Dead fruit

The Muslim ‘Ramadan’ was almost over. During the time before, I went up to the rooftop and looked at the moon every night; because the locals had told me the first day of the full moon was the day the Muslim festival of ‘Ramadan’ started.

All our neighbours had killed goats and camels for the festival, I was waiting to have some graphics painted on my palms with some beautiful dark red colourful dye called ‘Hula’ by the Sahara local women. This was an essential decoration for the local women in the festival here. I also liked this custom and loved to be the part of the community, so I dressed myself up the same as like the local women.

That weekend on Saturday, we had not had any plans for travel to the great desert, Jose and I were just reading at home for the night.

The next day we got up in the afternoon. We went to the town to buy the Spanish local newspaper despite it being a day out of date, that has been dispatched from the early aeroplane. 

After we had eaten lunch and washed the dishes; we went back to the sitting room, Jose was head down enjoying his newspapers and I was lying on the floor to listen my music. I felt great because had enough sleep last night and we planned to go out to the town tonight and watch a silent film ‘City Lights’ by Charlie Chaplin.

It was a pleasant and relaxing Sunday with the nice music filling in our little room and outside was sunny with clean air without any blowing sand.

About two in the afternoon, some Sahara children called my name at the outside window, they asked for some big bags that could have meat put in them, I gave them some new colourful plastic bags. After I gave them the bags, I stood up and stared at the desert; opposite the street from us some new houses were being built. I felt pity as the beauty of the desert was being cut away day by the day. 

I stood for a while and not far away there were two boys, I didn’t know why but they were fighting each other and a bicycle was dumped at the side. I looked at them, they were fighting vigorously; I took their bicycle for a ride in a circle nearby until the fighting became serious, I stopped the bicycle and separated them from each other. 

Just when I got off from the bicycle, I saw a string of rough rope on the ground, it looked like a local necklace that was commonly worn by the local people. I naturally picked it up and held it in my hand and asked the two boys: “Have you dropped this?”

Those two boys stopped their flight when they saw the thing held in my hand, they jumped few steps away from me with their faces full of fear. They both said it the same time: “It’s not mine, it’s not mine!” They even didn’t want to touch it.

I felt uncomfortable and said to the children: “Okay, I put it outside my door, if anyone comes to look for it, you tell them, the lost necklace is hung it on my door.” After I said that to them, I went back inside the house to listen to my music.

It was after four o’clock, I opened the door to look, there was not a single soul on the street, the necklace was still hung in the same place. I took it off and examined it. It was a little cloth sack and a nut that looked like a heart shape with a piece of metal; these three things were strung together.

I had always wanted this sort of metal piece necklace but hadn’t seen it sold anywhere in the town; I had never see a small cloth sack with nut like that before. I thought it wouldn’t be worth a penny as it was a little stringy thing that was full of dirt, it may well be that someone didn’t want it and threw it away; I eventually took it inside without giving it too much thought.

At home, I was very pleased and showed it to Jose; he said: “What a filthy thing, people threw it out and you pick it up.” Jose went back to his newspaper after he told me off.

I went to the kitchen and cut the string off with scissors, I didn’t like the smelly cloth sac and I threw it in the bin; same for the nut as well, it also had an odd smell and ended up in the bin too. The only thing I liked was the shinny small rusty red copper piece, it was surround with a nice plain iron sheet that made it different than the normal ones I had seen.

I was very fond of it and used some scrubbing powder to clean it out; I even found a thick silk ribbon to thread them together with which looked very modern.

I went back to Jose and showed him, he said: “It looks good on you, it will go well with your low chest black top, you hang it on and toy around with it!”

I wore this little plate necklace and went back to listen to my music; I had forgotten about it after that.

When I had listened to few more cassette tapes more, I felt sleepy and wondered that as I only got up few hours ago, how come my whole body felt so exhausted? I was lying down and put the cassette tape player over my chest because of the sleepiness, that way I could easy to change the cassette tape if I wanted to. My plate necklace was right over the cassette tape player.

Just like that, the cassette tape player suddenly went mad and after just a few turns around, the music speed was all messy as if it was getting angry. Jose jumped up and turned it off; he looked at it strangely and mumbled aloud: “It normally plays alright, probable too much dust inside.”

We tried to test it over and over again, it got worse this time, the tape jammed inside together, we had to used a hair pin to pick the messy tape out. Jose went to find tools and started to repair it.

I hit the cassette tape player when Jose went to find the tools, sometimes it was not necessary to fix it because whenever an appliance at home was broken it would work if I hit them hard.

Just one slapped, my nose felt itchy and I sneezed. 

I always had serious allergies with my nose and sneezed often, my nose easily got inflammation; I had got treated by a Spanish doctor not long ago and the allergies hadn’t come back. This time, I started sneezing and I was saying: “Huh! It’s coming back!” I got up and went to grab some tissue; from past experience I knew I would have a running nose. 

It was only three or five steps to the bathroom, I was constantly sneezing many times and felt something uncomfortable on my right eye. I looked in the mirror, the corner of eye showed a little red but I ignored it because my nose kept running.

After I had continually sneezed over twenty times, I felt something was not right, because it was rare for me to be sneezing non-stop that much. At the time, I wasn’t caring that much and went to the kitchen to find a pill and swallowed it, but after almost another twenty sneezes and not even ten seconds had passed, my heavy sneezes were earthshaking.

Jose stood to one side with a confused look and said: “The doctor didn’t cure you!” I nodded and covered my nose sneezing, I couldn’t speak clearly and I was very helplessly distressed.

I had sneezed over a hundred times, my tears and running nose were all messed up all together; when there was a gap and it stopped once just for a few minutes, I rushed out to get some fresh air. Jose was in kitchen and making me a glass of hot water with a few tea leaves inside.

I was lying on the chair drinking a few mouthfuls of tea while rubbing my nose and felt the heat of my right eye. I looked in the mirror again, it had already swollen like a lump, it happened so quickly not even twenty minutes. I felt very strange but could not pay much attention to it, because I needed to stop my sneezes first, I still sneezed every ten seconds.

My hand was holding a bin while rubbing my nose and throwing the tissues in. Then when the next sneeze came out like a typhoon, my nose bled and I turned round to Jose: “No, I sneezed out blood!” 

When I looked at Jose again, his face swerved in front of me like a shot in a motion picture that rushed across horizontally, followed by the ceiling and wall spinning around. I rushed to grab hold of Jose and shouted to him: “Is it an earthquake? I am dizzy——.”

He said to me: “It’s not! You come and lie down quickly.” He came to hold me.

I wasn’t scared at the time, I just couldn’t understand what was going on and why things had changed liked this within half an hour.

Jose dragged me to the bedroom, I closed my eyes and felt my head was spinning as if I stood up on an up side down earth. When I was lying down for less than few minutes, my stomach felt wrong and I rushed to the bathroom and started throwing up loudly.

I always threw up in the past but not like this sort of vomiting; that was the day, my stomach didn’t just throw up, I felt like my internal organs in my whole body were also being pushed out and crazily torturing me to death. I first threw up some clear fluid, then after that spilt out some yellow stuff form my guts; when there was nothing that could come out, I was began out of control dry vomiting.

Jose held me tight in his arms behind me and I just threw up, heavily sneezing and nose bleeding until I sat on the floor and exhausted myself. He dragged me to bed and washed my face with a towel while he anxiously asked: “What sort of bad thing did you eat? Do you have food poisoning?”

I replied to him powerlessly: “Haven’t got diarrhoea and I didn’t eat anything dirty.” I closed my eyes laid back down and rested. The strange thing was all the symptoms suddenly disappeared but the energy in my body like a big wave in the ocean had gone. I felt my whole body collapse in a cold sweat but felt the house wasn’t spinning anymore, my sneezes had stopped and my tummy didn’t feel pain; I spoke to Jose: “I want some tea.”

Jose jumped up to make tea for me and I took a sip of the tea; I felt all right within few minutes, sat myself up opened my eyes wide and sat against the wall.

Jose touched my pulse and pressed my stomach hard, he asked me: “Do you feel any pain? Isn’t it painful?”

I said to him: “No pain, it’s all right, how strange.” Just getting off from bed, he looked at me and knew I was alright, he was astonished and said: “You better lie down, I am going to get you a hot water warmers.”

I said: “I am okay really, no need to get it for me.”

Jose suddenly held my face and said: “Huh, since when did your eye swell like this big?”

I touched it with my hand and felt a big lump in my right eye.

I said: “I am going to look at it the mirror!”

Just a few steps out from my bed, my stomach suddenly had a sharp pain like someone had beaten me with a whip.

“Oh!” I screamed at once and squatted down; my stomach strangely cramped. I quickly got back to my bed but the sharp pain caught me like lightening. My stomach felt someone had twisted it by hand and was distorting it. I bent my body and was trying hard to fight it but still I suffered in great pain and was distressfully groaning. The pain rose to an unbearable degree, I couldn’t control myself but kept rolling in bed violently and screaming liked mad; After suffering the horrible pain, I could only see darkness in my eyes and I heard I was screaming liked a wild animal.

Jose put his hand to massage my stomach but I pushed him away strongly yelling: “Don’t touch me!”

I sat up and fell down, the cramp pain wouldn’t stop. I lost my voice because I screamed so much, followed by an intensive pain in my chest; every breath I inhaled, the lobe of my lungs kept squeezed in. I was like a rag doll who was being torn apart into pieces by an unknown object of horror. I couldn’t see anything, it was complete darkness in front of my eyes but my mind was clear, I felt myself struggling in vain and I became a slave of the pain.

When I couldn’t scream any more, I started to biting my pillow and grabbing the bed sheet; my whole body was sweaty like falling rain.

Jose kneeled down by my bedside and almost burst into tears; he called my Chinese name over and over which only my parents and sister did when I was little——”Mu mu! Mu mu! Mu mu——-”

I heard his voice but felt lifeless, I was surrounded by pitch black, there was a heavy explosive noise in my ears as if a thunder storm was striking me but still the great pain did not release me for a second. I started screaming  and I heard myself shouting in Chinese: “Mum! Dad! I am dying! It hurts too much——-”

At the time, I didn’t have my mind for anything else, just screaming out from my mouth and my senses could feel as if something was tearing inside my guts driving me to unbearable pain.

Jose lifted me up and took me outside, he opened the front door and put me against by the door, then rushed to take the car out and put me inside. I knew I was outside, I bit my lip and not letting myself scream. I closed my eyes when the strong bright light shone in, I was so afraid of the sunlight and covered my eyes with my hand.

I said to Jose: “The light! I don’t want any light, cover me quick!”

He didn’t pay attention to me, I was screaming: “Jose! The light is too strong!” He grabbed a towel and threw it to me from the backseat. I didn’t know why I was so scared of the light and had to cover myself with the towel and burry myself in my kneels.

The hospital in desert of course didn’t open on Sunday, Jose couldn’t find anyone to help; he turned the car back without a word and headed to the Desert Army Barracks.

When we arrived at the Army Barracks, a soldier saw me in that state and came rushing to help me; two people carried me to the medical room then immediately called someone to fetch the medical officer. I was lying on the sick bay bed and felt slowly better; my ears weren’t ringing, my eyes weren’t in darkness, my stomach had stopped the horrible pain.

When the medical officer came to see me after twenty minutes of waiting , I had already sat up myself, apart from feeling weak, I felt alright.

Jose told the medical officer of the severity of my illness and the medical officer checked my heart beat and pulse, looked at my tongue and touched my stomach. I didn’t feel any pain at all only my heart beat faster than normal.

He strangely sighed and said to Jose: “She is alright! Can’t see anything wrong with her.”

I saw Jose was frustrated with embarrassment, as if he had deceived the medical officer, he said: “Could you check her eye.”

The medical officer had a look at my eye and said: “An infection, it has been infected for few days like this hasn’t it?

We denied it strongly and insisted the swelling happened within an hour. The medical officer checked my eye and gave me a shot of an anti-inflammatory. Then he looked at me seriously and in an unlikely way as if I was making a joke with him, he said: “Maybe it is food poisoning.”

I said: “No, I haven’t had any diarrhoea.” 

He replied: “May be it is an allergy or you have eaten something unclean.” 

I quickly said: “ My skin hasn’t shown any rash, it’s not a food allergy.”

The medical officer patiently looked at me and said: “You lie down here and if you feel pain or throw up again, call me immediately.” He said that to me and then was gone.

It was strange, I was very sick like I had been possessed by a spirit just an hour ago and now I was staying at the clinic without any pain. After half an hour had passed a solider and Jose helped me back to the car. The solider was very friendly and said: “If you’re sick again do come back.” I sat in the car and felt very tired;

Jose said to me: “You lie on my body.” I closed my eyes and lay on Jose’s shoulder, the plate on my necklace tilted and loosely touched on Jose’s leg.

There was a very steep sloped track on the way home from the Army Barracks; when Jose turned the engine on and slowly let the car slide down, it was only few meters away, I felt the car go unexpectedly light and Jose wasn’t stepping on the pedal, but the car quickly slid down the road as if someone pushed it from behind.

Jose braked the car hard but it wasn’t working, I saw him quickly pull the hand brake on and put the car in first gear, at the same time nervously saying to me: “Echo, hold me tight!”

The car’ speed started to get out of control and it was flying down the slope, he tried the brake again but the brake jammed hard. The steep slop wasn’t that high, logically the car wouldn’t possibly slide down that fast; just in a split second, we felt like we were floating in the air then sliding down; Jose shouted to me again: “Hold tight to me, don’t be afraid!”

My eyes opened wide as I saw the road in front of Jose came up in no time; I wanted to scream but my throat was blocked and no sound could come out. A big military lorry with ten giant wheels was coming on opposite side from us, we were about to hit each other and I eventually screamed out: “AH !——” Jose turned his steering wheel hard and our car rushed across to the side road, it wouldn’t stop but continued skipping away. Jose saw a sand dune in front of him and he steered the car into it.

The car stopped and two of us buried inside the sand paralysed in cold sweat and were scared to death.

The people from the military lorry quickly come down to us, they ran while asking: “Are you all right? Everything okay?” We could only nod our heads and couldn’t answer at all. 

When they were shovelling the sand away, we were still sat in the car limply as if we had been hypnotised.

It took a long time, Jose before could finally say a word and he said to the soldiers: “It’s the brake.”

The driver from the military lorry asked Jose to get off from the car and let him to test it. How creeping was that, when the engine was on, they tested the brakes over and over again and the brakes were working perfectly.

Jose couldn’t believe it and tested them himself; the brakes actually felt alright. What happened a minute ago was just like a nightmare, and when we woke up and it disappeared into thin air. We looked at our car with our mouths open, astonished and couldn’t accept the fact in front of our own eyes.

We didn’t know how we got back to the car and drove it back home slowly; after that we couldn’t recall what had happened even when we tried to remember it. It was an event that had been completely erased in our memory liked being hypnotised in a timeless channel. 

When we arrived home, Jose lifted me up from the car and asked: “How are you feeling?” I said: “Very exhausted but I don’t feel pain anymore.”

Half my body was actually held up by Jose with my right hand holding on the car’s door; I was lying on him and my little metal plate touched Jose again. This was what happened after I remembered it later, I didn’t notice this little thing at the time. 

When Jose was lifting me up and used his foot to close the door of the car hard, a great pain passed through me. My four fingers were badly pressed in the car door, Jose didn’t notice that and was actually dragging me hard to get inside the house.

I said: “Hand——hand, Jose, aah——-” He turned his head back and made a scream, immediately let go with me and opened the car door. When my hand was pulled out, my thumb and middle finger looked flat, after two and three seconds, warm blood spilt out and my palm was slowly soaked with it.

“God! What have we done wrong——” Jose came out with a shaking voice, holding my palm and standing there helplessly trembling.

I felt the last strength inside my body had burnt out and it wasn’t the pain on my hand that caused it, it was the tiredness that made me so desperate to sleep it off.

I said to Jose: “My hand doesn’t matter, I need to lie down, quick——.”

That was a moment, a Sahara woman, one of my neighbour shouted out lightly behind me, she rushed up to hold on my lower abdomen while Jose was still staring at my bad hand.

She quickly said to Jose: “She——child——is dropping.” I only felt myself from a distance, her voice seemed to come out from far away. I looked up and looked at Jose powerlessly, his face looked like a shadow of ripples drifting in and out the water. Jose crouched down and hugging me hard in his arms said to the woman: “Ask someone to come here.” 

I heard what he said and used all my strength to squeeze out a few word----- “What? What’s the matter with me?” 

“Don’t be afraid, you are bleeding profusely.” Jose’s tender voice was calming to me.

I looked down and saw my blood like a little fountain running along my legs and a pool of blood was forming on the floor; a large area of blood had already soaked my dress. My blood was silently running from my underbelly without stopping.

“We have to see the doctor.” Jose was shivering liked dead.

I was fully awake and my mind was clear, I just felt very light as if I was about to float away. I remembered saying to Jose: “Our car can not be used, find someone to come here.” Jose quickly lifted me up and went inside the house, kicking the door open and put me on the bed; when I lay down, it was if something had popped open, blood was running like a fountain pouring out.

I didn’t feel any pain at the time, I felt like I was becoming a feather slowly flying away.

Honde’s wife Godpa rushed here and Honde wearing a pair of over size trousers followed behind her, he said to Jose: “Don’t panic, it’s a miscarriage, my wife have had that experience before.”

Jose said: “It’s impossible, my wife hasn’t got pregnant.”

Honde was angry and blamed it on Jose: “You may not know, she may not have told you.”

“Whatever you want to say, I want your car and to drive her to the hospital but I am sure she hasn’t pregnant.”

They argued strongly and the noise of it came over and over to me like a  huge bang from an iron chain that kept hitting my extremely weak spirit.

My life didn’t meant anything at that moment, the only hope was if they could stop talking and gave me some peace forever. When compared with it, the noise hurt me more than the physical pain and the thought of dying.

I heard Honde’s wife was speaking loudly, the noise like a wave that hurt me badly as if it were a string and I was a harp, the string was painfully being played over and over. I subconsciously lifted my hands in the air and wanted to cover my ears.

When my hand touched my messy hair, Honde’s wife was suddenly scarily screaming away and stepped back to the doorway while pointing at me, she spoke out few words in a heavy dialect to Honde. Honde also immediately stepped back and used a strong voice to speak to Jose: “The plate on her neck! Who hung it on her?”

Jose said: “We have to send her to the hospital quickly now, can we talk about whatever the is plate later.”

Honde was yelling back: “Take it off, straight away take the plate off!”

Jose hesitated and Honde was nervously shouting again: “Hurry! Hurry to take it off, she is about to die, you two are silly fools and know nothing about it.”

Honde gave Jose a hard push; Jose finally pulled away the plate, the silk ribbon broke and the plate was left held in his hand.

Honde immediately took off his own shoe and hit it hard on Jose’s hand, the plate dropped on the floor landing at my bedside.

His wife spoke lots to Honde and Honde asked Jose hysterically: “You have to think it quickly now, has the plate touched anyone and anything else? Hurry! We don’t have much time.”

Jose was spoken with nervousness. He could feel the shocking tension from both Honde and his wife, he replied: “It touched me and the cassette tape player what else… it seems that’s all, nothing else.”

Honde asked him again: “Think it over again, Hurry!”

Jose said: “That’s all, really, it didn’t touch anything else.”

Honde spoke in Arabic: “God, bless us.”

He spoke again: “It’s alright, let go outside and we speak.”

“She is still bleeding——” Jose was very worried about me but he eventually followed them out of the room. 

I heard that they went through the corridor and shut the door behind them, they were all staying in the sitting room.

I felt I got back my strength again; I sweated a lot and I took heavy deep and slow breaths, my eyes was so heavy that I couldn’t open them at all but my body didn’t feel like drifting away anymore.

At that moment, it was so peacefully quiet, clear and bright; not even any drop of sound at all. I just felt so comfortable and the feeling of tiredness slowly flooded over me. I felt falling down and sinking into a dreamy sleep.

But it was just less than a few minutes passed, I sensed something sharply, like a stream of energy, an energy power in no shape and I could not see with my eyes, I even felt it was overflowing in the room while making some tiny little noise liked ‘zi zi’. I desperately tried to open my eyes but only saw the ceiling, the wardrobe and window; I shut my eyes but my sixth sense told me, there was a stream or river, a snake or a string or something else running out. It went unstopping towards to the plate on the floor, slowly entering and floated up to fill the room full.

I felt bitter cold and feared took hold of me for some unknown reason, I opened my eyes again but could not see anything that I had felt or sensed.

Another ten seconds or so passed, my memory jolted as if a fire flashed through in my mind, A feeling of fear overcame me almost like turning me into a stone, I heard myself shout: “Jose….Jose…..Oh…..help…..”

The door was closed and I thought I was screaming but I only came out with a little but heavy voice. I screamed and screamed again, I wanted to move my body but lacked the strength. Actually I saw a cup on the little table next to the head of the bed. I used all my strength to hold it, lifted it up and threw it on the concrete floor. The cup broke and made a noise, I heard the door open and Jose ran to me.

I held tight to Jose like mad and said: “Coffee pot, the coffee pot, I rubbed the plate with cleaning powder and I also cleaned the coffee pot with it too…..”

Jose was completely blank, pushed me to lie down; At the same time Honde smelt something odd and so did Jose, they said the same word at the same time: “Gas——.”

Jose dragged me out from the bed, I was being dragged until we reached outside the door, Jose rushed back to the house and turned off the gas and ran outside again.

Honde ran opposite the street and picked up a handful of small stones, he pushed Jose: “Quick! Use these stones to surround the plate to become a circle.”

Jose hesitated for a moment and Honde pushed him desperately; Jose took the stones and ran inside the house.

That night, we slept at a friend’s house. All the windows were opened in our home to let the gas blow away. We looked at each other but couldn’t come out with any words, fear had invaded our whole hearts and will.

The next evening, I was lying on the bench in the sitting room, listening to the sound of every single vehicle that passed by; I had a strong urge for Jose came home early from work.

All the children from our neighbours had not even dared to look through the window at us, I was completely alone and very isolated.

When Jose finally came home, three of his Saharan colleagues also came with him.

“This is the most vicious spell, how could you have picked it up by accident.” A colleague of Jose explained it to us.

“Is it from a Muslim?” I asked them.

“We Muslims won’t do this sort of thing, it’s the witchcraft that comes from southern Mauritania.” 

“Doesn’t every Sahara person have hanging on their necks this kind of little copper plate?” Jose said.

“The one we hang on our necks is different, if it was the same, wouldn’t we all been died already?” The colleague said to me angrily.

“How can you tell the difference?” I asked again.

“Your plate had a nut and a little cotton sack, didn’t it? The copper plate also was surrounded by soft white iron, luckily you threw the other two things away, if not, you would definitely die instantly.

“It’s a coincidence, I don’t believe in superstitions.” I stubbornly said.

When I said that, the three locals were shocked with fear and they all said the same thing: “Don’t say such nonsense.”

“How can I believe such things when we are living in the age of science?” I said again.

Three of them looked at me with outrage and asked me: “Do you always have a little health issue?”

I thought it over and I certainly had. My nose had an allergy, I often threw up, I often had headache and when doing strenuous exercise, my lower body bleed; I cut my finger often when I chopped vegetables——. 

“I have but they are not serious, it is so often I have these small illness.” I eventually admitted.

“This sort of spell would attack the health of human weakness; it could take the small health issues as a base to become a ferocious spirit to take your life away.” The Sahara friend explained to me again.

“The coffee pot spilt out the water that put out the gas, do you still call it a coincidence?” I suffered in silence and looked at my injured left hand.

In these two days, my head kept thinking over and over again, I could not get rid of the question in mind. 

“I was thinking….perhaps….maybe I have a desire to end my own life subconsciously. So…..that’s why my illness come.” I said it lightly. Jose was appalled when he heard that sort of conversation come out from me. 

“I am saying…what am I saying is….”

“No matter how I try to adapt to the life in the desert, this kind of life and environment have reached the point of my limit.”

“Echo, you…..”

“I am not denying my love for the desert but I am only a human, I certainly have my weakness too….”

“I did not know you has made coffee; when I tried to boil some water, I didn’t see the coffee had put out the fire; are you explained all these was the subconscious desires that wanted to kill us?” Jose said.

“This kind of thing need to be discussed with the friends who know about psychology, we know far too little about the world of mentality.” I replied.

We didn’t know why this conversation made us feel blue. Humans are the only animals whom seem afraid to know about themselves. I sighed and didn’t understand what really happened after all.

The plate from the bedside was taken by the chief senior Muslim, the locals called this old person a ‘Shandong’. He used a knife to cut the soft iron into two separate two pieces. When it was opened, the inside of the plate actually revealed a graphic spell drawing. When I witnessed this, my whole body felt like frozen in the ice water again. 

The nightmare had gone, the state of my health seemed go down a little; many friends advised me to have a full body check but to me, I thought I had got the answers and there was no need to bother the doctor.

Today was the last day of the Muslim ‘Ramadam’ and outside the window showed a clear bright sky with a blast of the cool wind drifting around, the summer had already gone but the beauty of the autumn in desert was just starting to spread out in the air.