Filed under: Destination Cafe
Across the Desert and Into the Sun.
The sky falls down like a huge cloak enveloping everything. There is nowhere to hide. The stars fall down with it never knowing where to land, where to create gigantic outbursts of life in a ground devoid of it. The emptiness churns the stomach and the blackness creates dizzying spells that leave a soul wandering aimlessly into the vast unknown.
I am lost in the middle of a desert. Running but never going far.
The moon glows from afar, overlooking mostly nothing but this long strip of paved road that leads weary souls into the next oasis. Where it is, how far it is… is unknown, unpredictable. The lush green island comes when it’s time to see it. For now, there is nothing out there. Just sand swayed by the gentle desert wind. Temperature has fallen, inhabitants have hidden, there is nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait for the rising sun. If I were to choose my own path here, I will stop and howl into the eternal oblivion… and run like crazy, like crazy! After all, this land knows no bounds.
There is something to a night time in the desert. I scratch my nails at the glass separating me and the world outside. I breathe in, happy with the new experience. And I breathe out, frustrated that I cannot feel the earth outside and know what is hidden in there. I may never know. The light of the moon is not enough to illuminate what is happening in the vast outthere. I am contented to let the sky engulf me for the meantime. Even if it means uncertainty, a feeling I am most afraid of. For now, I am brave enough. The world is mine and it owns me.
This land opens my eyes: I am worthless. I am just a grain of sand in this world. If I’m gone, I will only create a pinch and not a ripple. No one will feel the difference, unless it’s very close to me. All the others will be in the know, but will brush me aside… like a dust in the wind. Seen for a moment, gone for eternity. Somehow though, I do not mind. Everyone else has a fate like mine. I felt my blood freezing, the cold seeping in my bones. This place offers little but offers the extremes: things I can never experience anywhere else.
I let the darkness take me…
Four hours into the travel, the sun slowly peeks in the East in front of me. I say hello and look back to the dawn behind to wave my goodbye. The sky has stopped falling and has opened up warmly. Inhabitants have risen and are going about their rounds for the day while I sit here, still on the move but not howling anymore. Still lost in the sand but armed with a new hope as wide as the sand land I see. Heat ripples aside.
Somehow, the night has left its fingers caressing the land beyond me. There’s not much of activity except for the shifting sand and the still swaying little patches of grass faraway. The sky is not clear and I doubt it if it’ll ever become clear. The flying sand has no finite directions. It goes everywhere, including the atmosphere where it mutes the sun’s rays. But the sun refuses to give in. It still shines and gives me an armful of sunlight, kissing my cheeks and drenching the ground.
By noon, it has baked much of the desert, which is used to it now. I’m not even sure if it has gone overbaked after so many centuries and is just repeating the process because there’s nothing else to be done about it. This ground is meant to be toasted for eternity. It’s not a punishment, it’s a destiny, a destiny it accepts wholeheartedly. Whoever wishes to live in this ground will have to make it their destiny too.
I wonder about the nomads. My imagination takes me into mud shacks with no address. How many people know they are living? How many people know where? If they’re lost or worst, gone, will we ever know? Did they ever think of leaving this land and searching for a greener pasture? Or is this seemingly always parched land greener than we ever think? Are they the ones lost or are we the ones missing? Living in the middle of nowhere is scary but liberating.
Freedom with no known bounds. That’s what the desert has to offer day and night. We are free to take it and bathe in its glory but the most exhilirating part? Finding our way home. Can you take on this desert’s greatest challenge?
Across the moonlit desert and into the sun… it’s a wonderful journey.
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