Wishing for a Mirage

I woke in my sand hollow to first light, feeling groggy, thirsty, disoriented and sore. And very frightened. I sat up stiffly and looked around, all 360 degrees, and apart from the scattered debris of my Ultralight, I saw nothing but sand, dirt and rocks all the way to the flat horizon. Standing, with difficulty, the view was the same, but at least it seemed like my legs weren’t broken, even if I had no idea in which direction they should carry me. My last look at the navigation instruments put me slap in the middle of exactly nowhere, though I was travelling from somewhere to somewhere else.

At least the Ultralight hadn’t burst into flames, just pieces. Pretty much everything that I had on board with me was there, arranged in a random pattern in the sand. My bag of provisions (energy bars). A little backpack of clothes and toiletries, but no sunscreen or hat. Great packing Jessie! Only two small plastic bottles of water. And my phone which had burst apart when I was thrown and landed directly on it. Better that I had broken it than it had broken me I suppose. After brushing off the battery and putting it back in the case, it almost held together. I pulled an elastic from my hair and used it to seal the phone and it turned on. No coverage of course but maybe it could be located by a search party?

All advice in these situations is to stay put, don’t go wandering off, but I thought with my phone sending signals and a clear view from the air of a figure in the landscape, I wouldn’t be any worse off in leaving. Especially as Mark knew where I was going and Tess was expecting me at the other end. So I decided to head west where the morning sun wouldn’t be in my eyes. Consolidating all my belongings in the backpack, I took a tiny sip of water before tying a scarf around my face and head, Berber style. It was already hot. Navigating by the position of the sun I took off, limping a bit from the bang on my knee.

I had barely walked 50 metres when I thought I saw something on the horizon, a hill, even some trees, but I knew enough about the desert to recognise a mirage when I saw one. It was in the direction I was going anyway so if turned into something else….

It did turn into something else, a rocky mound and behind or upon it there appeared to be trees. Not palm trees, they wouldn’t be here, they almost looked like a citrus, lemons maybe. And it was close, barely 100 metres away. At the very least I should find water there and some shelter.

I reached the mound in minutes and climbed puffing up its side. When I got to the top I looked down on a large hollow like a small open cut mine, ringed indeed by lemon trees on the higher slope and in the centre, reachable by winding paths, were houses or buildings of some sort, many of them. The same sorts of adobe buildings seen in most desert areas, very neat and the colour of the earth. And between the buildings I could see people moving around. They looked to be gardening or doing some other kind of work.

I decided to go down and took the first path, though there other paths going to different areas of the village. As I drew closer to the buildings I was noticed and I could see that the people, all very young, all dressed the same in short brown tunics, had clustered together, looking frightened.

I put up my empty hands to show that I wasn’t armed and approached the closest people cautiously. They still seemed afraid. Maybe they didn’t see many strangers. Just as I was hoping that some of them spoke English, the one nearest me, who seemed to be a girl though it was hard to tell, suddenly shouted, ‘What?’

I pointed at myself and said, ‘Jessie.’

My name seemed to confuse them more as they started murmuring to each other, Jessie, Jessie, Jessie. Then the first girl pointed at herself and said, in a quieter tone, ‘Human.’ And all the others pointed to themselves and said, ‘Human.’ And they smiled so I pointed at myself and also said, ‘Human.’ The atmosphere had changed and become more welcoming, with some of the people, none of whom seemed more than fourteen or fifteen years old, coming to gather around me.

It was strange. The teenagers were of different heights and shapes, different genders and appearance, and seemingly different ethnicities. But they wore those identical brown tunics, well made and pristine, were bare footed, and all had shaved heads. The other thing they all wore was a heart-shaped locket, with a blue stone like an aquamarine on the gold surface.

There was a lot of whispering and conferring before a girl, a different one from before, stepped ahead of the others and said, ‘What now?’ Which I didn’t know how to answer. I still wasn’t sure of their level of English.

‘My Ultralight crashed, out there,’ I said, pointing behind me. ‘Where am I?’

More conferring and puzzled looks. ‘I? Jessie? Where?’ said the girl, looking around. ‘Heaven is here.’

Oh God, a cult I thought. Let’s hope it is a benevolent one.

‘Can I use your phone, or internet?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have any coverage.’

More confusion. ‘I don’t understand what it is you are asking,’ said the girl, in perfect English.

‘I want to contact my family,’ I said. ‘They will be worried about me. I need to tell them what happened.’

‘What happened?’ asked the girl.

‘Look, I, what is your name?’ I asked. This was getting frustrating.

She pointed at her locket. ‘Blue 27,’ she said.

‘Oh, OK. And you?’ I asked the first girl.

‘Blue 38,’ she replied, in a tone that suggested I had asked a stupid question. Definitely a cult.

I tried again. ‘I was flying my Ultralight, it is like a little plane, and it crashed.’ Blank stares. ‘It fell from the sky and, well, broke. And I can’t fly anymore.’

‘You can fly?’ asked a boy, who I assumed was also a blue.

‘Yes, in a plane, a machine.’ I said, making some useless hand gestures. This was going nowhere. These kids obviously had no connection to the real world. Just as I thought this the boy held up something that looked like a remote control.

‘A machine, like this?’ he said. He pressed a button and the lemon trees began to grow and spread their branches over the village.’

‘Don’t do that 43,’ said 27 gently, and 43 pressed another button and the trees went back to where they were. What sorcery was this. I must have hit my head and was probably delirious. I took a deep breath.

‘Could I speak to one of your parents, or an older person or a ….?’ I almost said manager.

More conferring, then 27 turned to me and said, ‘We don’t know what it is you are asking. You can speak to us, we are all.’

‘What, you children are here on your own? All the time?’

‘Sometimes one new one comes, sometimes we go.’

Just as she said this a boy who was standing behind her, slightly older looking, jumped and I could see the stone on his locket was flashing. Without a word the boy turned and walked straight through a nearby doorway.

‘See,’ said 27. ‘Blue 9 has gone.’

I put my hand to my forehead. I felt hot and a little insane. ‘Could I go with 9 do you think?’

They all looked a bit frightened. ‘Only if you’re called,’ said 27.

What did I have to lose. ‘I’m going anyway,’ I said, expecting them to stop me, but no one moved. However, when I got to the doorway that 9 had gone through it wasn’t there. Had I ended up in Wonderland?

I turned back to the group and coming towards me was a girl, her locket also flashing. Her eyes were glazed and she would have walked right into me if I hadn’t jumped out of the way and as I looked the doorway appeared again and she walked through. Quickly I jumped through after her and the doorway healed up behind me and I found myself in an open space identical to the one I had just left.

This area contained a smaller number of people, identically dressed and groomed, but the group seemed a little older, maybe late teens, early twenties, and instead of blue stones on their lockets they had red, rubies or garnets, I couldn’t tell. Feeling something on my chest I looked down and saw that I was wearing an identical locket. The two who had gone through the door before me were standing chatting with the others already there, except many seemed to have separated into couples of males and females. Some of the couples left the group and went out through a variety of doorways, while others came back in from wherever they had gone.

I went up to the girl who had come in before me but she didn’t seem to recognise me. A young man came to me and said, ‘What?’ Here we go again.

I was so confused and tired and my head was spinning. ‘Water,’ I begged and the young man clicked his fingers and a small cart glided up to us with a carafe and glasses of water. I took one and drank thirstily. The water was delicious but it didn’t clear my head. Everything was just too absurd.

Looking around again I noticed that one woman’s locket was flashing and as I watched she walked through a doorway, just as had happened before. But this time I was quicker off the mark and leapt through behind her, into another identical space, populated with slightly older women. No men this time. Their lockets now had green stones, like emeralds, and so did mine.

Most of these women were either visibly pregnant or had babes in arms or small children. Unlike the other courtyards there were comfortable lounges where women were sitting, feeding their babies or talking to friends. It was very quiet. Even the babies seemed contented.

None of the women noticed me and when I looked down I saw that I was dressed like them, I could have been one of them. Running my hands over my shaved skull I wondered how I was going to get out of this dream, this nightmare. No-one had been cruel to me or treated me badly in any way but I felt very threatened.

As I wandered aimlessly about the garden I noticed a woman sitting cross-legged on the ground playing with an older child of about two. As I watched I saw her locket flashing and without expression, she rose and leaving the child behind, went to the door which, as I expected, had suddenly appeared. She slipped through and so did I.

On the other side I found myself alone in a small white room with a low couch, covered in cushions. It was very quiet, very cool, and smelt like roses. I lay down on the couch, noticing that my locket now had a black stone, jet or onyx, upon it. As I looked, the locket sprung open and inside was a small white pill.

I shook the pill into my hand, laughing as I wondered if it was going to make me very large or very small, knowing that it would do neither, before acquiescing to the voices in my head, I put it into my mouth.