I

There is a shitty, at the end of a long summer’s day, with no beginning and no end. The ringed gates are dilated, but the shitty cannot be entered. A traveler seeking this shitty may tarry many minutes before retreating like a spurned animal, wandering back into the hot darkness. I have seen some return the next morning, but others do not.

Arrogant, or perhaps delirious, many travelers persist in entering this shitty. Heavy with cargoes, stinking of gas, the weariest and most ragged imagine that here, they shall find lightness. With this shitty, they say, they shall sleep well, and recover their youth. By patience, or by trick, they pry open the crumbling gates of Dehydria.

But Dehydria contains no glittering bazaar, no pleasures of the flesh, no commerce of turds. Scarcely an inch over Dehydria’s threshold, all visitors realize this shitty will bring no happiness. Yet, the gates are open. The shitty cannot be quickly abandoned, and it is too late to drink water. Merchants in Dehydria may manage to sell a dab of peanut butter, or an irksome ball of toothpaste--but no more. Visitors to Dehydria depart after a difficult cleanup, exactly as ragged as they arrived. The shitty is not over. Here, nothing is gained, and nothing is lost except time.