Moving Cactus
SKH Lam Woo Memorial Secondary School, Tsui Po Ching, Fiction: Group 3
D
o you know about Gobi Desert? Would you like to visit there? No absolutely not. I
believe that this is the most common answer. But why not? Let me tell you about my
two-month life in desert, full of mysteries and miracles.
In 2003, the hardest year in my life, I lost my job, all my friends and my family.
I almost lost my own self but at the same time, I escaped from the burden. I did not worry about
money and my future anymore. That is why I set off for Gobi Desert which is much closer to Hong
Kong than the Poles.
Nobody understood how desparate I was. Nobody ever told me not to go.
I went straight to Mongo and prepared nothing for such an extreme condition. I simply
brought along my backpack and some other stuff for travelling.
At that time, I still could not figure out the problems. When I first stepped into that area of
sand, I knew at once that an endless journey was most likely to come to me but in my backpack,
my empty water bottle rattled which reminded me that I may pass away because of lack of water.
Nobody would remember me.
The only water sources in the desert would be the oasis. I wandered around but I felt like I was
just walking around a giant dune in a circular ‘orbit’. I had no maps or GPS at my fingertips and
I lost the senseof directions at a place with the same colour of tawny and almost the same shape
of dunes. I kept on walking slowly, dragging my feeble legs. I was not feeling well under the sun.
The great water loss weakened my conscious as well as the movements of my muscles. At last, I
knelt down on the extremely hot sand, feeling a searing pain on my knees and spread to every
part of my body. Until I saw a tiny shadow running pass in front of my eyes, I tried to stand
up again. In my mind, I strongly believed that I saw a rat. Then, there should be rivers or lakes
nearby. A voice inside my head told me and encouraged me to go on the trek. I crawled on the hot
sand, feeling really uncomfortable. The darkness fell. Meanwhile, I drank my first mouth of water
ever since I had entered the desert.
The main point was not about the worst situation and how hard I fought for my life but what I
heard from the natives.
I woke up in the middle of the night, lying on a cozy bed. I felt cool. Then, I tried to move my
body rigidl. My brain was not functioned very well.
‘Hey! She is alive. She has just waken up!’ a young lady shouted by the doorway. Oh! I did not
even realize there was somebody sharing the same room with me.
A man dressing in tan appeared and came across to my bed. He lifted up my arm gently and
touched my forehead, then, gave me some water.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked with a special accent and I was quite sure that he was a doctor in
his clan. I thought that he was the natives living in Gobi Desert for his entire life.
‘I just feel a little dizzy,’ I told him.
‘Wait. I’ll get you something,’ he said and went out of the hut and returned quickly with a
bowl of goat milk in his hand.
I drained it all up within a second and my body was full of energy again. What a powerful tool!
‘You should stay in bed for 2 more weeks,’ he demanded. From that day on, he told me many
