Shuttle

Oven of stone. Street after street, not a single tree or shrub in sight. Stone and asphalt everywhere, dead weeds between the paving. Rows and rows of bricks that, swept up by the fierce sun, assault you from all sides with a radiating heat. My head is about to explode. Susan is flushed red. Sweat streams down her neck, but she walks with more ease than I do. Calmer. More determined, too. The last…