One may cross the desert on a camel’s back, or as part of a grand motorised expedition, but Thomas M Moore, this young London architect in his mid-thirties, dreamed of crossing the desert on a Blackburn motorcycle, for he wished to experience the exploit in perfect solitude. Indeed, he had thought of nothing else, day and night, for months. He’d studied the maps and analysed routes across the deserts, looking at the paths he would need to take to reach the pyramids at the edge of the Libyan desert. People asked him many questions about the journey. What would he do if his bike broke down? How would he cope with the cold at night, or stave off the hunger? Thomas M. Moore wanted to prepare properly for the expedition, and for an entire year the planning had monopolised his every spare minute. There had been heated arguments with his wife; why did he want to cross the desert anyway, and what if he never came back?
Thomas M. Moore moved forward blindly through the desert. The sand flew up around the motorcycle, clogging up the engine and climbing up his trouser legs. The desert wind, hot in the day and freezing at night, blew without mercy, whipping at his cheeks. Thomas M. Moore did not know where he was going. His goal had been to reach the pyramids and see their peaks, to admire their grandeur, but this goal was merely a pretext. The truth was that he wanted to lose himself in the vastness of the desert, and let his thoughts wander along the dunes, forgetting all that he remembered. And so the sun dazed him and the cold froze him. The wind carried off everything in its path; thoughts, sounds and smells. Sweat stung in his reddened eyes, and he could no longer make out the path between the waves of dunes. He was completely alone, and lost. There was nothing else on earth, no-one but him. He said nothing. He wanted nothing but to reach the pyramids, perhaps, one day. The wind passed through him, and he became a phantom of the desert. He had been travelling since first light, non-stop, fatigue and thirst hanging around his neck like a millstone. The drought had hardened his lips and his tongue. Hunger gnawed at him. He could no longer speak. He had become mute like the desert, for some time now it seemed. His dreams were as motionless as the stars, as the crossing of the desert became an experience of the void; of chaos.
Thomas M. Moore had come to the end of his journey, and could finally observe the pyramids of Egypt standing stark against the blue sky. He would receive no recompense for his feat, save the respect of a few Bedouins on their camels. Thomas M. Moore was depleted in body and mind, but it had been worth it. He would never be the same man again after this experience, nor think the same way. He had achieved a childhood dream. Thomas M. Moore sought the impossible, and he had grasped it. It had taken ten days’ worth of contemplation and adventure, but Thomas M. Moore had crossed the Libyan desert. He thought of the thousands of men who lived in the driest parts of the world, the thousands of men who made the desert their home, the nomads who walked over the sands in search of water. For a few days he had been one of them, this privileged Londoner, who until now had known Egypt only through the images, the stories and the antiquities housed in the British Museum.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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