i dug till my city slicker hands bled

The body was too course to feel the utmost of our sorrows and of our joys.Therefore, we abandoned it as rubbish: we left it below us to march forward, a breathing simalcrum, on its own unaided level, subject to influences from which in normal times our instincts would have shrunk
T E

I would have eaten more if I had known that it would be my last full meal for the next couple of days. Hours later I was stuck in an innocent looking five-foot dune, just a few feet from hard ground, the Land Cruiser at a horrible 45-degree angle, threatening to topple over if I did manage to move it. I started shovelling sand away from the wheels and from under the chassis, but it was tough work and my mouth grew dry every couple of minutes. I munched on ice cubes the soldiers had filled my cool box with, but I knew I didn't have enough water for this sort of activity to last very long. Instead, I stopped working and lay in the shade of the Toyota, on the sand and along with my backpack, and 40-litres of useless petrol ~ everything I'd removed to get the car lighter.

I had dug so desperately that I'd quickly shredded my soft, city slicker hands, and adhesive bandages wouldn't stick on with the fine coating of sand that wouldn't come off. Water was much too precious to waste on superficial wounds. Instead, I slid one sock over the handle, and tied another around further down, using them as padding to hold the shovel. I haven't figured out what flies do in the loneliest spot of desert known to man, but they must have homed in on me from kilometres away, sitting on my face and nibbling on my wounds. I ended up with a headcloth over my face, lying in the sand with my hands tucked under opposite armpits, out of reach.

Stay with the car, I thought, someone in Muscat will miss you, and call the oil worker whom I'd met at the last town, and whose phone numbers I'd SMS-ed to people in the capital. He knew which direction I'd gone in, and that road would have to lead to the army camp. And the soldiers not only had my business card, but also knew the direction of travel, and car details. It would take them a few minutes to spot the car by helicopter, or a couple of hours by road. All I had to do was wait, and if they didn't come the next morning I would sleep through the day and dig by night, again.

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