Adrian: „Alice, you should leave the past behind, like the footprints in the sand desert, you are still enough young to perform the virtue dominating the sin.“
John: „Thank you for the confession anyway, the story told me much about life.“
Besides, the only table reserved by Billy, the casino hall had been already filled with the gamblers and partners. As Alice ended her confession, the gamblers on the couch first recognized that they needed sleep to be able to gamble again. They arranged to encounter on the gambling map the next day and their ways were separated till then.
Less than twelve hours later, the empty gambling table was occupied again. The gamblers looked fresh and relaxed, the clock on the bordeaux velvet wall was showing eight o’clock in the evening. To Adrian’s relief all chairs around the table were occupied. All men were changed their shirts, but the twenties cozy loose suites remained the same, Alice looked less depressed than the past days, her newly rented twenties dress in chiffon dark blue went with her blond dye in harmony, the dark blue looked brighter than black. Telly had also changed her dress, but she hadn’t followed the dress code of the casino, her modern red dress was overseen among the crowd. Her red hair combined with her short armed, knee long red dress let her look a real witch, her everlasting closed eyes remained without make-up, her right hand in red chiffon glove was holding the cards, which was that time not well mixed.
Adrian: „Welcome back to the gambling map! Nice to see you, Alice.“
John: „Yes, I have dreamt that you were swimming in the ocean, close to a dolphin.“
Alice: „Oh, really, that would be a good omen.“
Telly: „Not really, well it depends the water situation.“
John: „What do you mean?“
Telly: „If the water in your dream was clear and calm, then that would be a good omen.“
John: „I was focused on Alice, so I didn’t notice the water situation.“
They all laughed and the game began throwing cards on the table. The atmosphere which was surrounding the gamblers table was very different from the past few days. There was a kind of magic, maybe that was just the inspiration of the casino hall with its playful nostalgic atmosphere.
Billy: „Alice, this afternoon I thought about your story. I find it inspiring, anyway. You had already an intensive life behind you.“
John: „I am really sorry for what had happened to your husband.“
Adrian: „He had been trying to paint the perfect picture.“
John: „Thank you, I have the cards. The water in my dream must have been clear and calm.“
That game had ended earlier as usual and John had beaten the superstition. Nobody could notice the expression of Billy’s handsome face. The gamblers laughed applauding, but not Telly.
Adrian: „John, what is wrong with you?“
John: „What is wrong with the Telly’s hands?“
Billy shrugged laughing. In fact, he wasn’t lacking the money, the researcher had to follow Telly’s suggestion, that her ability would be useful for the gambling map. Telly had helped him to find the hidden treasure under the desert dunes, as he was working with the archeologists combing the desert holding a copied manuscript dated back to the era of Cleopatra. Billy wanted to devote the gambling money to dessert projects that should make a Fata Morgana real. Telly had been living in a nomad family in the desert Sahara, somewhere between Marrakech and Casablanca. Billy met her first time, as he had visited the nomad family, who had found Telly half conscious dug in the desert dunes three years ago before Billy’s visit, and since then she lived in the nomad’s white stone house, in which shadow were several single humped camels and two dogs. She had been listening to what Billy was telling in broken Arabic and answered to Billy in fluent English, which astonished him, and that was just the tip of the astonishment which drew Billy from the first time on. Telly had already been renowned as a fortune teller among the nomads, a kind of therapist to smooth the troubled souls lightning a dark tunnel with the hope. She was used to guide caravans telling them the right direction to an oasis. That was the first purpose of why Telly had joined the research caravan guided by Billy and she made him discover not only the oasis, but also the hidden treasure under the desert dunes. Accompanied by the research crew, they had been crossing the desert together through sand storm and heat, sharing their joy and worry regarding the caravan. Billy had to pay the nomad family a price equal to an amount of ten Arabian horses to become the fortune teller, oasis scout Telly who was happy to follow Billy not able to see him and not knowing anything about him. Telly remained mysterious as a gypsy on the desert caravan and Billy had accepted her as she is. She told him nothing about her past and how she had landed in the desert dunes to be discovered by the nomad and camel. Billy thought that she had some accident in the middle of the sand desert which had erased her memory, but her way told him that she was not from Africa and in the end he believed that the red haired blind woman was dropped down from a spaceship on the earth confusing with the Mars. Among the research crew, she was the only woman, the only blind and the only compass. After having spent more than a year that way they were returning to where Billy come from. Billy wanted to take a plane, but Telly suggested him to take the cruise playing on the gambling map, maybe she wanted to encounter there someone, who was expected by her telepathy. Billy and Telly had some romantic nights together, but the lacking correspondence of the adequate soul put an end to the romantic. Billy had respect to her, his gentle way and rich experience in the desert made Telly feel protected, but not belonged. Even the blind long for freedom. Only the heart could have made someone avoid the freedom happily, choosing the being bound.
Alice: „John, your cards were completed in so short time, like a spell.“
John: „Oh, don’t speak too soon, that was just a luck. Maybe the magic was not Telly’s hands, but her gloves. Today she has changed her gloves.“
Billy: „Maybe you are right, but she cannot see the color.“
Telly: „Well, there is another game to prove the magic.“
Adrian: „John, the graphics has to go down to fit into the frame of the panorama picture.“
A new game began, but it took longer, there was nobody who had to quit.
Billy: „Alice, how long had you lived together with Sky, as he passed away?“
Alice: „Almost five years, that was the part of my life filled with intense emotions, unfortunately not happy.“
John: „Before the marriage, you imagine the time after the wedding as unseen paradise.“
Adrian: „Like guessing the content of a pretty painted box.“
Billy: „But the content of the box can be more beautiful hitting the expectation, if you marry someone who you really love.“
Telly: „If the love was evolving from the both sources, like two rivers flowing into the ocean.“
Adrian: „The rivers should be able to keep the ocean water rich.“
John: „Well, then the ocean water must be in abundance to evolve the highest waves.“
Adrian: „Exactly, that means being able to announce the world that it was an ocean, not a boring sea where a sailing boat had to stay stuck all afternoon knowing all the shore villages.“
John: „By the way, I am a passionate sailor, but I have never been on a sailing boat.“
Alice: „Oh, really, then how did you know that you can be a passionate sailor, you haven’t tried once.“
John: „I know, but I could feel that in my night dream, a nightmare.“
Alice: „Sailing as a nightmare? Then that cannot be a passion.“
John: „In my dream, I was sailing, pulling the rope enjoying the sight of blown canvas, my chest filled with happiness and suddenly my wife showed up on the canvas, every time when I dream sailing.“
Adrian: „You have a wife? Is there someone who would bear up with your irony?“
John: „Well, meanwhile ex-wife, by the way I have six ex-wives. Then I stopped to marry again to have m
oney to invest in shares playing in the stock-exchange of which psychological flow was not much different from the flow in the marriage.“
Alice: „Your heart had been broken six times?“
John: „Not really, in fact, only once, a girl broke my heart, who I couldn’t marry.“
Alice: „Understandable.“
Billy: „I would have married, if the desert had not challenged me absorbing all my feeling and time.“
Alice: „Why? If there was someone you would marry, why did you prefer the desert?“
Billy: „The research in the desert, the mystery of the Fata Morgana and the footprints on the sand dunes, there are so many attractions that overwhelmed my sympathy to someone who had to suffer from my absence.“
Adrian: „The real love would have followed you even to the desert.“
Billy: „Then I haven’t met the love proving that much maturity.“
John: „Provided by a magic you encounter the right one.“
Adrian: „The right one is actually a right part of the puzzle making the picture complete.“
Alice: „The picture made by the puzzles should not be lacking any color.“
All nodded laughing, and that game ended Alice as the winner. Billy looked at Telly and there was no sign of reaction in her face surrounded with red nuance reflected both by her hair and dress. Alice was not really keen on the game when it came to her own win, she wanted to lose making the other win, to get over the guilty feeling in her chest. But Telly decided to let her win, but only till the next day. The cards were mixed again and the hands became occupied.
John: „Billy, something is wrong with the gloves of Telly.“
Billy: „Don’t worry John, even the magic need time to relax.“
Adrian: „The story of Alice changed the magic.“
Alice: „Maybe you are right, but you know, the magic can be made by people.“
John: „I had a grandfather who was a magician in the circus. He passed away when I was at school.“
Adrian: „Oh really, did he transform a monkey into a mouse?“
John: „No, he transformed a pig into a swan.“
Alice: „You must be joking, by the way, they say that you should not play the ghosts.“
Adrian: „Ghost of the magician, John, your grandfather should not become the part of a joke.“
Telly: „That is all right, I like the ghosts.“
Billy: „Transform a monkey into a mouse can be possible, but a pig into a swan cannot be succeed. You know, swan can fly.“
John: „And then, what is the problem when a pig becomes able to fly?“
Billy: „The pig can take the plane without trying hard to become a swan.“
Adrian: „Why the pig should become a swan to be able to fly?“
John: „That is the magic made by people!“
Alice: „You should believe it.“
Adrian: „Well, I hope I will be able to win the game.“
John: „What is wrong with you, philosopher, did you give up the particles of the cosmos?“
Telly: „Then you lose your taste of the game, do you?“
Adrian: „I cannot tell, because I haven’t won yet, Telly.“
Billy: „Misfortune on the gambling map is compensated with love.“
Telly: „Adrian, you can win both the game and love.“
John: „That must be the magic made by people, though.“
The gamblers were drawn to the cards, and the concentration was accompanied by the silence.
Alice won again and again. Telly let her win making her soul drown into deep loneliness. Billy understood the Telly’s sympathy with Alice, he kept pretending, if he was the one who chose the cards. John was guessing that his turn would come again, because he had once won on the same gambling map. Adrian was happy in his soul, that the luck in the game would save Alice’s life from the suicide into the mourning ocean. As the long lasted game ended again with Alice’s victory, the gamblers were about to say goodnight to each other till next day, but Alice suggested them one last game for that day.
John: „Oh, Alice, you have the devil in you.“
Billy: „Not bad idea, tomorrow we have other plays on the same map, so don’t worry John.“
John: „I have never played the cards in such extent of generosity.“
Adrian: „Generosity? You must be kidding!“
John: „What is generosity in your point of you?“
Alice: „You give someone the bigger apple and take the smaller one.“
Adrian: „Or, you give someone everything away and forget yourself.“
Telly: „You make someone the happiness possible by suffering yourself.“
Billy: „You hold the umbrella for someone by telling that the sun was shining and let yourself faded away in the rain.“
Telly: „I loved the umbrella, Billy! John, in which extent of generosity have you played cards, by the way, what is the generosity in your point of you?“
John: „Concentration on the cards.“
Alice: „Why do you express generosity in concentration? That sounds so odd.“
John: „I meant attention when I mentioned concentration.“
Adrian: „So, in your point of view generosity is an attention?“
John: „No, not really, it depends on the situation, in common sense the generosity is something you devote.“
Billy: „You are right, in common sense that is exactly the devotion.“
Adrian: „Devotion in every form in order to make other people happy, as well the cards.“
Alice: „Actually, devotion means nothing else than attention.“
John: „Without generosity the life can’t work out.“
Adrian: „In other words, without the attention you can’t spell the life.“
Billy: „In fact the generosity is the attention and the attention is what we call magic.“
John: „So generosity is the magic. But, what about the contempt?“
There was no answer and the silence let the last game begin. The casino hall was full of life spreading an aura of the twenties, the gambling rules hadn’t changed since the twenties. The velvet bordeaux wall was keeping the warmth of the atmosphere and the everlasting electric candle light had made in the casino hall the dimension of time disappear, but the clock on the wall was showing three o’clock in the morning. Till the end of the game there was nobody who had to quit the game. A voice announced that the game was ended, the winner was the philosopher. Telly had let Adrian win.
Billy: „Strange ending!“
John: „Adrian, would you like to play again?“
Adrian: „What for?“
John: „That is the contempt!“
The gamblers laughed, having understood the silence during the last game. As they wished goodnight to each other, the gambling map had already lost its attraction. Nobody knew that Telly and Billy were not sharing the same room on the cruise.
Outside it was still dark. The sky was making disappear the shining stars preparing for the dawn. On the side deck of the cruise ship, there was only one, who had observed the darkest sky just before the dawn and disappeared absorbing the warmth of the blowing wind over the ocean. She must have been a ghost.
Next day, the gambling table was unoccupied and remained the same till the ship coasted ending its journey later than schedule caused by a missing woman. The safeguards and security helicopter had been doing their best to find the woman, after a week of search flying over the ocean and combing the board, they couldn’t find anyone.
* * *
Alberto and his wife had visited the sleeping woman in the hospital every day, after the lunch. Doctor said that her situation was improving, but they couldn’t tell how long she would be in a coma, according to the medical examination, she must have been in the ocean at least two weeks. She was blessed with a robust health, enough tough to survive in the ocean. The doctor was wondering the capacity of the lungs of the unconscious woman, asking himself, if she
had been used to sing opera or even had been a real siren.
The police called every possible place in the area to find out, if there was someone missing, who could be the woman in a coma. But, there was nobody found, who would have witnessed a footprint on the sand desert.
Two weeks had been passed since the woman had been delivered to the hospital, as Alberto dropped in the hospital to ask about her health. He felt himself obliged to look after her, in a very human way, as someone who found her first, besides they had something in common, their shaved heads.
As he entered the hospital that afternoon, the nurses welcomed him smiling, followed by the doctor, who announced Alberto that the woman from the ocean had begun to talk, but nobody could understand the language, regarding her teeth she could be from North Asia. She was a mystery. Alberto saw in bewilderment the woman lying on the bed, speaking in a strange language, giving an impression of being lunatic, her eyes closed. The hospital was a good half an hour drive away from the surfing camp. As he was about to return to the beach, the woman suddenly stopped speaking, the screen of a pulse measurement machine close to her bed was showing lowered frequency of her heart beat. The nurses called the doctor and they began an urgent medical treatment to revive the heart. Alberto waited for a while to see the improvement of the health condition, but he had to return in time to his duties on the beach.
In the evening, as Alberto’s family was enjoying the vacation, which was ending in two weeks counting from that day, the doctor called him from the hospital, announcing that the woman fell asleep completely caused by her frozen and worn nerves, which meant unfortunately she would wake up in a year later. Alberto and his wife were worried about her health condition, but the doctor told them that it would be all right and the hospital was run by the Red Cross. In a case that she would wake up from the coma earlier, they would inform them, if the family would like to know. Alberto and his wife replied him with a loud ‚of course‘. The couple kept visiting the woman, who came from the ocean, till their leave back to the Caribbean Island and left on the bedside table a letter for her informing about how they had found her and their phone numbers by hoping that she would be welcomed to life as soon as possible and able to understand their letter in English.
Footprints in the Sand Desert Page 9