The wind carried away the sound of my breathing mingled with the smell of rain and the the taste of rice cooked over a fire as it rippled the blue, synthetic fabric of the tent against the smooth curve of his shoulder.
The gravely ping of pebbles kicked along by the rubbery edge of someone's boot pulled me from my daydream of salty golden sunlight and sky-blue waves flinging themselves against orange cliffs
I crawled over him and out into the cold, biting air to slump before the leaping yellow flames, holding up my little tin cup to be filled with scorching, thick black coffee
As others slowly emerged from their tents, our bedraggled company grew like a spiders web spinning out from the flickering heart center.
The old man seated on the log next to me wriggled a map out of his pocket and unfolded it across his knees with a flourish like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
He turned his face, wrinkled and brown like the seat of a worn armchair, toward me said with a cackle, "you'll need more of that coffee to get through what we have ahead of us today."
He must have cursed us, as they say, because just then the heavy morning sky cracked open, spilling fat bullets of rain into the fire.
The acrid sting of smoke rested on my tongue as everyone scattered, hurrying to smother flames and shove displaced tins and gloves into packs.
I felt the tickle of his fingers on the back of my neck as evidence that he'd finally emerged from his slumber to join the race to get on the trail before everything was swept up in the whip of rain and wind.
I waited a moment before turning around to see him sprawled on his pack, reading the map as if it were the morning newspaper.
A crack of lightning lashed through the darkness of the still-early morning that shrouded the last gathering and hoisting of belongings before our meager parade shuffled into the awaiting hills.