mother of all poison

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible
T E

December 2005

The cruellest part of the desert is its sound. In that emptiness without people, stretched across countries, you will first be aware of the soft rasping of waves of wind over sand, and sand scraping over sand. Slowly, as I spent hours lying down without hope, waiting for the night that might change my life or end it, the wind and sand seemed to take on lives of their own ~ I heard faraway cars coming to me, even faint, distant voices that must indicate Bedu where there were none. These are little sounds, mere suggestions in the air, and their subtlety will tease you till you cry. The only real sound I ever heard were two ghostly figures in the night that scared me enough to grab my shovel and shout out. But it was only a couple of wild camels that I soon forgot, lost in my problems, stuck in the Empty Quarter, a stretch of desperate loneliness that extends across most of Saudi Arabia, spilling out into Oman and Yemen.

If this wasn't enough, I was in a little patch called the Umm as Samim, translating into 'mother of all poison.' It blossomed out south of Oman's most famous oilfields, stretching towards the border with Saudi Arabia. And it had, along with its parent desert, been made famous through history, geology and literature as one of the greatest, most feared deserts known to man. Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger had romped through, oil companies had laid claims, armies had fought over and blood was spilt over its magnificent dunes, bleak salt flats called sabkha and patches of quicksand you didn't know were truth or legend. There was only one truth for me though ~ I was stuck in it, alone, with very little food and water, and no one knew where I was, or when I should be expected back. The romance of the desert made fools of men, and the occasional poetry it inspired over generations took nothing away from the truth that the infinitely thin sand blew over in fitful wisps.

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