Under the Sun

It was early in the afternoon, somewhere in the Egyptian desert, not far from Luxor. Fayad, a brave ten year-old boy, took out the donkey of his parents, Himâr, from its pen to tie it up to some kind of basic plow. He would plow the field of his parents, which actually looked like a piece of desert, in the middle of the desert. However, seeds of barley were sowed but under the sun, and with the lack of rainy days, nothing would come out of the ground.

Fayad plowed the desert. What for? There was nothing else to do anyway. He and Himâr, slowly moved forward, with a particular sense of geometry for such a young boy, and even more unexpected were the parallel lines on the ground drawn by the donkey.

They plowed slowly but they plowed. For a reason or another, when Fayad’s eyes looked where his head led them to, the young boy saw something bright and twinkling. The plow had unearthed it from deep in the ground and there it lay on the soil.
Fayad came near it. It was some piece of gold, an ancient one, with hieroglyphs on it. Under the sun, the old coin glinted. Fayad thought a while. He didn’t know the value of such a discovery. He could never keep it for himself, he wouldn’t do that to his parents, especially his loving father. He had never felt deprived or needy, even though he could seem to live in a poor family, but maybe they could buy a second donkey? Or maybe his parents could send his eldest sister to college thanks to it? What if it was something very precious and experts came, with journalists? The burglars would be warned. Fayad really didn’t want his parents to have any kind of trouble.

With his hand, he gouged in the ground just where he had found the thing, as far as his little fingers could go in the deep of the desert. He laid it down in the bottom of the hole, and covered it. He continued to plow during all the afternoon after this episode, hiding a secret he would quickly forget under the sun.

"Under the Sun" by Xavier R.

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