A festival story. The characters are imagined; the clothes are real.
The dunes were silver at 2:40 in the morning, and the wind hadn't come yet.
From the edge of the date grove I could see a mile of them under a half moon, swell after pale swell, and on the far crests the slow stars of riders still out: a headlight, a red taillight, and above each machine an LED whip glowing eight feet up, bobbing like a lantern on a fishing pole. Behind me, under the palms, a sound system on a flatbed poured out uplifting trance, a breakdown climbing chord by chord until two hundred arms went up at once. The sand under my boots was cold as creek water. Forty-five degrees.
My phone buzzed. Saff, standing three feet away, because Saff has never walked over when she could text.
Tonight.
She had sent one every February for ten years. 9 years. 8 years. 4. I answered none of them until last Tuesday at 1 a.m., from a motel off the 8, my car packed to the roof with boxes: I'm coming.
"Wind advisory moved up," she said, turning her screen to me. Gusts to fifty by four-thirty. She tipped her chin at the toy haulers glittering along the dunes. "And it's Presidents' Day weekend. At first light, half of Southern California rides straight over our tree."
Calder was already walking to the side-by-side.
✦
Ten years ago we were nineteen, at our first rave, on this same farm where the dunes spill over the back fence. At sunrise Emeka produced a rusted ammo can from his uncle's truck, Saff dropped a pin on four phones, and we each wrote a letter to the person we'd be at twenty-nine. We buried them under a smoke tree a mile out, a ghost-grey tangle of thorns that stood taller than Calder.
That Monday I left for Pittsburgh to study bridges. I didn't come back for anything. Not graduations. Not Emeka's wedding.
Saff drove her dad's four-seater the long way, along the floors of the bowls, hard doors shut, roof on, an orange flag snapping at the top of a lit whip. "Out here nobody sees your face first," she said. "They see your flag." She never once went straight over a crest. "A rider on the other side can't see you either."
The pin put us at the foot of a dune. No tree.
Then Calder's headlamp found three grey branches poking out of the sand like fingers waving from underwater. In ten years the dune had walked right over it.
We dug. Emeka had a thermos of champurrado that breathed cinnamon and corn every time he unscrewed it, and blue galaxy joggers he'd bought for the occasion. "Fleece inside," he said, slapping his knee. "I'm twenty-nine. I know things now." Calder dug without a word, his cloak thrown back over his shoulders: a deep violet galaxy built of honeycomb, teal mandalas strung down the front like beads. I tried not to watch the way it swung with the shovel. I watched anyway.
3:40. 3:52. The hole went down past our knees.
Then, to the west, the stars began going out. Not clouds. A low brown wall, eating them one by one from the horizon up.
Along the crest above us, the sand began to smoke.
At 4:06, Calder's shovel rang on metal.
✦
The first gust hit like a shoulder.
"Cab," Saff said. "Now."
Goggles down. Buffs up over our noses. The air turned to sandpaper. Calder opened his cloak, pulled me in, turned us so our backs took the wind and dragged the hood forward over both our heads, and for twenty steps I breathed nothing but soft faux fur and the smell of him: motor oil and cedar.
Doors slammed. The cab rocked on its springs. Sand poured across the windshield like sugar from a split bag, and the glow of our own whip, eight feet above us, vanished into brown.
Saff flicked on the hazards. "Nobody drives. Nobody walks. We sit. It passes."
So we sat. Four headlamps. One thermos. One ammo can.
Emeka went first, in his most pompous voice:
Dear Old Emeka. If you are reading this and you have a mustache, shave it immediately.
He touched his mustache. The cab howled.
Saff read hers in silence, then passed it to me.
Future Saff. You're the glue. Someone will drift, probably Vida. Text her anyway. Every year. Don't stop because she doesn't answer.
She'd underlined anyway twice. I looked at her. She looked at the windshield.
Mine I couldn't read aloud. Dear Vida at twenty-nine. Did you build your bridge? Did you take it home? I folded it small and held it in my fist.
Then Emeka tipped the can, and a fifth envelope slid out.
We had buried four.
✦
It was addressed to me, at the Pittsburgh dorm I hadn't even moved into yet, in pencil gone silver with age. A Forever stamp sat in the corner, never canceled.
Calder looked at it the way you look at a slip face you're about to go down.
Inside were seven sheets of notebook paper. The same short letter, seven times. On the first, half the words were crossed out and tried again; on two pages the eraser had worn clean through. Each page stood a little straighter than the one before. The seventh read:
Vida, I wanted to say this out loud tonite but you were danceing and I didnt want to stop that. Everywere we go you count the exits. I see you do it. Tonight you didnt. Three hours and you never once looked for the door. I want to be a place like that for you. Thats the hole letter. Go build your bridges. If you ever want one that comes back this way, I'll be on the other end. C.
I ran my thumb over the holes the eraser had made.
"Took me seven tries," Calder told the dashboard. "You were going to be an engineer. I wasn't sending you a letter that said hole."
"I'd have read all seven." My voice came out in pieces. "Calder. I'd have read all seven."
In the back seat, Emeka screwed the lid back onto the thermos, slowly, so it wouldn't make a sound.
✦
At 5:51 the wind quit as fast as it had come.
We climbed out into a world wiped clean. Every track gone, every footprint, every tire groove; the dunes lay smooth as poured cream, rose-gold at the rims. We filled our hole and packed out every scrap, can and all.
Then, on the eastern crest, a flag rose. Orange, eight feet up. Then ten. Then a hundred, riding up over the dunes into the first light, engines waking in one long rising roar: the morning tide.
Saff had us moving, slow along the bowl's edge, flag high, lights on. A sand rail crested above us, caught our whip, and its driver lifted one gloved hand. Saff lifted hers back.
At the grove, the DJ was easing into the sunrise set. Then a lead line came floating out of the speakers, the same soaring anthem that played here ten years ago while four nineteen-year-olds dug a hole, and Emeka grabbed Saff and spun her into the sand.
I shrugged off my puffer. Underneath were the mauve leggings Saff had mailed me in January, plum and lilac mandalas, with a sticky note: DRESS CODE: SHOW UP. Sand to the knee already.
Calder stood beside me, the galaxy cloak open, its honeycomb catching the sun.
"I have a question for whoever's on the other end of that bridge," I said.
He went very still. "Ask it."
"Will you kiss me?"
"Yes," he said. "Ten years of yes." He tasted of cinnamon and sand, and the cloak swung around us while the breakdown climbed.
Afterward I took his envelope from my pocket, crossed out Pittsburgh, and wrote the address of the little stucco rental in El Centro I'd signed for two weeks ago, the one with a lemon tree and boxes still stacked to the ceiling.
"We'll mail it on the way out," I said. "I want to get it."
Saff read the new address over my shoulder and shrieked loud enough to turn heads at the speaker stack.
Up on the crest the orange flags kept rising into the sun, and down in the bowl, on brand-new sand, our four sets of footprints were the first.
Dressed for the dig at the smoke tree
Madriax is a night sky built like a hive: a deep violet and indigo galaxy laid over a honeycomb grid, with mandalas threaded through it like constellations someone drew on purpose. Calder's cloak is the Magus Fawn Madriax men's festival cloak ($250), with teal mandalas strung down the front and a hood deep enough to pull forward on a windy walk back to camp. Emeka's Madriax Blue joggers ($100; $105 in 2XL, $108 in 3XL) carry a starry violet and cobalt galaxy from hip to cuff, made for a 45°F dig. Vida's Madriax Mauve women's yoga leggings ($70) trade the galaxy for dusky plum with lilac mandalas, stretchy enough for a shovel and a sunrise set.
- Cloak: micro-mink outer · ultra-soft fluffy microfiber fleece lining in black or white faux fur · listed fabric weight 200 g/m² · double front zipper · heavy drawstrings · four pockets (two interior stash pockets, one zippered, plus two deep side pockets) · unisex fit, XS–5XL.
- Joggers: 96% recycled poly / 4% elastane · listed fabric weight 308 g/m² · cotton-feel face with brushed vegan fleece inside · cuffed legs · side pockets · elastic waist and drawstring · slim fit, XS–3XL (order 1–2 sizes up for a looser fit).
- Leggings: microfiber, 75% recycled poly / 25% elastane · listed fabric weight 225 g/m² · 4-way stretch · raised waistband · XS–XL · happiest kept clear of thorny branches.
Every piece is made to order. Dig up your own galaxy: men's cloaks · women's cloaks · joggers
What do you wear to the sand dunes at night?
Wear warm layers you can shake sand out of. Magus Fawn's dune-night formula is stretchy leggings or brushed-fleece joggers, a hooded festival cloak for the hours when desert nights sink into the 40s, closed boots, and goggles and a buff in your pocket, because desert wind can raise a wall of sand in minutes.
- The uplifting trance dress code: trance crowds love shimmer, celestial color, kandi and fan flags worn as capes. In the dunes, let a galaxy print carry the sparkle, and keep your flag for the dance floor.
- Sand and wind kit: sealed goggles, a buff or bandana for your nose and mouth, zips over buttons, and pockets that close. Shake everything out before you climb into the vehicle, and wash cold with like colors at home.
- Dune safety, the short version: at California's Imperial Sand Dunes, the BLM requires every vehicle to fly a red or orange flag on a whip mast reaching 8 feet, with headlights and taillights at night. On foot, walk the bowl floors with a light, stay off crests where riders come over blind, and keep clear of buggy routes at first light.
- When the wind arrives: get into a hard-sided vehicle or building, shut the doors, and stay put until you can see the route again.
For trance under open skies, Dreamstate SoCal brings trance anthems, fan flags and PLUR culture to the Queen Mary waterfront in Long Beach each late November, on damp harbor nights of 50–55°F; EDC Las Vegas gives trance its own quantumVALLEY stage at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in mid-May, where desert wind can feel cool around 4 a.m.; and Countdown NYE mixes trance into its five covered stages at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino on Dec 31–Jan 1, with nights of 40–45°F.
Frequently asked questions
Why do dune buggies have flags on whips?
Dune crests hide oncoming traffic, so a tall flag is often the first thing another rider sees. At California's Imperial Sand Dunes, the Bureau of Land Management requires every vehicle, motorcycles included, to carry a whip mast reaching 8 feet from the ground, with a 6x12-inch red or orange flag within 10 inches of its tip.
What should you do if a sandstorm hits while you're camping?
Get inside a hard-sided vehicle, trailer or building, close the doors and windows, and wait. Cover your nose and mouth with a buff or damp cloth, wear sealed goggles, and rinse rather than rub your eyes. Don't drive or walk while visibility is near zero; stay put until the wind drops and you can see the route.
What is uplifting trance?
Uplifting trance is a subgenre of trance built for euphoria: bright, soaring melodies, long breakdowns that strip the beat away, and a big build back into the drop, usually around 136 to 140 BPM. It grew out of late-1990s European trance, and its crowds are known for hands in the air, fan flags and singalongs.
Written by Magus & Lylyth Fawn, the Los Angeles artists behind Magus Fawn. Magus makes VR and digital visionary art and produces Psy EDM. Lylyth makes fractal digital art and runs design and customer care. We've been selling wearable art since 2020 on Etsy (4.7★ from 144 reviews as of October 2026) and here at magusfawn.com. Come say hi on Instagram @magusfawn.
0 comments