The sun was shining in the centre of a huge blue sky, the temperature was happily over thirty degrees with no humidity. A large white triangular canvas stretched horizontally sometimes undulated in a light breeze and provided a rare shade in this place.We could be on the deck of a boat if this beneficial sail was not firmly tied to three stakes firmly planted in the sand. All around us, as far as the eye could see, there were only dunes. Only a few bushes here and there and about thirty dromedaries brought a little variety to this lunar landscape.We were in the middle of the Eastern Sahara, in the heart of the great Erg, a thousand miles from any civilisation.In the shadow of this sail, many carpets had been laid out on the sand. They had the varied patterns and shimmering colours of local craftsmanship.Comfortably seated on these carpets, about thirty women and men from all over the world were waiting patiently.In the silence of the desert, they were ready for the event that had brought them here.At the end of a time that no one could have measured because time lost its usual meaning in the middle of the desert. A man appeared. He was dressed in the long, loose, blue tunic of the desert men, and he also wore the chèche, the long veil several metres long that the nomads wrap around their heads to protect themselves from the sun and the dry desert wind. The man patiently made his way through the assembly to a small dune a little higher up, also covered with a carpet.From this spot the whole assembly could see him.Slowly, the man removed his shawl to reveal his face, took a microphone that had been placed there and spoke."I welcome you all to the heart of the desert that welcomes us. I am Pierre Duchemin.A rumour went up from the crowd, no one would have imagined the presence of Pierre Duchemin in this place and on this occasion. Pierre Duchemin was the one through whom everything had happened, he was in a way the origin of the presence of each of them in this place.
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New Gaze - New World
Short StoryAfter the tsunami of revelations from the Davos summit, the ethical and economic foundations of the planet were called into question, the seeds of a new world were sown. But will this new world have enough gardeners to care for and grow these seeds...
