Long ago before the dry, fine sand particles piled into dunes that formed the Sahara desert, the air was made up of fog and firn, the land of ice and rime. That is, at least half the land was bleak. Isoda, a lonely, cold spinster lived here, isolated and lonely. Streaming from the snowy grounds was a dense jungle springing with all forms of life. The rest of the population lived here. It blossomed with warmth and liveliness.
It’s not that the jungle dwellers wanted to quarantine Isoda. Just that whenever she got closer to them, the forest grew darker, and the climate became dull. Hearts became frozen, the human emotion numb. The warmth disappeared and what was left was a passionless ghost of a jungle. The aura of death colored the air. So, a truce was made that the gloomy, ice-cursed, pale-skinned Isoda will occupy the land opposite and farthest from the forest. Where her frosting influence faded, the jungle began.
Isoda accepted her fate because she did not want to cause doom to the warm creatures. However, she felt lonely. She cried every dawn. Her tears warmed and melted into rivers that gently streamed into the dense forest. The jungle beings drank, cooked, and cleaned. Their flora blossomed from the teary glands of the icy, old maid. Oh man, she was lonely.
One day when Isoda could take no more the aching in her heart, she decided to make herself some company. Some little snow babies will sure bring some joy to the cold, barren sphere. Why didn’t she think about this earlier? She wondered.
On that day, she cried no more. The weather, however, remained chilly as her little snow girls and boys came to life by the sculpt of her hands. The pale, cold mother was happy for once. Her home was barren no more.
As the snow kids grew and expanded in size, so did their playground. Slowly, they wandered far from home and closer to the adjoining jungle oblivious to their mother. It was only a matter of time before they got a glimpse of the vibrant life that existed on the other side of their home. Unbelievable. Golden rays from the sky piercing through the lush leaves of the forest trees. They could sense the warmth from far, but the frozen fence stalled any further steps.
That night, as they slept in their realm, none could close their eyes. Unable to take it any longer, the valiant sibling confronted their mother about the strange world they had discovered. “Why do we look different from them? Why do we live here alone? Why can’t we go and live among the trees like others?” Endless questions of innocence.
Like a lover who has been rejected by her suitor at the sight of a more attractive mate, Isoda’s heart was broken once again. She tried to calm her offspring by telling them that they were better off at their frost sphere. Sternly, she warned them to never return to the green side again. “Promise me that you will never wander towards the jungle.” Actually, it was unclear whether she was begging or being assertive. But it was certain that she did not want her progeny to suffer the lonely wounds of the outcasted. So, she did not tell them about the deleterious potential that they had on the warm-blooded creatures on the other side. Such sweet, innocent molds of snow. Could they survive rejection? The loneliness and isolation had almost shattered her hard compact persona and she didn’t want that state of desolation to befall her brood.
The next day, Isoda woke up very early that morning with one goal in her mind. She was going to create snow forms of everything that existed in the green land to enrich the curiosity in her children’s imagination. She modeled snowy trees, birds, animals, and pathways. She was so engrossed in her craft that hours passed by before she realized that none of her babies had come outside. Thinking that they were playing indoors, she went inside with a big smile, ready to unveil the lovely surprise. She was met with an empty room. Shock!
The heart follows what the eyes see may be a totally made up adage, but Isoda’s children also woke up with their own goal; to ignore their mother’s warning and fully explore the green land beyond the ice. Unknown to them, their presence on the boundary earlier had unnerved the jungle people who believed that Isoda was creating an army to wipe them off. Hence, the entire night, the strongest men of the jungle were directed to start chopping off the trees near the boundary as the rest of the population retreated deeper into the woods. The sun’s rays were no longer tapping gently through the leaves of the evergreen, but hitting directly on the ground holding the fallen trunks.
Just when the jungle people thought that they had recoiled to a safer distance, the sight of the mini ice army hit their optics. Chop! Chop! Faster! Faster! Anyone that wasn’t an infant or a morbid elderly were forced to join in the jungle demolition. The animals helped too. It was the brilliant monkey’s idea to light-up the boundary using the stuff that the human’s cook with. “Fire?” Asked an astounded human elder? “Yes, the fire from under your pots,” replied the clever ape as he threw some red coals in the direction of fallen wood and drenching snow.
As it progressively blazed, the jungle people were satisfied that the sight of doom was no longer in their path. From afar, they could hear Isoda shrieks of agony, mourning for her melting, ahem, dying children. Her cold embrace was no match for the scathing fire. Losing her will to live, she knelt in despair as fire turned her into a warm, watery pulp, limb by limb. Isoda was ice, and ice was Isoda. As she shattered before the coals, and so did the entire frost land. That was the first and last season of what came to be known as a glacier.
In her final act of vengeance, the force of her melting body gushed through the entire land where she uprooted all of what had remained of the gorgeous evergreen. All warm and cold lives died that day. A dark, empty silence.
Many seasons passed. None was happy like the dry wind. He blew across the now barren land with awakened determination. He sneered at the fallen jungle that once hindered his voyages, making him go the long way around. He brought along his best friend, the sand, who traveled with his entire family. The sands were delighted to find such a vast spot on which they settled and built their cone-shaped castles. As if in a competition for the best settler, the sun intensified his rays burning the surface as if to dare Isoda to stay dead. The communion of the sun, the wind and the sand brought about the birth of Sahara. A true desert beauty.