The Desert knows my name.
Allah knows my name…
It’s been three years since I came to the Sudan. When I left home, I was no more than a boy. I was not raised by a father, but by a map awash with pink that hung in our dining room. A map which the man (who claimed to be my father) spent more time and love on than any of us. A map that would not only come to possess him, but my brothers, one by one, as they got older. Until it was finally my turn.
It was no surprise when I came home that day to find our house packed with men in uniforms. Three times before I had watched my brothers go through the same spectacle. As I walked up the drive, I wanted to run there and then, but only my mind could conjure escape. My legs led me blindly to my fate.
‘In the name of the Empire!’ they cheered as they clinked and raised their glasses to toast her. But if the empire is a woman, then she is a cold one. All my time here, I have never heard her sigh, let alone her heart beat.
Whilst the desert sings to me…
All I have seen here in her name is a bloody set of footprints left behind by the men of the 21st Lancers and those who march with us. From Ferkeh in the south to Khartoum in the north, our trail is marked across the sands like a rotten vein that takes the life from the flesh around it.
Now in Khartoum we sit and wait as Kitchener builds his city. Like most rotten things, we fester in the sun and the stench hangs low and wide above our heads. It is not the smell of boots that have walked a thousand miles, nor of cordite or sweat. It is a stench of the darkness that is yet to come.
You have shown me there is light…
The stench in this place gets stronger every day as more evil pours in by the shipload. They arrive like clockwork, from all corners of this earth. Slave traders, tricksters, opportunists are all here. Some hide behind their European verandas, their cocktails parties and their ideas of respectability. Most hide behind the cold of steel where life is valued at no more than an inch of brass and a ball of lead – those are the ones I prefer, for the aforementioned are blind to their curse.
A month ago, two old European gentlemen came down from Egypt and started to go door-to-door in search of the young and vulnerable. ‘In the name of art!’ they said. I did not see art, but just two twisted old men of ruin.
They would be my third and fourth victims…
This is the stench the place has been plunged into, but there is fresh air to be found away from this pit. The Desert.
The first time I went, I was in an intoxicated rage. My heart yearned for escape and for a quick end to my hell. I cannot remember if I ran or I walked. All I can remember are the faces of those who I passed, who I cursed and bedeviled. Then I remember just lying there, waiting for the sun and the heat to lift me from this land.
As the sun set, having burned my skin, I cried in disappointment that my chest should still rise and sink, and the blood should still pump through my corpse. There I stayed through the night, and sung a wordless song of melancholy, till I found myself lifted as the desert made its comfort known to me. I watched as tiny grains of sands were carried by the wind into a dance beautiful and complex. I could not surrender myself there and then, but it would entice me into coming back.
And back I did come. Soon it became a daily pilgrimage, and those who I had first scorned began to open to me, and I to them.
They call me Sarsarun …
It was as if I had been let in on a great secret which only they and I could understand, and they took great joy in my swift metamorphosis. It was they who taught me, not through words but through love, to understand the dance in the sand. They taught me to see and hear with my heart again.
I knew the first part of my transformation was complete when, while walking back from the desert, I went to accost two men from my own platoon who were violating one of the young girls of the village. They did not recognise me when I called to them to stop, nor did they recognise my face when I was inches away and had brought my sabre to their throats.
They were my first and second victims…
One of these days, I will come to the desert and not return to the barracks. I am no longer that fair-skinned boy from Sussex who was afraid of his father’s scorn. But the desert has yet to make me a man, for I have yet to learn its lesson of peace.
Teach me…
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Tags: #fridayflash, 1890's, 1899, 21st Lancers, Africa, Allah, Desert, Ferkeh, Khartoum, Khatom, Kitchener, Sarsarun, Sudan
1) This is brilliant – ‘raised by a map awash with pink’ – oh yes, oh yes, oh yes and the disappearance of such cartography is why the English lack for a sense of identity today…They have not been able to replace or rejustify that imperious sense of superiority the map conferred.
2) Are you familiar with @agnieszkasshoes / @eightcuts on Twitter? He’s putting together an anthology to do with deserts – you may want to submit this unless you have other plans for it
3) Have you read the last Jake Arnott book “The Devil’s Paintbox” ? Crowley meets disgraced soldier of the Empire who left his heart in Khartoum. Well in 1000 words or less, you knock that whole book into a cocked hat.
I salute you Sir
Marc said what I cannot. Your tales always ring of subtle nobility and high adventure. They broke the mold after you sir. Your work speaks for itself.
I liked this. It’s difficult to follow as it winds through storyland.
Brilliant indeed! Since I’m pretty well speechless I’ll just say “What Marc said”.
Fascinating story, I was quite enthralled!