Redsand Canyon days of creation

morning, clear and sunny, territory #1 (Healer's Pass)

In a triangle of shadow: there is one eye, then two, then the flash of a white cheek. As if someone is pulling on the blinds, light throws itself across his face. He wilts in the incandescence. 

The first day: let there be light.

The trek to the north border is a walk he's made many times before. He has orbited the Canyons like an obsessive stacking up their CD collection in alphabetical order. Along the way he sees a bat clinging onto a cactus and it almost brings him to tears.

Outside is muggy and the horizon ripples with heat, so he retreats to the shade cast by the evergreen trees, lightly panting; the squirrels and birds complain overhead in the branches, and he thinks I don't want me to be here too, even though there's no feasible way for them to understand. 

The second day: let there be sky.