The Wanderer of the Sand

Wanderer of the Sands

It was a terrible day. The sky was full of clouds and it was snowing heavily making it very cold. As I said before, it was very terrible. Well anyway, I was on my way to a small town in Egypt located near the Sahara where it would be nice and warm. On my plane ride there, I had a terribly rude flight attendant who kept bothering me over things like; stopping to ask if I was thirsty or, would you like a pillow or a blanket perhaps. I mean really, perhaps? Who uses that word in a sentence involving a pillow? For the rest of the flight I kept getting thrown rude looks from other passengers. But, I guess that’s what to expect when you get on a plane with a bunch of egghead average folks Normand. Did I mention that I have an extraordinarily high I.Q.? Oh Normand, there you go again with your brilliant thoughts. Anyway, when I arrived at the airport, it was still quite cold. I left as soon as possible.

I decided that I needed to take a ride out to the middle of the desert where it would be the warmest; with the sun reflecting off of all the hot sand. So, I took a jeep out to the Sahara, I didn’t bring any sunscreen or hats because I wanted to take in as much heat as I could. When I got out to the middle of the desert with my driver and tour guide, we stopped for a while. As they put on their hats and rubbed on the sunscreen, they warned me that I had better do what they were doing. I decided not to, for I wanted to get as much sun as I could get before I got back to that horrid city of wind and cold. They of course warned me a second time a few minutes later but I refused again. I guess that’s what to expect from eggheads that drive cars for a living. But, later I would find out that these eggheads could have saved my life.

After a while, we decided that it was time to head back. But, to our disappointment…the jeep did not start. We were all distraught and worried at this point and not to mention out of water. So the two tour guides told me to head out for water. I of course couldn’t refuse, plus it was a good opportunity to test my survival skills. I headed out toward some small mounds off into the distance and searched for some water. I found a small stream and filled up some bottles with the water. While I was sitting down drinking water, I noticed a hissing sound and quickly looked toward it was. There was a skinny snake the exact color of the sand that sprung out of the sound and bit me in my wrist. I quickly shooed it off and looked at my wound. It was bleeding heavily and I began to feel woozy and tired.

I guess I passed out because I awoke the next day with the sun shining bright overhead. I hurriedly grabbed the water and ran to see if the jeep was gone. To my expectations, the jeep was in fact, not there. My stomach suddenly turned over and I fell on the ground. I didn’t know what I would do. I decided to head back to the water source and sit there, for it was shaded. On my way there, I started to taste sand in my mouth. I spit out the sand onto the ground and kept walking. I didn’t know how I didn’t notice the sand before. I guessed that I was in shock from the whole situation. When I arrived back at the water source, I tasted the sand again…and a while later once again I tasted the sand. I decided to wash out my mouth with water in hoped to get all the sand out. But to my disbelief the sand came back a while later in even more quantity. At this point I knew something was strange about the situation. But, I blew it off and sat around for a few more hours and took another nap. When I woke up, I was surprised and scared at the same time. The stream I was getting my water from was fully dried up. Again my stomach turned just as before and I collapsed onto the sand. After finishing off my water, I became thirsty…and hot. The sun that I had once loathed was now becoming a burden. And still, the sand sat in my mouth. A good while later, I started itching from sitting in the sand I stood up and walked around while brushing the sand off my clothes. Later the itching became very intense, the sensation of sand rubbing against my skin was still there. I thought it might be my clothes so I took them off. I helped a little bit. That night the sun went down and I felt the cool night air of my home town. In my mind as I fell asleep, I really wanted to be back home. The next morning I woke up with a very strong burning and scratchy sensation over my whole body. It became so intense that I became very nervous; having too scratch my skin and spit out sand became very troublesome.

            A few more days past and there was no sign of the jeep. The itching and sand in my mouth became worse and worse.  Eventually, I knew I could bear it any longer. I had to get this sensation away. I found a nearby rock and started rubbing against it. For a while, this worked but a few minutes later, I cut myself on the rock. I reached for the cut and found something very shocking. Mixed in the blood I felt…sand. There was sand pouring out of the wound, even more so than blood. But, even more than pain, I felt relief. The breaking of my skin made the itching go away! I was overcome with joy and my mind blocked out the fact that I bleeding sand, and I began to keep cutting my skin on the rock. I felt almost now pain and only relief from the itching. After a while all that was left was just cut skin and lots of blood and sand. The only part of my body that still was itching was my face. I knew I couldn’t cut my face so I put it off for a while. But, after a few hours, I knew it had to be done. I took a small stone and began to cut my face as sand rushed out. Now my body was in full relief and I felt no more itching sensation. When my mind cleared up I thought about what I was doing and felt scared. I looked down at my arms and saw that they were cut up but there was no blood. They were almost entirely made of sand with a few bits of skin buried in it. At the core was of course bone. Strangely I felt no pain. I could see my bones and I decided to tap on them a little to see if I could indeed feel pain. I tapped my right arm’s bone and it slowly shriveled up and turned into sand. I panicked and collapsed onto the ground. At this time, all the bones in my body turned into sand. I couldn’t move. All I could do was see. I don’t know how, but I just could. I was now a part of  the sand of the Sahara and all I could think of was that terrible snake, and my nice cold, home town.

            

Reviews

[Jonah Lennon]

A well, thank you all for the reviews.

[rachylou]

nice

[None]

Wow. How creative! The opening of this story had me thinking it was going to be really serious, and then sentence three came along introducing this very dry, sarcastic voice that carried the piece from one unfortunate event to another. I love how you built the story too. It had a 'cursed like the pirates of the Carribbean" feel to it when we can see the main character shrivel into sand, but still here him talking. Very out of body. Wonderfully written.

[Jonah Lennon]

Ah, when I said 'rough flight' I meant having to do with how he thought the flight attendant was being rude, or what he called rude. Now literally rough. But I meant for this to be a short story and I probably will plan to make it go into more detail. I just wanted to see what people thought. But thank you so much for reading.

[Tabitha t]

The very beginning reminds me of that famous quote: "show dont tell." when you said I had a very rough flight I wished you would have gone into more detail. How did the main character feel when he bounced around in his seat from the turbulance?
Besides this kind of things throughout I beleive with some alterations this has some major potential! very good read!