They used to be told that someone wasn't coming back from Kuwait because he'd died ; he'd died of sunstroke. He'd been driving his shovel into the earth when he'd fell on th one knee 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 dessert 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?

From 'Men in the Sun' by Ghassan Kanafani (translated by Hilary Kilpatrick)