Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani

The lorry, a small world, black as night, made its way across the desert like a heavy drop of oil on a burning sheet of tin. The sun hung high above their heads, round, blazing, and blindingly bright. None of them bothered to dry their sweat any longer. Assad spread his shirt over his head, bent his legs, and let the sun roast him without resistance. Marwan leaned his head on Abu Qais's shoulder and closed his eyes. Abu Qais stared at the road, tightly closing his lips under his thick gray moustache.

None of the four wanted to talk anymore, not only because they were exhausted by their efforts, but because each one was swallowed up in his own thoughts. The huge lorry was carrying them along the road, together with their dreams, their families, their hopes and ambitions, their misery and despair, their strength and weakness, their past and future, as if it were pushing against the immense door to a new, unknown destiny, and all eyes were fixed on the door's surface as though bound to it by invisible threads.

We'll be able to send Qais to school and buy one or two olive shoots. Perhaps we'll build a cottage to live in, which will be ours. I'm an old man; I may arrive or I may not. And do you think that the life you lead here is better than death? Why don't you try, as we do? Why don't you get up off that cushion and set out through God's world in search of a living? Will you spend the whole of your life eating the flour ration for one kilo of which you sacrifice all your honor at the doors of officials?

The lorry traveled on over the burning earth, its engine roaring remorselessly.

Shafiqa is an innocent woman. She was an adolescent when a mortar bomb smashed her leg and the doctors amputated it from the top of the thigh. And his mother didn't like anyone to talk about his father. Zakaria has gone. There, in Kuwait, you'll find everything out. You'll learn everything. You're still a boy, and you know no more of life than a babe in arms knows of its house. School teaches nothing. It only teaches laziness. So leave it and plunge into the frying pan with the rest of humanity.

The lorry traveled on over the burning earth, its engine roaring with an intolerable noise.

Perhaps it was buried in the ground, the bomb he trod on as he was running; or maybe it was thrown in front of him by a man hidden in a nearby ditch. None of that is important now. His legs were suspended in the air and his shoulders were still on the comfortable white bed, and the terrible pain was still plunging between his thighs. There was a woman there, helping the doctors. Whenever he remembered it, his face was suffused with shame. And what good did patriotism do you? You spend your life in an adventure, and now you are incapable of sleeping with a woman! And what good did you do? Let the dead bury their dead. I only want more money now, more money.

The lorry traveled on over the burning earth, its engine roaring loudly.

The policeman pushed him in front of the officer, who said to him: "You think you're a hero when the donkeys carry you on their shoulders, demonstrating in the street. " He spat in his face, but Assad didn't move as the saliva ran slowly down his forehead and gathered on the tip of his nose in a nasty viscous mess. They led him out, and when he was in the corridor he heard the policeman who was grasping his shoulder say in a low voice: "Damn this uniform! " Then he let him go, and Assad ran off. His uncle, wishing to marry him off to his daughter, wanted him to make a start in life. Otherwise he would never have collected fifty dinars in the whole of his life.

The lorry traveled on over the burning earth, its roaring engine a gigantic mouth devouring the road.

The sun in the middle of the sky traced a broad dome of white flame over the desert, and the trail of dust reflected an almost blinding glare. They used to be told that someone wasn't coming back from Kuwait because he'd died; he'd been killed by sunstroke. He'd been driving his shovel into the earth when he fell onto one knee and then on both. And then what? He was killed by sunstroke. Do you want him buried here or there? That was all, sunstroke. It was quite right. Who called it "sunstroke"? Wasn't he a genius? This desert was like a giant in hiding, flogging their heads with whips of fire and boiling pitch. But could the sun kill them and all the stench imprisoned in their breasts? The thoughts seemed to run from one head to another, laden with the same suspicions, for their eyes suddenly met. Abul Khaizuran looked at Marwan and than at Abu Qais, whom he found staring at him. He tried to smile, and failed, so he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, murmuring:

"This is the Hell that I have heard of. "

"God's Hell?"

"Yes."

Abul Khaizuran reached out his hand and turned off the engine; then he slowly got down, followed by Marwan and Abu Qais, while Assad remained perched above them.

Abul Khaizuran sat in the shade of the lorry and lit a cigarette. He said in a low voice:

"Let's rest a little before we begin the performance again. "

Abu Qais asked:

"Why didn't you set out with us yesterday evening so that we would be saved by the cool of the night from all this trouble? "

Without raising his eyes from the ground, Abul Khaizuran replied: