The Atacama Llama

My first crack at a short-story proper!

What a sorry sight he makes, this woebegone llama, down here in the lonely Atacama. Dessicating, evaporating, sublimating. His dusty white coat shuddering up and collapsing down with every breath, his tongue shivering and curling in-and-out, lapping at the sharp desert air. And that jellyscum around his sinking eyes, with its thickening crust. I wonder, can he see me still?

Every so often, a llama will come – and go – this way, winding down from the high Andes and through these desolate foothills, towards the promised coast. I can only guess at their motivations: love, hate, rejection, rebellion, bravado? Curiosity, fuelled by the idle speculation of elders? Dementia or youth, which are not so dissimilar?

I first spotted this one four days ago. How insignificant he’d seemed from the hilltop: a small white speck inching through the vast, dead river of red-brown stones. But out here, where nothing moves but the sky, it’s easy to spot a wayward llama, especially when you have eyes like... well, like a fox. He was moving at a decent pace then – still had that determined step – but when I visited the next day his legs were weakened, the heady fuel of adventure exhausted.

These bold young llamas will charge straight over the last running water they’ll ever see. And such is their enthusiasm for this new sparse environment and this romantic descent, that they’ll not notice the very last tinge of green as it races beneath their eager hooves. It’s subtle and wobbly and migratory, the limit of that hardy frontier growth, but so terribly sharp and absolute upon reflection. Only a few days past the boundary do they realise their mistake, but still they press on, guided by that natural optimism of the mountain-dwellers, straight out into my country.

I like it down here. I’ve spent time up high, in the trees and streams and the sparkling grass, but I always return to this desert, craving the dry air and space, and the discipline and patience it demands of me. There’s too many links in the food chain up there, too many backs to scratch and always someone picking at yours. Down here I keep lean and sharp and nimble, and worry only for myself. It’s no place for soft minds and bodies and morals.

This one wasn’t frightened when I first darted out – fresh from the mountains, they never are. They fail to grasp the new desert dynamic: size is a burden. The threats out here are small and simple, their urges primal and deadly. But they never run, these big, giddy llamas. Instead, they follow closely, driven by a thirst that has seized control. I am, after all, evidence of water.

On moonlit nights, I sit up on my peak and watch the thick mist come creeping in, advancing inland as moist air from the sea meets the sinking Andean chill. I watch it sweep and swirl through the latitudinal valleys and reach up over the saddlebacks, unfurling like the fingers of a silvery ghost. Its route and extent are temperamental, so I stay alert and take careful note of the gullies and overhangs it favours. Sometimes the cold mist slides right up with peculiar force and swallows me whole, and on those nights my sleep is filled with dreams of the dawn’s fine harvest.

That first morning, when this llama started to follow, I led him over to a black monolith that bubbles out from the fringe of the stony river, because there, in the rock’s permanent shade, grow eight fragile, leafless shrubs. Pathetic, dry plants they are, smaller than me and no good to eat, but their spindly branches collect enough tiny droplets of mist to slake a small thirst. I showed him what to do and he licked and licked, and I dashed away before he looked up.

It’s a futile thing I do, showing them those miserable droplets, and even a terrible thing, given that I don’t show them my best spots - they’re walking dead before I see them, and I don’t seek to delay their fate unnecessarily. But I’ve been up in their mountains and looked down on this and seen – I think – what they see, so I feel a host’s obligation to show them the desert way – the getting, almost, of water from stone.

He was happy to see me again yesterday morning, when I showed him some more dew-catchers and hidey-holes, but this morning he was drawn and vacant. The blade of looming death, which so hones my desert craft, had shredded through his fluffy soul.

All this long day, my tail brushed the ridgeback as I paced its length. My movements were rigid and ill-thought, and I cursed myself for the energy wasted. Eventually, late in the afternoon, he staggered and fell, right in the spot I like them to reach.

Now, his long white neck is arched back and, together, we take in the lower reaches of this long-dead river, which opens out toward the distant ocean and the sinking sun. His eyes still flicker lightly.

Long ago, torrents of glacial water carved out this landscape, moving and shaping the pebbles and cobbles and boulders that are now polished by the streaking, unhindered winds. Most stones lie flat and relaxed, hibernating through this infinite dry, but the rare ones stand tall and tortured, leaning down towards the coast and begging for a nudge. In this late afternoon sun their shadows are long, and the riverbed resembles a cemetery.

I think this is a good place for them. I like to imagine that the dusky light might deceive their wistful eyes; that the rocky hillsides bounding the valley might soften into grassy alpine slopes, and the piercing spires might capture the last intense sun and look for all the world like cool, snowy caps. Having been drawn down into these horrors by their rosy mountain focus, I like to leave them with a vision of home.

He shuts his gummy eyes to focus on every breath. My tail betrays me. When his chest stands still, and when the mist shrouds us both, I’ll go to work on him with no regrets.

THE END