Tiny Dancer

We were soldiers once...and young.
I was in the military serving in the Saudi Arabian desert not long after the first American war in that land, and long before the current one.
I was still fresh to the world and googly-eyed at every new place I was sent, or went. What made it even more intense being there  at that time was that our base was as remote as you could get. Located in the plains north of al-Riyahd in the great, sun-scorched stretches where our ancestors brought forth the seed of humanity.
Not only was our compound far from life as I knew it, but my particular place of employment was even more remote from the base itself. Every day was a ritual in solitude and remoteness. Waking up in tent city, walking to the shower tent in dry silence. Avoiding any eye contact or conversation if you happened across another soul. Then back to dress in my little sheet-draped slice of heaven. It was a four minute walk to the motor pool to check out my truck, get the vitals and sign-off the daily check sheet so I could drive away like a good, little boy. Since I was a part of the administrative elite I drove a small pickup which only ferried officers or other administrators. I would grab whoever had made arrangements the day before with me then off to the first of five security checkpoints just to get the half mile off base. All the badge passing and password muttering took about twenty minutes. Once we were outside the main base it was a silent 35 minute drive across the desert basin with only one turn on an open four lane road uninhabited except by military. Everything appeared timeless out in the desert and that stretch of road may have been decades old and just didn't have any traffic to wear it down but it looked new to me. Even the piles of dirt pushed off to the sides seemed like the wind would have blown them away long ago, but then again the desert was hard as concrete. Out there it was as flat and open as a nightmare. Brown and blue forever. No flowers. No bushes. No birds, just flies and the occasional mesa (which I don't think is the correct term since this was another world).
It was on this long and empty drive that one of the sweetest gifts I was ever given came to me. Command wanted me to deliver some packages back to the main base and pick up a fellow troop that had missed the bus, and since it was early enough that I wouldn't miss lunch I took off without much ado.
It was after I picked up the arrant troop and passed the wheel to him (because I out-ranked him...ha!) for the long drive back when destiny tapped on my door.
We had passed the last checkpoint and the wide open stretch lay before us. The heat of noon was upon us and the ground began to shimmer and bend. During the summer months the heat is so pervasive and intense quicksilver becomes like an ocean. The whole desert floor shakes with it. Now, I don't know much about the science of optics but I will tell you that it takes the concave shape of the earth and reverses it. What once was hidden just past horizon's slope would now be raised in the sky. Hidden cities now sparkled some many miles off in the distance, sunlight burning hot on the top of the highest buildings, a magical floating kingdom for my inner boy.
The driver was talking about something I couldn't tune into and so I rolled down the window letting the amazingly hot air blow through my hair and gush in my ears. The repetition from having traveled this road without event day after day after month  after month already had me filing it away. Just another day down and closer to home, waiting to get somewhere else.
I was looking East out my window slumped in the worn out bench-seat trying to give my tired ass a break from the bumps in the road, and the worn out springs in this government issue dried turd of a truck. The driver's voice had faded away and I didn't even notice until I heard him say "whoa..." with just enough awe in his voice to redraw my attention. I side-long glanced with my eyes to the left trying to avoid looking interested in anything just in case he wanted to talk more when I saw what had grabbed his attention.
"Wondrous..."and "...beautiful", that's what I said to the driver. He agreed,
it was something one doesn't get to see every day. So we slowed the truck and watched it
for a little while on the side of the road.
Fifty yards away a dust twister was gearing up for some action.
He slowed down more as I sat up in my seat. Not but a few seconds after he uttered his surprise and I noticed "her", the twister jumped the road and tripled in size. Tall and skinny she was, almost two hundred yards tall as she shimmied across the hard sand like a belly-dancer. She was bending at her middle from side to side so rhythmically I could almost hear the cymbals shaking her tune.
It was the color of caramel and milk.
Her smell was ancient rooms disturbed by robber's feet.
My mouth started to hang open in amazement. By now the truck had come to a complete stop without my acknowledgement, and thank goodness for that, otherwise I would have collected at least a tablespoon of sand in my gaping maw from driving down the dirt road.
Across the endless and desolate stage she danced, getting taller and bending ever more dramatically in all directions as if she needed to impress us more.
Looking up the twister's length like a lascivious strip-show gawker I leaned out the window to see all the way up. I blinked in to the pale blue and blinding sky and saw the queen's crown. As she skirted across the desert floor she was sucking up the sand, stones, and diamonds. Yes, I said diamonds.
Out here the sand is blown for so long and gets so hot that it fuses together with other grains and keeps on rolling for lengths of time I cannot measure or postulate.The heat and the friction makes gems from balls of sand. Many times I have picked up these semi-precious gems and stuck them in my pocket to bring home. Some soldiers take them to the Arabic jewelers to get cut and polished. Afterwards you can't tell them apart from the real thing, without the proper tools and training.
There I was, sitting in that little truck looking at this epic dance, watching the grand finale. It was like fireworks coming out of the top of this enormous dust tornado. I could hear the heavier stones landing all across the ground at fantastic rates of speed, but in my imagination I could only hear the sparkle of those diamonds high up in the azure firmament like fizz in a champagne glass.
Shots of white light, in the hundreds, painted on a blue palate. Brilliant, tiny flashes of stones set ablaze by an unforgiving sun, even visible through the translucent twister on the other side!
I wanted to get out of the truck and go dance with her. Shed my spectator's skin and become the risk, apart of the dream. To wrap my arms around her dainty foot and feel her pull me up and into her like a lover...like a dancer.
That was the brave me.
The real me sat in the truck and watched.
On and on she went twisting, bending, and dancing for almost three minutes until she started to fade into the East getting skinnier and shorter. At last I couldn't see her in all the dust she had kicked up. The dust tornado had become a dream lost in the dust.
tre um boi.

I never asked my friend afterwards what he saw there and what he didn't see.
Because we all know it's in the unnamed and untamed that things live and grow.
Not naming things helps them be more, and not chasing helps....well, you know.