Keep a song in your heart and a revolver in the hand

Lately Narcisia often found herself caught in amazing adventures on Ybox 180 Gaming Console, but this time, the winds of adventure called her for real to a destination as wild as her heart, the Endless Desert. With her husband, Pio Perculo, her wife, Letizia, and the bitchy couple Hazel and Tati, alongside the peacefylly man also known as Green Peace, they boarded a plane bound for the Singing Cactus and the Flaming Tumbleweed.

Beneath a sky scattered with cotton clouds, Narcisia stared out of the airplane window, her heart racing faster than the propellers above her. Beside her, her husband, Pio Perculo, chattered excitedly about their daring descent into the unknown making Narcisia even more nervous. Letizia, her wife, wore her usual fuckoff smile, while Hazel and her wife Tati were lost in their own shared excitement. Green Peace on his own puffing on a joint.

“Hey amò,” Pio Perculo said, his voice dripping with exaggerated seriousness, “give me your bra. I bet it’ll work better as a parachute than these ones!

“amò stay serious for a while please. What if… what if I can’t pull the cord? What if something goes wrong?” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Nonsense! It’s just a leap into freedom. You’ll feel alive!” Pio’s enthusiasm was infectious, but the void below made Narcisia’s stomach twist in knots.

As the plane circled to descend, she caught a glimpse of the vast expanse of sand beneat a golden ocean stretching endlessly under the sun. The thought of hurling herself into that abyss was terrifying.

With a sudden lurch, the cabin door opened, and the rush of hot desert air poured inside like opening a furnace. Before she could blink, Letizia suddenly pulled her toward the gaping maw of the door, then Pio Perculo pushed them both forward and jumped off with them, and suddenly they were freefalling through the blue sky.

They touched down, kind of,  laughing like crazy. After dusting each other off, they started wandering the vast, sun-drenched sands of the desert for what felt like an eternity. The relentless heat bore down on them, distorting the horizon into a whimsical tapestry of shimmering waves. After hours of trudging through the dunes, Narcisia squinted her eyes, convinced she’d spotted the glint of a grattachecche seller.

“Did you see that?” she exclaimed, practically bouncing on her toes. “A grattacheccaro! Right over there!” She pointed to the distant illusions, her excitement momentarily thawing the weariness weighing on them.

They all chuckled, as they realized it was just another mirage. 

As they continued walking, the air around them was filled with the faint echo of a song, drifting like blues. The melody danced around them, soft yet firm, guiding them but yet nowhere “Come all ye young fellows that follow the sea to me, way hey, blow the man down,” the tune sang out. It seemed both a call and a challenge.

The landscape was populated with people moving along the horizon, probably  another mirage, Letizia asked one of them “Excuse me! Do you know how to get to where you are going?” He merely shrugged “This is ridiculous....” she huffed swearing as her usual, but Hazel stopped her "Leti' no bad words, take your pill and calm down, everyone here seems as clueless as we are!”

It was then they met him, a tall man with dusty boots and a crooked grin. “You people need a guide?” he asked, his voice raspy as if it had not tasted water in years. “Name’s Dusty Bottoms, but everyone calls me Dusty.” He tipped his hat, revealing a mess of tangled hair beneath, and added, “To reach where you wanna go, you’ll first need a six-shooter and the magic chant to continue.”

Pio exchanged an incredulous glance with Narcisia as she said. “Is he for real?” They laughed it off, thinking Dusty was just another illusion of their sunburned minds.

“Sounds silly” Pio said. “But what do we have to lose? Green?” 

Green Peace shrugged "don't look at me bro, once I had a friend named Dusty and he went away when the housekeeper cleaned up my room..

They all laughed to the joke, also Dusty. His yellowed teeth flashing like a warning beacon. “Follow me!” He said and led them to a scraggly cluster of rocks that formed a jagged alcove. Inside lay  what looked like a relic from an old west movie, a Peacemaker Revolver. Next to it, a crumpled piece of parchment bore the words of a magic chant, faded yet insistent:

“Come closer baby tell your  story untold,

come celebrate with us the twenty years old 

Oh, missin' O, through every memory and tie

Oh, missin' O Twenty years in a moment gone by 

Like an old record playin', just echoing this song,

In the blue of the world and there we still belong.”

“It’s absurd,” Letizia muttered as she picked up the revolver, the weight of it comforting in her palm. "feel free to sing that shit but don't count on me"  

Except Letizia, their voices joined  as they belted out the chant together, letting it rise above the desert. 

As the last note faded into the air, Letizia raised the revolver skyward with a defiant shout. “Watch out, world!” she declared, her crazy spirit ignited by her usual rush of maddness. In a moment she pulled the trigger, the sound ringing through the stillness like a clarion call.

BLAM!  They heard a scream and something, or someone, fell to the ground not far from there. None of them went to check, their attention soon after it was caught by a startling vision,  just beyond the dunes. There was an Oasis, a hidden gem surrounded by rich palms and water shimmering as if it contained the very essence of the life itself.

“Look!” Narcisia gasped, pointing towards the vibrant greens and blues that seemed to pulse with life. At the center stood an ethereal woman singing and dancing around a well, her long hair flowing like rippling water.

The woman’s voice rang melodic and timeless, weaving through the air like silk. She beckoned them closer, smiling with a lovely grace. “You have come at last,” she whispered, her voice caressing the desert wind. “You sought the truth hidden within 20 years of mirages. Welcome to the Missing O”

In that moment, they all understood. Their journey awarded them with some gifts and a lesson: embrace whatever adventures lay in wait, past present and future. Always go where you wanna go and don't ask people for directions, just follow the song in your heart and don't forget to hold a revolver in the hand.