Celestial Navigation

Benjamin is inverted.  Facing backwards, he is rotating a smooth sandy ball with the tarsi of his hind legs, pressing forward with his front legs, cutting a channel in the loose earth of the desert floor.

Jessica trots behind, their black carpaces glossy in the starlit night.

After a number of paces Benjamin halts the ball.  He clambers off it and stands aside of the channel.

Jessica strides forward, clambers up, pirouettes atop the ball.  The eyes of her flattened face gather direction from the light of long ago extinguished stars in the Milky Way. 

 She climbs down, adjusts the path, and stands aside.  Benjamin ambles up and resumes pushing forward.   

After a few more paces Benjamin halts and dismounts.  Jessica digs beneath it, disappearing from the surface.  The ball sinks below the desert floor.  Benjamin kicks sand over the top of it. 

 He joins Jessica in the coital burrow.