My Deserted Heart
Beijing World Youth Academy, Kayla Cao, Fiction: Group 3
I
felt like a bat suddenly thrown headstrong into the light.
“Guli, Guli… Rise and shine, Guli!” She ripped the covers off my body.
“Ama! It’s freezing.” I howled with laughter, as the wintry air pierced my skin.
“Look at you! You are too skinny.” She reached out and stroked down my spine. My thin
frame was her greatest unhappiness.
“It is not like a bad thing, ” I sat down on my Uygur campstool before her, and shook out my
long hair, letting the locks crawl down my back. She stood behind me, using her fingers to scratch
out sections in my hair to braid.
“Do you see anything outside that is as skinny as you are? Even our goats are bigger than
you now. ”
“What about the sssnake?” I tilted my head and threw out my tongue, as expected, she smiled.
Ama s hands moved swiftly and deftly down my head.
“It’s all passing so quickly, Guli. It seems like every time I look out the window, the seasons
have changed,” she said, turning to the window. “See, it’s April again, the grapes should be ripe
on the vines before May.” She puts in the last elastic. “All done. Why don’t you get dressed and
help me get breakfast ready.”
I quickly checked out my hair in the mirror. Perfect, as always. I grabbed my wool cardigan
and headed out.
“Mornin’, my moonlight!” My father said without turning, hearing my footsteps. He called
me moonlight, because he was tired of the sun he grew up under. I was Guli, his flower and his
moonlight, the gentler something, the oasis in the Gobi.
“Good morning, Dadang,” I said, hopping to my seat. “Ama mentioned the grapes earlier… ” I
picked up a piece of Nan bread and sipped the salty milk tea.
“We have to take out the seeds,” he murmured, then back at me, “We are already late for the
season. Guli, you have to make the trip to the well today to fetch water for the grapes and the
house,” he said.
“Right away, Dadang.” I set down my empty milk tea bowl and wiped my mouth. Getting
water was one of my favorite things to do. I could talk to the flying eagles, ask the cactus if
it hurt when its mother gave birth to it. The grape harvest is the busiest season. We trade our
best with people all over the region, and our grapes are recognized as the juiciest and sweetest.
Nobody in my family has ever shared the secret.
It is all in the water. The water from the Karez well.
The Karez well is fed by the snowy mountains miles away. The snow melts, icy and sweet, and
flows through an underground tunnel, traveling until it rises up to the surface of a Karez well.
I grabbed a handful of raisins and went out to the well with my buckets to get some fresh
water for our vineyard.
The sun shone down as usual, but I felt different. There was a spring in my step. Harvest
is coming, and along with it, business, busyness and living more liberally. I looked across
the distant dunes and saw the sand punctuated by snake print. The desert, to most, speaks of
desolation, yet we have made a life in it. Maybe it is because the land knows me—this wilderness
