In a development that has left even the most hardened sunbathers reaching for the aloe vera of existential dread, a lorry-load of hapless travellers has perished in the Sahara Desert. The vehicle, presumably a diesel-guzzling metaphor for our own hubris, broke down somewhere between Timbuktu and a mirage of dignity. Fifty souls now lie beneath the dunes, their final moments a scorching testament to the fact that the AA’s coverage really does not extend beyond the M25.
British aid teams, those magnificent bastions of stiff upper lips and logistical wizardry, have been spotted waving maps and shouting into satellite phones. Their calls for a ‘desert rescue’ have been met with a mixture of bemusement from local camel herders and bureaucratic yawns from their own government. “We’re coordinating a response,” barked a spokesman in a high-vis jacket that seemed to defy the very concept of heat. “It’s just a bit tricky to find a tesco that does a decent ice pack this far south.”
One must applaud the sheer chutzpah of the British taxpayer, who now funds meteorological records of sand temperature in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will care. The lorry itself was last seen being circled by vultures, which have since formed a queuing system. A French tourist was overheard muttering something about ‘Angleterre,’ but his accent made it unclear whether it was praise or a curse.
The tragedy, of course, is not the deaths themselves, but the paperwork. Reports suggest that the lorry driver was a man named Dave, who had only taken the job because his satnav said ‘shortcut.’ Dave is currently presumed dead, but his Spotify playlist is still playing. It is a playlist of shame: a mix of Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, and a podcast about the war on Christmas.
But let us not forget the heroes: the journalists who will now file breathless reports about how ‘the desert is unforgiving’ and ‘we must learn from this.’ They will interview a man named Nigel who once got lost in a Lidl car park and call it ‘relatable coverage.’ Meanwhile, the families of the deceased are forced to hold memorial services via Zoom, as the delay in recovering bodies is deemed ‘insufficiently newsworthy.’
In summary: fifty people are dead because a lorry broke down. The British aid teams are doing their best, which is a bit like bringing a paper umbrella to a tsunami. The desert does not care. The government does not care. But by God, we will have a good moan about it over a warm G&T. The gin, at least, is reliable. The gin never breaks down in the desert. It just evaporates, mocking us all.
