perfectly take good care of ourselves.” and Tim brusquely picked up a piece of bread and stuffed it
in his mouth and called out, “Charles! Get going now, we have to leave!”
Gundsambuu’s face contorted with surprise, and as fast as he left his mouth hanging open
in awe, he swiftly shut it back again, and all of a sudden it is as if all hope had drained from
his sun-browned face, and with that gravelly throaty voice of his, he said, “Here is my last
warning to you. The Gobi Desert was once a fertile land, and was home to a ‘Sacred Island’, where
enlightened people lived and took refuge when the world was overtook by sinful and materialistic
people hundreds of centuries ago. The wars between the prophets of food and evil forces drained
the land of its water and turned it into the dry arid region that it is today. The result was the
world turning into the materialistic aspect of life. Now, if you would please, accept my blessing
and I could only give you the best of luck. Leave now, and please do return.”
The ground mist was light, teasing the ankles of Tim and Charles, whirling around bushes
and flowers. Tim couldn’t help but be in a good mood, and thought about the tomb, about striking
gold, and casually wondered about his girlfriend Martina back in Maine, and thought of how he
must find the treasure.
From the travel journal of Timothy Ross:
7th June 2013 11:23 a.m. (Mongolian Time) Hot ( just rained in the morning)
This is unbelievable.
According to Mongolian legend, Genghis Khan has ask to be buried without markings and
chose to be buried somewhere close to the Onon River, near to his birthplace in the Khentii
Aimag, and after his burial a river was diverted over his grave to make it impossible to find.
But of course, such valiant and wise man of the Mongolian empire wouldn’t do something so
cliché, so Charles and I came up to the conclusion that this guy might have asked to conceal his
body (along with all that afterlife junk) in a faraway oasis in the Gobi Desert. With the desert
being a source of many fantasies and musings of Mongolians throughout the ages, and with the
saying that some sacred beings or monks still inhabit mystical places within the desert, this has
to be true.
And Charles and I are the first people on earth to prove everyone wrong.
Because right before us, right on the horizon, is an oasis.
It is now or never.
And so the two men walked on, under the scorching rays of the desert sun. They trod on,
heads down, slightly panting, knees bent. Yet, the oasis in the distance seems to be getting
anything but closer, and Charles was about to suggest it just might be a mirage, only to result in
Tim saying that he was being delusional and please shut up for once. But it doesn’t really matter
anyway, not when the sand moved, sifted, pulsated metres away from them. Tim had dismissed
it as Charles being dehydrated, and threw the water bottle to him. But Charles didn’t catch it,
couldn’t catch it, eyes glued on the horizon, and Tim said the mirage had got into him, and
laughed at him, patting his shoulder playfully. Tim was still ignorant to Charles’s plea to go back
and said you little runty homesick wimp even right before the second the gritty mucky mixture
of wet sand gave way right in front of them and bits of sand ran into the indentation. And that
