Word: sand
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...seen under the waves comes from the luminous green of a beer can or the white from a Styrofoam takeout box. Onshore, as the sun goes down, the beach could barely be more alive. Crowds of backpackers squeeze into seven beachfront clubs on a mile-long strip of white sand. Many wear fluorescent body paint. Glowing psychedelic sculptures line the shore. Hawkers sell food, water, cigarettes, marijuana, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, amphetamines. Prostitutes work the crowds. Dancers spin fire chains over their heads alongside ladyboys on raised platforms. The music is deafening, dominating. Those too bombed to dance hug their knees...
What was once the center of the world now seems to lie on the remotest margins. It's hard to believe that this torpid, sand-colored town, with its bored Indian shopkeepers sitting outside foodstuff-and-luxuries stalls and camels grazing outside the (largely empty) Hilton Hotel, was once the Dhofar that Zheng He's ships (though not, it seems, the admiral himself) sought out, in 1432 on their seventh voyage. The Salalah Holiday Inn slumbers near the spot where old Chinese coins were once discovered. The classified section of the Oman Daily Observer reports that someone named Zou Shichui...
...dunes. At one point, I started running like a mad man and ripping off my clothes. When a plane passed overhead, I stared up hopelessly and imagined all the people sitting inside. To stay alive I drank my urine. Eventually I cupped a plastic bag over the hot sand and licked the condensation that collected inside...
...There, a few nights after the massacre, I watched Gorbachev talk vaguely but ominously on TV of the need to introduce controls over the media. Gorbachev's performance that January sealed his fate. Instead of investigating the attack, dismissing and punishing top commanders, he buried his head in the sand. The KGB, the military and the party leaders did not miss the message: Try a power play and you will not be punished. Succeed and he may back...
...brutal b) if Puffy says it's raining, it's raining c) sweeping the sand in front of him was too demeaning d) even stalkers need a gimmick e) court orders prevent Puffy from holding...