In the parched desert sands, a mirage glistens invitingly on the horizon, but the nearest water is a hard day’s march in the opposite direction. You swear you smell the faint wet smell like coming rain when the wind shifts just right and see the stars reflected off some far lake at night.

There’s no water here, just a lone sandblasted pillar, its features smeared by centuries of sand.  Smell that? The brine of ocean mist? Here? Is the pillar made of coral polyps and mollusk shells? What is this place?