It’s approximately six in the morning. Craning my neck, my head knocks gently against the window, my face catching a sigh from the vents; the sky beyond the dust smudged window is a mellow gray fading into inchoate shades of blue. The world is still.

My eyes track blurred patches of red flowers as the radio whispers in the background. The gentle susurration of words waft throughout the shell of the car and over slumbering bodies, the verbiage swallowed in languid inhales, being drawn into unsuspecting dreams. A banjo twangs: La Danse Macabre crackling faintly, muffled by a labyrinth of luggage.

The car grumbles onwards.

Through the windshield, a golden yolk breaks across the horizon. The silhouette of sparse blossoms set against the morning-dark landscape are instantly awash with russet ichor. Rubescent veins web their delicate filaments, my wide eyes tracking the viscous rays of effulgent saffron spilling over the skyline, infusing amaryllis fever-red. The sunlight appears to rend the very heavens asunder, spearing that feeble sky with a shaft of lustrous copper and saturating the earth with warmth. Orange floods the highway, the bordering blooms trembling – gleaming liquid gold beneath travel-worn tires, radiance bathing the interior of the car with tangerine.

That sunrise lingered on the horizon, leaking vibrant vermilion into my eyes, branding that scene into my mind.

Two days and one night, precisely. Two days consuming musty stale travel and the occasional bag of chips. In a white minivan smeared in rufous dust, I hurtle towards the sun, my heart rabbiting wildly in my chest, my fingers tingling, feeling light. Petals of crafted gold and sunshine shudder in synch with my heartbeat, a kindling sun of my own. Dancing cerise florets frame the vivid red sun, their name whispered into the bustling breeze.

“Amaryllis”

In Utah, a car rumbles along a barren highway and I look towards dawn.

A new hope sparking in my chest, echoing the eruption of embers ascending into the vault of heaven.