nodded back, by which I mean that his head went up and then bluntly dropped down. I put money on the counter. Dow looked at it, then looked at me, then looked at Ivan, and then I noticed, that Ivan had been trying to look at the counter too. Dow took thirty bucks and moved the one hundred bill to me.

“That's it?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“Why, thank you then!”

Smiling, I nodded to Ivan once more; he thumbed up and dropped his head again, and I set off on another trip.

This time I went far west. The previous day, right before I turned back to the shop, which was around 4 p.m., I saw a contour of some seemingly huge building in the distance. I made a note with a drawing of it on my pad, and today was intending on reaching it.

I was striding on with my bag on the back, sipping water from time to time, when I noticed a hill on my right and decided to take a turn to it (it's actually not often that you find a new landmark here). Upon approach, I noticed a man. He was running up the hill with what seemed like a bag filled with dirt. He reached the top, emptied the bag, and ran down, falling and sliding down the slope. Once down, he filled the bag with whatever he could grab from the ground and ran back up. He was all white, covered in dust head to toe (as all things in this place are). He was wildly energetic, almost exuberant, and did not notice me until I stood up right in front of him. He then suddenly put his wide eyes on me.

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“What a beautiful day, eh!” he cried with weird, crazed joy and ran off for another trip to the top.

“What a day! What a beautiful day!” he repeated while descending back.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He looked at me with an expression of a gonzo philosopher who was asked about the sense of life.

“Why? The same thing that every other weirdo is doing in this place. I'm going for the mountain!” he said and ran out again with a bag full of dirt. When he returned, he threw the empty bag and dropped himself down on his butt.

“All the way up!” he chanted, panting. “Without detours! Throw me that bottle, brother.”

He pointed to somewhere beneath me. I picked up a dirty bottle near my feet and passed it to him.

“But what exactly are you going to do? I mean, you're not going to climb it this way.”

“Oh yes, I am going to climb it! This way! This is my way!”

He made a gulp and threw the bottle away. He sat in a deepening, that was running around the hill like a trench.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure, brother. Dead sure!” He jumped up and filled the bag again. “You better not lose your time like that. I may overtake you, you know! He-he-he.” Giggling like a villain from an old movie, he ran up the slope. You'd think he'd be at least a little bit tired if not fully exhausted from such work, but he did not look that. In fact, he looked more energetic every time he finished another trip.

A motorcycle approached us and stopped not too far away from me. The rider in balaclava and goggles – all white, obviously – turned the key off and shouted in a female voice,

“Still digging, Meyers?”

“Yes, Holly! All the way up!” he yelled from atop.

“That's a long way to go, though,” I said.

“Well, as long as you're going...” she didn't finish and turned her head around.

We watched the madman make several more trips, and I was utterly astounded by the way his energy was increasing every time.

“Okay.” the rider said with a sigh. “You need a ride?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Then if anything, I'm around here.” She kicked the pedal and vroomed off, sending a cloud of white over me.

----------------------------------------

That day I did not find what I was looking for. I returned to the 'Dead Fish' and spent there another night. Maisha called me over the phone and scolded me for not letting them know what was going on with me. I had to apologize many times and promised, that I will not live them in the dark anymore.

“All right,” she said at last, “are you sure everything is okay, though?”

“Yes, I am very good now.”

“How much does Dow charge you?”

I told her about our latest encounter with Dow and Ivan. She was very pleased to hear about it.

“Okay, honey, all the best luck to you! Send our regards to Ivan.”

In the morning I went to Dow and put thirty dollars in front of him. Ivan wasn't around, so it was interesting, how he was going to go about it this time. He stood a little indecisively but eventually took the money.

“Until the next time, then!”

He nodded without looking at me. To be honest, I didn't really care about his compassion anyway, as long as he lets me stay for a good price.

I smiled and went off for my next trip.