The Date Stone

7/28/2019 The Date Stone

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Duncan mason


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The village had been there for a thousand years. The oasis lay like agreen jewel in the endless expanse of golden sand and the villagerswere grateful for their good fortune and proud of the beauty thatsurrounded them. Their lives were simple but good and there wasalways just enough food and just enough refreshing water.

They harvested honey from the hives that were kept in hollow logs incertain places among the palm trees. They harvested figs and

pomegranates, lemons and almonds. When the dates were in seasonthe men and young boys climbed the trees to bring down the succulentfruits. Yet they never harvested all the fruits, they always left somebehind on the tree saying there is plenty for all, and the birds too.Any dates or figs that fell on the ground were left there for the ants,and the birds and the lizards to eat. Once in a while a seed sent fortha shoot, a shoot leaves, and another tree was born.


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The animals that they kept, the goats and horses and camels, werefed on the leftover plants and grains and fruits that fell from the treesor were cut and given to them as forage. And the waste that theanimals produced was spread upon the gardens and around the baseof the trees to provide nourishment for the living plants. Grassessprang up from these areas and a green carpet lay in many places inthe shade of the towering trees. The water that the people used forbathing and cooking was always set aside and poured upon thebases of the plants and trees providing moisture and minerals toenrich the sandy earth from which they grew.


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Then there came to the village a new way of drawing water, metal partsreplaced the old wood and rope falaj, the amount of water it broughtto the surface was at least twice what they had before, and the peoplecelebrated. New ways of building homes were adopted and they nolonger heard the wind outside sighing across the desert dunes andthrough the leaves of the palm trees. The water from their cook potsand bathing places was now taken from the village by shiny pipes anddrains that took the water underground away from their homes.


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day a man arrived who came across the desert without need of camelor horse. He was in a machine with four wheels that made a harsh

sound as it pulled into the village. All the people marveled at themachine and after he had bought some supplies and filled his waterjugs they all watched the incredible car slowly disappear into thehazy distance.

Within a year, five other members of the village had cars of their own.They sold their camels and horses saying they no longer needed them.The new way of traveling was so much better that they could reach

any of the five surrounding villages within one day of driving, whereasin times past it had taken between two and five days to visit thevillages that were closest to the oasis.


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The next thing to arrive in the village was electric power. This allowedthem to have light in the night without recourse to wax and oil. Then

the marvel of air conditioning came to them and they declared thatnow, since every family had a car, life in the village was perfect.

They began to sell the fruits and nuts in the nearby villages, their carsenabling them to harvest in the morning and return after dark to well-lit homes of cool air. People began to covet the trees around the oasis,they began to draw up documents to say which trees belonged towhich family, they began to put nets around the fruits to keep the

birds away. They began to accumulate money.


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Their cars were their pride and joy and they washed and polishedthem every morning. The water pumps delivered the water to theirhomes easily and so they often used the water to wash their housesand they let their children play with the spraying water for hours onend. They began to import strange exotic flowers from far away andplant them in their gardens. They no longer had horses and camels inthe village and they did not have to use the smelly dung of theseanimals on their gardens. They bought powders and liquids, modernways to make vegetables and fruits grow faster and bigger. And allday and night they enjoyed the bright electric light and the coolconditioned air.


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They no longer tolerated the mess caused by falling fruits on theconcrete pathways around their homes and so the nets they used toprotect and harvest the fruits served the dual purpose of keepingtheir properties and streets tidy and preventing the birds fromstealing their fruits. They picked up the date stones from the ground,considering them untidy. They started to collect their rubbish inplastic bags and take the rubbish out to metal bins on the streets. Thedate stones, the tomato seeds, the pieces of vegetables and fruitsthat were cut off during the preparation of meals no longer returnedto the soil but were sealed in plastic bags and slowly rotted away, cutoff from the natural cycles of soil and air.


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They found new ways to control the insects that lived in their gardensand sometimes invaded their houses. Special sprays were brought intothe village and used to kill spiders, flies, cockroaches and even thesmallest lizards that lived on the walls and behind the A/Cs. They saw

these creatures as enemies and invaders. Sometimes the lizards atethe poisoned insects and fell ill and died. Sometimes the birds ate thelizards.


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As the years passed they began to notice that the birds were not asnumerous around the oasis. When they woke at dawn they did nothear the joyful chorus of a hundred bird voices raised in song at theadvent of the morning light.


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Children raised in the village did not notice that the water drawn fromthe well was beginning to lose the fresh sparkling flavour for which thevillage had been famous. Some of the older folk noticed but when theyspoke of it their adult children merely remarked that because theywere old nothing ever tasted as good as when they had been young.Little did they know that the oil that leaked from the older cars in the

village, the black rubber that coated the roads from the tires, thefertilizers and insecticides they sprayed or spread around the treesand in their vegetable gardens all slowly seeped into the oasis. Forwhen the rain came it washed everything down but the water alsowashed down into the oasis through underground channels, wadisand streams. Everything flowed into the pools.


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For a time they had bounty,fruits and vegetables galore,vehicles to roam the roads, oil toburn and money to spend.However, the fruits andvegetables that once burst in the

mouth with flavour began toseem lifeless on the tongue. Andthen, slowly the trees began todie. For the water in the oasiswas tainted with poisons. Theroots that held the sandtogether as soil slowly withered,the wind blew the sand awayexposing the roots. The waterturned brackish and became asickly yellow colour.


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What shall we do? the people asked each other. What shall we do? Thewind became an ever present sound howling around the houses. Many

families moved away and only the old people remained, drinking theunhealthy water and eating what they could find. The roofs of thehouses slowly caved in, the glass in the window frames shattered andfell. For the old people had not the strength to climb ladders and fixthings. In time only a skeleton of a village remained inhabited byskeletons. Only the wind sang at dawn.


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But then, eventually, the lizards and the spiders and the birdsreturned, and the date stones began to sprout, and the rains slowlypurified the land and the water.


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Gifts to the desertacrylic on canvas

River to my peopleacrylic on canvas


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Photos: The Rubh al Khali (the Empty Quarter) united Arab emirates


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words, photos, paintings by Duncan Masonashaquila.com * [email protected]

The Date Stone

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