Short Stories

Fata Morgana

Sun beat down on the scorching Sudanese sand as dust whipped round the young girl’s cloth covered face. Sand dunes as tall as late afternoon shadows loomed above her, heat radiating off them onto the oncoming women. Sun baked earth cracked and slid beneath their feet, like grains through an hourglass. Thousands of shades of red and orange danced across the wine purple sky as the sun began to rise. Sandstone hills stretched high above the ground, made up of bands of chalky orange, dazzling gold and pastel red. Some loomed high and proud as if they were trying to reach the stars, while others arched over like doorways for giants. The arid, desolate landscape was void of life and looked like the wasteland of the gods themselves.

Dry, dusty, footprints stretched out behind them; the land was parched of water. It might rain twice one week, then not at all for years. Propelled forward by thirst, the women stumbled on into the foreboding mass of sand and stone, weighed down by the jerry cans upon their heads.

The girl was the first to spot it: the specks of green life at first obscured by the haze in the distance, waves of warm light shimmering and twisting and spiralling and sashaying across the sand. At first she wasn’t sure if the green was real...they had been walking for so long that she thought she was hallucinating. She pointed. The women stopped. Scanned the horizon. Eager eyes and dry lips turned to the girl and smiled. Throats too parched to thank her, but their smiles were understood.

The deep vibrant green grew ever closer and they could soon make out shades of eggshell blue, and the brightly coloured headscarves of other women already collecting their water. Colours dipped and rose as they filled their jerry cans, like a company of parrots bouncing and bobbing on the bushes.

The girl and her companions hurried ever closer, and could soon make out the sounds of the women’s chattering. Sand slid beneath their feet and slipped down the sand dune as the group descended towards the oasis. She ran, hearing the bubbling water jumping and leaping over the smooth stones, like the energetic children in her village first thing in the morning. Green trees rose up above the sand, shading the oasis and the women resting beneath it. The girl collapsed and basked in the shade; the women around her sat by the clear sparkling water: exhausted. She crawled to the edge of the pool; she dipped her hands into the cool water and raised it to her chapped lips. Water droplets shone like diamonds in the intense sun as she drank more and more.

The girl sat back, refreshed, and watched the sunlight glinting on the water. Rainbows flickered and twinkled like fire flies around a camp fire, as the water splashed over the stones. Looking round, mesmerised by its beauty – she saw bright green trees rising over the desert, as if defying the harsh landscape.

The girl gazed across the oasis; it was her first time collecting water with the other women, she felt proud to have kept up. Her black hair rippled in the welcome breeze, and dried the splashes of water on her purple dress. She looked down and drew pictures in the sand with her fingers; then - remembering why she had trekked for six hours- she straightened up, brushed the dust from her dress, picked up her jerry can, and walked back to the water.