Winds of Fate

The Winds of Fate

By Roy D. Follendore III

I wrote this short story while in Saudi Arabia. I found it to be a strange place with many contradictions. Fortunately I also found many good people with their strange customs and ways. One of their customs is to try to help wandering strangers in need. In the empty desert night loneliness surrounds you and stories like this come to your mind. This was one.

I was desperate. A mad wind whirled, swirled and bounced off fabric and dry crusted skin. The gray even sky matched the surface of the sand blown earth. There is no up or down when the strength of Allah wipes the desert with his palm. Only the creatures of the dunes can survive a storm like this. The earth is transported through the air and anything weak like man will soon drown in the sea.

The beast beneath my weight refuses to move into the wind. The dust cakes its hair and clogs its nostrils. Air is suffocating and I am blind to fury, clinging to the wood and rope saddle. To lose my grip now would mean being buried alive in hot sand. One moment the scarf about my face clings like a python and the next threatens to leave like some fluttering fowl wild with fear. Even with the heavy cloak the bite of the dust strikes and pits my skin.

A sudden stir and a piece of brush ripped lose from some scorned crevice tears toward my frightened animal. My tortured beastly boat turns to avoid the attack of a living inanimate branch. My hand tightens on the crossed horn of aged ebony between my legs. With a horrible ripping sound of hemp rope, a shifting lunge and my saddle is suddenly broken. The pain of the fall is countered by the sudden sting of a million tiny needles as the cloth on my face flies free. An empty clutch to grasp the reins and my hand finds only raw dry earth.

A moan begins to echo from the pits of hell into the core of my mind. Someone is in mortal pain. God have pity…God have pity on that poor creature in such torment. Release him from his torment!

God must have listened to my thoughts for instantly there was silence and peace.

Blue waves of purple lava lift to the surface, boiling, churning; like an ocean of thick honey. The bubble bursts and leaves a ring that slowly melts back to the empty bottom. Black and white star points, no, not stars… Shiny needles streak across the empty plain. “There is no sun! Allah, there is no sun! A child is dying and points of silver stars merge into a face of a young woman I do not know.

She quickly veils herself to black as I move cautiously to speak. But my breath only touches cracked and bleeding lips. Stiff and swollen my mouth will not form the necessary movements. I reach out to touch her veil to see if she is real but my energy is gone. White stones of my inner eye now blind my vision. The effort of movement turns my stomach and as I gasp realizing, the air is precious. I shiver. A cold touch and the melody of sound, “He has lost conscious again!” I twist to escape a white-hot torch of some wet fire. My world of death spins too fast and it is sickening.

The tent is white. There is the smell of hot canvas. A vent of cool air flutters easily through the thin slits in the sides and across my face. There is a rhythm with no constant beat. A short sword with an old brass handle hangs from a rope in the center, as does a brown and white goatskin water bag. I move my fingers in turn to find my hands. Easing my knees from my position, they creak and then bend properly.

Red and Blue silk pillows ease the burden of my neck. I lift my head and adjust my eyes to the room. Alive, I am alive! I realize. A voice booms in “The will of Allah!”

“You are a very lucky young man,” “Allah was indeed with you!” the voice now crystal.

“The storm drove you into the hills of our oasis and your cloke was blown and clung to the opening of my small shelter.” “As you can see it was torn.”

“When the storm cleared we found the cloth and I sent my daughters to find where you might be and to bring you here.”

“You lay buried in the sand.” “Only the gleam of your knife caught the suns rays.” “We brought you here to safety.” The old man introduced himself, “I am Mohammed and my daughter has cared for you for two days.” I found that my vision of a woman had left me. “She thought you were a dead man twice.”

The deck of the dusty gray-hulled war steamer rolled gently through the early morning mist. There is a hiss and then the scream of its whistle blows our last farewell. The luminous wake trailed, like boiling ribbon of rivets both instantly created and burst by our powerful headway. It leaves a white arrow that sways and bends in an eddy of white foam. Cool morning air lightly flutters my British army issue shirt. The earth of gray and brown gives way to the salty air and sea like the ancient Phoenix descending. A sudden gust and a flap of torn white cloth sails skyward to land shocked onto the wetness. For a moment floating, it waves and then gently submerges into the depths with the rolling wave as the desert also sinks into the distant waves of the Arabian Sea.

In the distance, I turn to hear someone say, “Allah is great and the Earth, Sky and Ocean are one.”

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