Kurt

He looks like a man who has spent his whole life standing on ground that answers to him—earth that hardens under his boots, fences that lean but do not fall, animals that feel the weight of his voice and settle. Everything about him suggests permanence. The width of his shoulders, the heavy thatch of hair across his chest and arms, the deep lines carved into his face by sun and wind and patience. This is not a man who expects the land to give way. Which is why the quicksand has caught him so completely. It isn’t dramatic in the way people imagine danger. There was no sudden plunge, no thrashing panic. Just a moment when the soil softened under his weight, when what looked dry and reliable turned dense and treacherous, like wet clay pretending to be dirt. By the time he understood, it had already taken him to the waist. By the time he tried to free himself, it had decided he belonged to it. The sand is thick—almost solid, the color of churned grain and mud. It grips him like a slow, deliberate hand. Every breath, every small shift of muscle, presses it tighter against his body. It molds itself to his shape, climbing his hips, his ribs, the underside of his massive chest. The sheer size of him works against him now; there is more of him for the earth to hold. He doesn’t shout. That might be the strangest thing. His jaw is set, mustache dark with moisture, a toothpick clenched between his lips out of habit more than need. His eyes—sharp, pale, used to reading weather and distance—stay steady. He is thinking. Measuring. Conserving energy. He has survived droughts, stampedes, broken bones set badly and healed anyway. Panic has never helped him. It won’t help him now. But there is something new in his expression as the sand reaches his chest and presses close to his sternum. It’s not fear, exactly. It’s realization. The land he trusted has turned intimate and implacable. It doesn’t hate him. It doesn’t rush. It simply takes. The weight of the quicksand squeezes