The Winds of Change

I lie on the floor of your apartment, sunlight dancing along me as I stretch out at full length.   This is my new home now. It’s a place I never imagined living in. My route here was long and arduous. Many hands were influential in my arrival in your life. The stories of these people are woven in my memories. You have no comprehension of my past and have never bothered to ask.

I was born high in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. A desolate spot, wild and free, where cool mountain winds blow dust into every orifice. The fibres of my soul were created there.  I had to learn to be alert to dangers, resilient to hunger. To live there is all about survival, but I had my family around me. Safe, protected. Or so I thought. 

Still young and innocent, I was torn from my family by the rough hands of an illiterate farmer.  Sold to merchants crossing the desert on camels, a long group who walked for days, the sun burning my tender young skin. Unpredictable Haboob sandstorms ravaged my skin further, the grains exfoliating every strip of my body. My tongue, as dry as a sandstone block, stuck to the roof of my mouth. Water was rationed, a precious commodity. I’m not sure now how many days we travelled. The mind plays tricks to block pain and suffering from our memories.

When I thought I could survive no more, we arrived in a small farming district at the edge of a desert oasis. Date palms cast deep shadows to shelter in, long cool drinks were plentiful, and I could bath my burnt skin in the shallow water edges. Asif was charged with caring for us, a young boy not much older than me. He was kind and gentle, spending all his time with me and my fellow captors. He whispered his sweet dreams to me under starlight nights, cooled by zephyr breezes. Dreams we both knew in our hearts would never come true. I grew stronger with regular food, my body responding to the gentler climate of this island of plenty in the middle of the desert. But that was my downfall. Merchants came again, this time they violently broke me. Bundled me up and carried me roughly across the deserts on their mules. 

My next destination was loud, busy, dirty. A megaphone blasting the calls to prayer. Dumped in a dusty market place awaiting my fate.  I feared what the future held in this alien environment. Coins changed hands as I was lifted into the back of an open truck that rattled down rough, narrow streets to be unloaded into a long, dark warehouse. In the next room, I heard the chatter of women's voices. Fear caused me to shiver and tremble for days as I listened to the Sirocco wind whistle through the open eaves above me.

Eventually, I joined the room with the women. Their calloused hands caressed me, cleaning my body, teasing tangles, tattooing me with dyes and pigments that changed my appearance so that even I didn’t recognise myself. The stories of each woman as she worked on me are woven into my memories and very soul. I was changed forever at their hands. The old me became a distant memory. I was reinvented, repurposed, ready for a new existence. 

The rumbling of the truck hid the noise of the sea, so that when I emerged, I was shocked by the vast expanse of azure light reflecting the burning sun above. The smell of salt assaulted my senses. So many foreign sights and smells. Loaded into the dark hold of a ship, more rough hands pushing and shoving me to comply with their will. I soon lost track of the days spent in darkness, my mass shifting and sliding unrelentingly with the movement of the boat, pushed by westerly Trade winds and Indian Ocean gyres.

Eventually I was pulled from that dark hole, the sunlight burning me to my core, heat penetrating every fibre of my being. Thankfully, shelter was provided from this harsh environment whilst we waited for days for our documents to be stamped and processed. I had arrived in a new world, a million miles from my home, my family.  Once cleared through customs, I was transported again by truck. This one was comfortable, fully enclosed, suffocatingly hot, but still a refuge from the burning sun. The journey was smooth and gentle as we skimmed tarmacked roads.  

My next home was bright, open, and air-conditioned. Whilst still an alien environment, it was far more welcoming. I revelled in the comfort, unfurling and expanding, discovering a new iteration of myself. For once I felt valued, hopeful my life was improving. And then you walked into my life, picking me to share your new apartment, your daily life. At first I’m ecstatic. I’m the one you show off to your friends and family, but as time passes, I realise I’m just another object in your life. Valued whilst I’m new and shiny, but easily disposed of  when you grow tired and bored with me. 

The Fremantle wind blows through the open window, caressing my now flat contours as I lay on your apartment floor. You have no interest in the origins of my creation. My long journey to reach you. The tiny lamb born on a bare mountainside. Taken and transported across the desert to join a flock cared for by the shepherd Asif.  My precious wool sheared to be sold in the markets of Marrakech.  The fibres of my soul woven into threads to be knotted into an ornate Moroccan rug. Shipped across oceans to be sold in the cosmopolitan city of Perth Australia, thousands of miles from my homelands. Walked upon every day, I am an inanimate object to you. Something that adds colour to your plain white lounge tiles, but you have no interest in my history. Of the hands involved in my creation.  I am inconsequential to you as I fade into the background of your life. 

Words 1013