Out here sunlight has a taste. It fills your eyes and mouth and makes everything feel like a fish out of water, with scales pasted to your tongue. Everything tastes salty, because sweat runs down your face and stays on your lips, riding along with everything you eat.
The grit is like that too. It stings your eyes, and coats everything. No one in ------- will ever need to buy insulation. They could just open all the doors and windows and wait for the dust to fill in all the cracks. At least it isn’t humid. It’s dry here, living inside an oven. All the water bakes away.
I did eventually manage to buy a bike and leave Chicago. This was written where it died, which was a very small town in Arizona. I worked at a repair shop there, for a guy with some chronic pain and chronic medication issues. I slept on a couch in the office and I was saving up enough to buy parts to repair my bike and keep moving. That didn't end up happening. This was a very strange period in my life.