AN INEVITABLE JOURNEY
By Hamza Amin
It was roughly a tenth experience since I signed for an official enterprise of filming a prodigious jeep rally on the desolate land of the gigantic African desert, that I woke up seeing a strange dream with a whim of thirst, and the throat desiccated enough; for urging me to seek water abruptly in my conservatively managed room. One can estimate the aberrancy of that dream by: a red carpet reaching nowhere, a stream of inaccessible water, and the clouds transparent to the dazzling sunlight; all on a colossal and entirely uninhabited land. It was same day when my friend and workmate in the project, Ralph - a robust vicenarian, almost resembling my age and personality, accompanied me and the other personnel on a tedious journey of desert in a wide, grey jeep; for that was the day of famous jeep rally.
"We are on off-road traverse for long enough, how much will it take more" asked one of the passengers.
"The road is almost here sir" replied the driver. After a period of deep quiescence, a sandstorm seems to arrive from behind.
"O what is that?" said another passenger astonishingly. Promptly, all the passengers turn their faces in the pointed direction.
"A sandstorm!" said Ralph in a tenderly manner, his eyes frozen with jittery on the sight of that enormous hazy giant. An impulse of terror seemed to pass through all the observers.
Hastily advancing towards us, the storm shortly approached and with its massive impulsion, fling the vehicle far enough. After an interval of unconsciousness, I rose up gradually. At some steps, there was the wreckage of our car; possibly exploded by fire. Only one fortunate survivor was there except me. It was the driver; an African fellow of almost 40 with a tall, heavy physique and lips quite thick on his dark toned face, sitting at some distance by the shadow of a dune, having some frivolous wounds. And fortunately, I was too possessing not more than a few grazes, but was still in numbness to dramatically losing my friend. In a few moments, I saw the driver stood up and plodded in my direction.
"Are you okay friend?" asked the driver while approaching me. "I think...uh... unfortunately, we have no one else."
Receiving no answer, the driver sat by the side and after his persuading speech, I got up to walk for the forage and search of the lost route, which might be covered up with the sand. Definitely, there was nothing else we could do for us or them.
"I am Nolan, how I call you?" he asked while giving me a hand.
"Carter" I answered the driver in a dismal, but the conversation continued.
"Seems like we are going to end here, there is no chance of any shelter to the farthest sight" I said despairingly after the exhausting walk for a day long on a lonely land and extremely arid sand dunes in the scorching sunlight, along with a malaise of severe appetite and extremely dehydrating thirst.
He replied with only a slight nod by his stout head.
"Where do you belong?", he asked seemingly trying to avert our suffering of malaise. "Virginia….. I shifted to Washington for this job" I replied. "What about you?"
"I was actually born in this vast land.. in a small town, I left for city some 20 years ago, due to harsh living conditions here.. and then to America" told Nolan. "Its a long story.…" he suddenly stopped while answering. As I looked at himself, he was startled and then expressions on his face turned reposed, he took a deep breath and said: ‘Thank God! We may find at least some water here’. Yes, he saw a small town at a distance.
In a few moments, we reached a place with a few, small, nearly abandoned houses & cottages, some dead bushes, a few dried trunks of leafless trees, and barren land; all these were pointing towards drought. We searched each and every shelter for food and water, but there was nothing except the skeletons of some animals and no human being to ask for some assistance, nothing like water in the only well in town.
However, on searching the last cottage, we saw an old woman leaning in the shadow of a lonely wall. One fortunate thing was that we also saw a railway track at hardly two hundred meters but there was no train to carry us. As we took a look of that gaunt woman, her appearance seemed like a mentally imbalanced, her skin was scorched and very thin that her bones were so prominent under the skin. In other words, there were explicit signs of drought and old age on her face and body, but it was not all, a mother's love can be so strong to made herself mad for her son.
However, we tried to talk to her in native language to ask her about any chance of train or any nearby inhabiting area.
"Hello Mam! How are you?" asked Nolan.
"Do you know my son? Please send me to him", she said in a mourning voice. We were silent for some time as we had no answer for her. "We will try mam" said Nolan.
"Do you know when the train on that track will arrive?" asked Nolan. "Hardly one in a month" said old woman.
"The whole town is empty, where are the rest of inhabitants?" I asked, expressing strangeness.
"People left but land retains… some migrated to far off and some died" said elderly woman in a light sob.
"Why are you here then? Why did you not migrated, and don’t you have anyone in your family to live with you?" asked Nolan.
"All are dead. I have only a son, he went to city for some earning. He promised me to come back but years have passed, he never came….for God’s sake! find my child." Replied the woman, weeping with sighs.
"You should have left with others mam" I said reluctantly.
"I will wait till my last breath, what if my child comes after a long, tedious journey and he does not find water or food,… I have buried here some water and flesh for him, what if he would not get me here,..he will be finding me everywhere" said the sobbing old woman.
Abruptly, as I looked at Nolan, he was stunned; fell to his knees with tears from his eyes; as if an impulse of shock suddenly passed through his body, as if a memory of past froze his skull. Hardly after a minute, he jumped towards the woman which was now lied down, there was no movement in her body and no more breath expelled through her nose.
A train blows horn at distance.