The Voice in the Desert
Harrow International Hong Kong, Eve Caplowe, Fiction: Group 3
I
t was dark.
Nothing but the brilliant gleam of stars that hovered overhead broke that inky blackness
that stifled the roving sand dunes. They whispered in the sharp strong wind like a lullaby,
but I couldn’t sleep.
The more I tried to concentrate on the lulling whisper of the sands, the more strange they
felt. The wind picked up, faster and faster until it was like a thousand voices screaming until it
whipped the sand into a frenzy of restless dancing, piercing my skin.
And all the while, a cold but desperate, resonant but scared voice was yelling in a language I
didn’t understand.
I woke in a sweat, panting hard. I had been having this same dream for days. I woke this way
every time. Was it a sign? A message from some divine force? I don’t know, and to be honest I
don’t really care. All I knew was that I had to go to a desert. A cold one. I did my research and I
guessed it was the Gobi Desert, in Mongolia.
No one really wanted me to go, but only Diana knew about my dream. She didn’t only accept
it; she wanted to go with me.
So we did. It’s mostly details from there. Di got in a fight with a customs official when he said
we couldn’t get visas, but it was fine from there. We got on a jet to Beijing, then we switched to a
small rickety plane that shuddered into the air to Ulaanbaatar.
Ulaanbaatar was shabby and cold. The sharp wind seemed to seep into my bones, making
me shiver.
Diana’s lips were turning blue, and it reminded me of when we were very small, and Diana had
gotten it into her head that she had to swim in the sea in winter. I’d been scared, but she convinced
me to come with her. I still remember that grey January day, with wintery clouds and vicious
biting wind. Diana strode down the beach, shivering but proud, and threw herself into the sea.
I dipped in a cautious toe and instantly felt as if cold nails were being driven into it. I gulped
as Diana smiled grimly in that iron-grey water. The tide came in and froze me up to my ankles
and I felt rooted to the spot; cold, hard sand drilling into the soles of my feet.
‘Hello? Hello? Anyone home?’ Diana snapped her fingers in my face. I had been so wrapped up
in my daydreams I hadn’t noticed a man, bent double with age and red in the face from years of
searing sunlight, holding a placard saying ‘Miss Diana Parks and Miss Abigail Winters.’
Diana prodded me forward and I took a shaky step toward the man. Something about his
bright eyes and light step scared me. It was almost as if he had the spirit of a boy trapped in his
shrivelled face.
Diana sighed. She was scared of him too, but it would take someone who knew her as well I
did to see through her jaunty strides toward him. But I was not so confident.
That man had struck into me a fear I didn’t know I had.
What if this was the wrong desert, not the one from my dream?
What if I lived a version of my dream in reality?
What if I found the owner of that terrifying voice?
I scurried after Diana, wishing I never dreamt of whispering sands and resonant voices.
