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The man would just look up at me every so often and I would smile. He walked for an hour while I rode on the back of the camel, looking both at his shoes shuffle and glide then out toward the trucks with sand-dusted tourists on little cushions bouncing around in the back of them, bandanas plastered to their faces so I could see the outline of their open mouths and noses. As the winds came up, bits of trash blew, and the smallest little flowers growing out of the arid sand shimmered lively and reminded that we can survive the worst scenarios. I stared at the mountain range, and saw martian tents in the distance, and thought of earlier when the Asian woman with a black mask stood erect in the back of a still silver truck bed peering off into the distance (she was actually facing the rest of the parking lot) while her husband took photos of her. It looked like she was adventuring. She was not. The music coming out of the strobing ghetto blaster outside was a version of Boston’s “More than a feelin’”. French tourists. German. English. Saudis. They all looked the same to me. Tourists. I marveled at what we project onto these places, their backyard, as I rode along: “I read in the lobby about ant praying. Yes, ant prayer. Dung roll psalm #5. Shh. Listen. Shh. Hear it? Quiet! If you just fucking listen for a second you can hear it. You’re not available enough. You need to open yourself up. Seriously, the little one right there. The one with three legs. They’re called prayer ants. I’ve read about them. Been around for a long time. The lore is that one of these prayer ants bit Moses. That’s what I read anyway. They used to call them crabs but now they call them Prayer Ants. They’re capitalized now because it’s an actual title, like a royalty. Prayer Ants. They’re considered holy in this area. They have an international Prayer Ant Day now. I think it’s around Christmas. Off season. Let’s just sit here and listen for a moment. Make yourself available. Shhhh.” Then the camel ride was over. He knelt. I pet him. I shook the man’s hand. And now I’m back at the hotel with the infinity pool and the elliptical cardio machine in the gym wondering what I’m doing, then and now.