Evening was fast sweeping across the sky, yet shimmers of heat still hissed upwards in every direction. My skin scorched. I had been buried inch-shallow between two looming palms. The layer of sand that covered my face had trickled away in the wind. Above me towered a man set in deep blue robes, half engulfed by the glowering orange sun that sat crown-like behind his head. His coarse hands twirled a shovel gracefully through the air, throwing it higher and higher with each new motion. The shovel