New Tales of the Gobi Desert
A Memorable Adventure
Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, Chloe Sin, Fiction: Group 3
B
ayankhongor AimagEkhiingol,” my great-grandmother kept muttering to herself once
again. A name she had been mentioning for the past few weeks.
Our family assembled at the hospital, by the bed of my ill great-grandmother. The
doctor told us it would be her last few days on earth and it would be better for us to be
by her side to see her leaving.
“What is Bayankhongor AimagEkhiingol?” I asked my father curiously while I stared at
my great-grandmother’s exotic ring. Everybody was quiet, as if my question was impossible to
answer. There was an uneasy silence in the air. Time stopped, and I wondered if everyone had
become statues. Then I saw a spark. There was a faint blue ray reflecting from the ring. I realized
that the ring could do magic. It could stop time for a while and I was the only one who could
control it in the room.
Seconds later, things were back to normal. Great-grandmother howled her favorite line and
pointed at me with eyes sparkling in the dark. It looked rather eerie for a dying woman to get out
of bed and raced to me. She held my hand tightly and called me “a successor” before she breathed
out her last breath and fell onto the floor. Everyone gasped and some shouted for the doctor.
Strangely, the ring fitted perfectly on my finger. Once I put it on, it was impossible to take off.
When I turned the ring to one side there were images coming out from it and the images never
repeated after I turned the ring again.
For the following days, my parents and relatives were busy preparing for my great-
grandmother’s funeral. Everyone was in the mourning mood. It was a great loss to the family.
As for me, I was still studying my new possession. The ring was five millimeters wide.
Although I could see the images throughout the day, the images were at their clearest between nine
o’clock to twelve o’clock at night. No one seemed to notice my new ring. When I showed it to my
parents, they just stared at me blankly and walked away. Or perhaps no one could see my ring!
Day in day out, I noticed that the images were mainly from the desert oasis with some strange
camels and bears. I searched the internet and found out that these special animals only appeared
in the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert consisted two-humped camels and a small population of Gobi
bears, the only desert-inhabiting bear. I wondered whether I could see the images of Paris?
Days later, my mind was still thinking of the ring and the desert. It must have meant
something because I was the only one who could see the images and knew the existence of the
ring and what did Bayankhongor AimagEkhiingol mean. If it was a place, how could I get there?
Would I ever get there?
Images of home kept spinning as if I was trapped by a hurricane. Strangely, I did not feel
dizzy at all. Soon I saw images of other countries kept spinning around me, even the seven
wonders like the Great Wall of China, the pyramids in Egypt and the Statue of Liberty in New
York City could be seen. What was going on? I had no idea what was going on around me. Was
I dreaming? Moments later, the images stopped twirling and swirling. I was standing in the
middle of nowhere. Everywhere I looked, I saw sand, glistening in the blazing hot sun. Suddenly,
“
