Where the Sun is Death

A short piece I wrote on my way back from the arid lands of South Ethiopia. The isolation of the places I've seen has turned me into a poet of the apocalypse. I've witnessed hell on those roads- uninhabited stretches of arid lands, burning under the sun, whispering to me how I should burn along too. My mind goes to the metaphorical merging of my body with the land, to the peaceful meaning of death in a territory so unescapable, so dangerously visceral that one has no choice but to submit to it- be it branch, insect or human.

Oct 2022- Where the Sun is Death

I’m starting to realise I loved Africa so much because of how big, untameable, vast it was.

Near the Omo Valley, seated on the back of a Land Cruiser with my friend Amer, I heard a sentence that haunted me. In a moment of silence at the sight of the deathly desert before us, Amer asked: « Can you imagine being lost here? Being the only one in this desert, no car, no one to help? How would you survive? Could you live? Look outside. »

Before us, on this dry, crusty terrain, laid an infinite ground of mud so dry, so hard it had become hell’s rock. This crackled ground, dry and hot, burned continuously under the 40 degrees of the unforgiving African sun as we watched it. But this universe’s burning was the type of slow, painful, silent burn of a deserted hell. If it weren't for the car’s rumbles and tumbles, the roaring sound of the engine, and the chatter of Amer, the silence would be deathly. I imagine being stranded here. Alone in this terrain. Death is invisible yet all around me. The dry, wrinkly, small, leafless crippled trees scattered all around me are death. Their soulless, barely alive branches, their wood that’s been slowly burning to death in a long, silent battle since their first days on Earth as small saplings, are death. The deep cracks on the dead ground, a mud that’s been dead for centuries, are death. The sun, symbol of life, the warm companion I’ve always wanted with me, is different here. I’m frightened by its presence which brings nothing but death now. The deafening silence of this territory is only interrupted by the slow sizzles of burning branches or the rare insects burning to death on this merciless land. All life becomes death, all death remains death in this valley. 

I remain silent. The only thing keeping me from death on this dry, arid hell, is a metallic box, our car. A car with fuel, a car with batteries, a car that's always one breakdown away from collapse. A car attempting to separate us humans from nature, the only way to get out of this unescapable universe. I feel so close to death, so close to this slow silent apocalypse. I understand that barely anything stands between my life and the slow, burning death of the valley. Oddly, this brings nothing but silence, and an ever natural terror in me. It’s a peaceful terror, a fascinated fear. My fear is admirative of the power of Earth. Accepting of my powerlessness. Confronted to the remorseless death before me, I acknowledge that I owe my life to Earth, that, in such conditions, resistance would be pointless. The beauty of such an extreme, the beauty of Mother Nature killing the ones it births, is too powerful to resist. Too poetic to fear. Too simple to fight. Earth giveth and Earth taketh away. I look at the normally terrifying stillness before me, and yet all I feel is the latter: the simple stillness of hell.

There is no screaming here. There is no chaos here. Death comes slowly but assuredly. If I were stranded here, i would feel so immensely connected to my suffering environment. The ground’s dry, deep cracks could be seen on my dry, cracked lips desperate for a drop of water. The slowly burning organs of the rare cockroaches helplessly running, searching for a shelter from the pitiless sun would be mine. The thin branches of the half-dead trees, too dark, too brown, too burnt, would be my arms, in pain and rotting. In the night, rest would not come. The heat absorbed from the ground during the bright, blinding day, would heat the entirety of this universe. I would feel my feet burn a slightly less painful way. Under the sun, they would feel poked by a thousand sharp needles in flames. In the night, they would simply feel too close to a fire, a dark ground of silent, invisible, scorching fire. 

The sky would be illuminated with endless stars, the whole universe at my reach, constellation and galaxies floating over me, infinite darkness, infinite matter, infinite space before my eyes. I would look up to the sky and I would pray for a faster death, a faster surrender to Mother Nature. Mother Nature would take care of me, Mother Nature never lets an element it created vanish. I would become the soil of this hell, peacefully, accepting the choices of Earth, leaving my destiny to its hands. The infinite power of the Earth that has created me is bigger than my life, and therefore, I would simply look up to the night sky and understand my powerlessness, the very natural submission of my mere human life before the perfect Earth.

Eda Alp