It's too bright. Her eyelashes twitch, tired of squinting. The fatigue pools in between her pinched eyebrows, compacting into a little hard lump of dull pain above her nose.
She sniffs, trying to take a deep breath, but her lungs feel shallow, her nostrils feel like old caved in tunnels full of mucusy cobwebs, catching more dust and grit.
It’s too bright she thinks again. Why does it have to be so bright? The sun is directly above, but it might as well take up the whole sky. It seems like one giant dome of reflected heat. The horizon cutting it in half, like a flat pan, sizzling. She sees the wiggles of heat blurring the ridges in the distance they head towards.
She closes her eyes and remembers the soft, distilled green light of the garden, gently illuminating, mixing chummily with shadow, instead of these harsh lines of division.
Light. Dark. Black. White. Edges. Barriers one does not pass.
Even with her eyes closed the ruthless light penetrates, without consent, forcing its way in, roughly, lighting up the thin vessels and nerves like lightning.
There is nowhere to hide here.
She remembers the endless games of hide and seek her and Adam would play. He would come so close and not see her as she peered, silently out from the dark friendly foliage that was happy to conceal her and join in the fun. She would slow her breath and feel like she could hear the very dew as it slide down the snake plants wide dark leaves. He would get so frustrated, his face perplexed- where could she be? Having looked in all the past places. Why did he think she would hide there again? She always found new spots- was always on the lookout for them- somewhere Adam would never think of. She eventually would get bored and finally let out a giggle, he would turn, delighted, still thinking he found her all on his own. He’d chase her, and they’d roll onto the spongy moss, she would lay her head on his chest, her head rising and falling with each breath of life. Her fingers always seemed to go to the soft spot where one last rib would have been-- if she had not. 
They would reach into their little stash of fruits they’d plucked earlier, piled on huge rubbery leaves. Juice dripping down their chins. Sometimes they’d only take a bite and move on to another piece of abundance- oblivious, leaving so much ripe cool flesh clinging to the pits. Never eating anything to its’ core.
She swallows now remembering the tastes. She coughs. Little slimy chunks rising in her throat, and she chokes them back down, her adam's apple contracting conscientiously.
It’s so dry. She doesn’t remember having to think about that in the garden. Her body didn’t have to create or discharge all these salty lubricants - sweat, tears, snot- desperately trying to reach some kind of apparently unattainable equilibrium, that recedes as elusively as the hazy horizon they keep pursuing-- that always seems just as far away.
In the garden she never thought about her hair, her lips, her nails, her very skin. Now they seemed like whiny children clamouring in her mind’s peripheral. I’m thirsty! I’m tired! Owy it hurts!
They had been such content, easy children before, never needing her attention- happy to grow plump, full of nutrients, saturated and moist. Her hair had changed the most. It was so dry and full of static, Adam would laugh at how it wrapped around her face and even stood straight up, and how annoyed she would get, trying to push it back. Before, it had slurped up the humid air, curling like little water slide tubes, the picture of fun. She’d mindlessly wrap the bouncy tendrils around her index finger, while she’d watched the panthers play.They were her favourite. Their sleek bodies shining. Letting her stroke them, sometimes their heavy heads falling asleep in her lap, after they’d licked themselves clean.
She chews at the side of her fingernail, still amazed at the sting such a seemingly tiny hangnail could produce. She shouldn’t bite them, there’s barely anything left, but they break anyways, as brittle as ancient, forgotten skeletons, snagging on things, like desperate torn flesh clinging to the bone. She reached in her leather pouch, for some more of the greasy balm Adam had made her out of melted goat fat when her lips began to be as scratchy as his growing beard. She applied it generously, the smell reminding her of meat smoking over the fire. She winces as she touches the tender spots her cold sores had festered into, now scabby remains refusing to heal, splitting if she dared smile without caution or adequate restraint. So dry, she thought.
It wasn’t just her chapped skin and itchy eyes that seemed sucked of moisture, the very land itself was like her skin- exposed, burned, ready to split.
At least it's not windy today. For days the air had ripped at their faces, transforming their thinning leather tunics into loud flags tethered to their flagpole frames. Her infuriatingly staticy hair sticking to the corners of her goat fat slathered mouth. The wind you would think would be a welcome relief from the dead stillness. If only it didn’t get so out of control. It reminded her of him. At first unthreatening, blowing in her ear as he whispered of delicious powers. But then tantruming, full rage, spitting out threats. First only a rattle, then a striking bite, the poison causing the world to writhe.
She shivered thinking of him; those dark eyes that didn’t blink.
Adam looks back at her. His eyes are the colour of honey- translucent, hiding nothing, reflecting light. The comparison makes her want to drizzle their sweetness into her palms and lick up the stickiness with her tongue, from between her fingers, up onto her wrists.
He smiles that boyish grin, his hair growing into his eyes, shaggy and thick, like a buffalo after a long winter. His dark hazelnut skin has grown even darker in the constant sun. She notices the little patches of red that rest on his cheeks, as he rubs the hollow of his eyes sockets, like a sleepy boy ready for bed.
She wonders where they will sleep, and once again the image returns of them nestled in the curve of one another, cushioned with the dark deep greens, vines twisting, her fingering the pulsing soft-spot of his ribs- her secret access, the hidden door of the cage to his heart.