{"id":3293,"date":"2021-02-27T21:00:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T21:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/?p=3293"},"modified":"2020-02-11T18:44:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T18:44:44","slug":"story-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/27\/3293\/","title":{"rendered":"The Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The short story entitled \u201cThe Desert\u201d highlights the risk of extreme mood fluctuations and sudden changes of life plans, and of exhausting oneself or overstretching oneself by attempting to handle projects alone (at work or otherwise). The story can also be used to make it clear that the opposite of right is a different right, whereas the opposite of wrong is a different wrong, and that the opposite of a risk can be more hazardous than the risk itself. The story can be modified to describe someone who gets into difficulties in the mountains if the listener prefers Alpine landscapes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top of his bucket list of dreams had been to\nexperience the desert \u2013 the vast expanse of the Sahara. Now his dream had come\ntrue. He had travelled there by plane, coach and jeep, all the way to some tiny\nspeck of a village somewhere on the edge of the Sahara which he had found on\nthe map. And he knew that beyond this village was nothing \u2013 no roads, no\nsettlements, no water, only sand, stones and rocks. He did not really know what\nhad prompted him to travel there. Was it simply a longing from the depths of\nhis soul? Or perhaps he had simply been surrounded for too long by too many\npeople, too much commotion, too many voices who all wanted something from him \u2013\nhis colleagues at work, his neighbours, his family at home, all pulling him\nthis way and that; can\u2019t you please… would you please… And now silence,\nnothing and no one around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had longed for this for so many years, perhaps his\nwhole life long. It is so quiet here than he can hear the sand and stones\ncrunching under his feet with every step. He wants to drink in more of this\nvast expanse of solitude before night falls. The next rocky hill is not too far\naway in the distance, but the ascent is tiring \u2013 not because of the\ntemperature, since the sun is already low in the sky and it has become\nremarkably cold, but because the sand slips out from under his feet whenever he\ntakes a step forward, pulling him backwards. He finally reaches the summit of\nthe hill, and looks forward into the desert and back at the village. The sun is\nstarting to set in a red haze behind the village, and through the small windows\nof the huts he can clearly see the flickering of the fires which are already\nburning. Now he wants to leave this last piece of civilisation behind him. His\nheart longs for quiet, preferably away from everybody else. He makes his way\ndown the valley towards the next hill. He wants to watch the red sunset once\nagain from the top of this hill and see nothing but desert around him. The\nroute there is not long, but it is exhausting because of the sand slipping out\nfrom under his feet and the boulders which he must climb around. Quickly it\ngets dark. When he reaches the top of the hill, the sun has disappeared. He\nstands there for a few minutes until his dream fades and he returns to reality.\nHe is surrounded by pitch blackness \u2013 not the darkness he knows from home, to\nwhich one\u2019s eyes can get accustomed, but a darkness which makes it impossible\nto see his hand in front of his face. Returning to the village is now out of the\nquestion. His concern now is that it has become bitterly cold, and seems to be\ngetting colder and colder. He would never have believed that it could be so\ncold in the desert. Standing there in the dark in his summer shirt, shorts, and\nsandals, he feels completely helpless and is overcome by fear. He is afraid\nthat he will not survive the night, that he will freeze to death, die alone and\nnever be found. He thinks about his family, and his thoughts begin to go around\nin circles. What will they do when he doesn\u2019t come home? Will they search for\nhim, and will they ever find out where he is? He wants to see them again so\nmuch. He sees three lights on the horizon, like stars rising in more or less\nthe same place where the sun set before. He thinks to himself, \u201cStars don\u2019t\nrise in the west. Am I seeing things already? And these stars are moving\nsideways, almost as if they were electric torches…\u201d A few hours later, he is\nsitting around the fire in a hut with the three African men who were carrying\nthe torches and a number of other villagers. A woman wearing a veil hands him a\nplate of roasted lamb and a cup of goat\u2019s milk. They communicate using their\nhands and feet, and he expresses his thanks to the villagers with signs and\ngestures. \u201cInshallah,\u201d smiles a man, \u201c…if Allah wills.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The short story entitled \u201cThe Desert\u201d highlights the risk of extreme mood fluctuations and sudden changes of life plans, and of exhausting oneself or overstretching oneself by attempting to handle projects alone (at work or otherwise). The story can also … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3293"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3643,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293\/revisions\/3643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}