I headed for the pool and sat in one of the sun loungers facing the water. Tommy took one next to me and pulled out his phone. That reminded me that my phone was still missing in action somewhere, but I couldn’t tell if I needed or wanted it. There was a certain kind of freedom that came with not having that constantly pinging extension of my online life on me at all times.
“I wanted to show you something,” Tommy said, scrolling through something on his phone’s screen.
I stared at him while he frowned in concentration. Did I really kiss him when I thought we were both dying in the desert? Or was that a dream? Ever since we’d returned from the oasis, he was behaving … differently with me. Our status quo was definitely gone—he was now more to me than my father’s assistant whom I was crushing on, and I was … What was I to him? I drifted off, looking away.
“Alif?”
I sat up straighter and faced Tommy. In the eerie light, his eyes were so green, the color didn’t look real. So beautiful, I thought. Or did I just say it out loud? I might’ve, because Tommy’s face rippled in response, the sides of his mouth bending a little, suppressing a smile or a groan.
“There’s something I want you to see,” he insisted.
When I accepted Tommy’s phone, it was open to a browser display of search results. A few of the links were darker in color, indicating items that had been read. The search terms were Noam+Delamer+Dubai. I met Tommy’s eyes over the screen.
“Read the ones I’ve selected first,” he urged me.
The most recent internet search results dated back a few days ago, to reports of when Noam Delamer, dehydrated and close to death, staggered into my father’s dig camp. In the news, there was talk about massive book and movie offers, both centering on Noam’s story of surviving in the desert alone for years—hailed as the ultimate survival story on steroids, Robinson Crusoe, Castaway, and Alive all rolled into one. All of that, including the snippets of his interviews and even a few photos of his face—always hidden behind large sunglasses—made clear Noam was an enterprising man who gave away little for free. He was keeping the circumstances of his miraculous survival close to his heart, saving it for the big payout. Or perhaps his evasiveness during interviews suggested he had something to hide—like the truth about the fate of his fellow victim of the desert, Alain Pinon.
Under Tommy’s watchful gaze, I looked through the rest of the news stories, going further back in time, until I came across an old syndicated feature informing the world of the tragic disappearance of two men who were visiting Dubai for a conference. This was the only mention of Alain Pinon that I could find. With Noam getting so much attention, it was odd that so little was being said about Alain. It’s like the world just forgot about him. Was Alain like Rowen, left in the desert by the survivors and eventually edited from collective memory? I refreshed the news feed and was about to share my thoughts with Tommy, but then I glimpsed a very recent piece by a local newspaper that had Dubai Five in its title. The first photo that accompanied the piece was of a young woman slumped in a chair in a familiar hotel lobby. Her face was frozen in a stupor, eyes staring into space.
I did a double take. The woman was me. I looked older in this picture. Sadder. I felt sorry for myself in this photo.
I clicked on the link. The piece itself was short. Six Australians stranded on the sands, five of them rescued—the lucky ones. One suspected fatality, the body yet to be recovered. And photos of all six of us, plucked randomly from the web, including a younger version of Tommy with a beautiful brown-skinned woman in her fifties, an elegant scarf wrapped around her head. Both of them were grinning, but there was sadness clouding this photo. How little I knew of Tommy, of his life outside of my dad’s orbit.
“Some fuel for your next blog post?” I asked, giving the phone back to Tommy and pointing out the Dubai Five article. He scoffed at the news piece and put the phone away. There were no more distractions between us. Just the two of us sitting out here alone, by the pool, its surface dead, unmoving.
“Yeah, I think I’m done with blogging for now,” Tommy said. “I never mentioned it to anyone, but that post I wrote about Tell Abrar … I had weird dreams about the site, from the moment I first knew Dr. Scholl was going to lead an excavation there. I…”
“What kind of dreams?” I asked carefully.
“It was more of a feeling than some specific dream, really,” he started, uncertain. “It was like I was approaching this glow in the desert, at night, and the closer to it I got, everything in my life became more … perfect. Just the way it was always supposed to be. Celeste was alive and healthy, and…”
He stopped, and I wondered who Celeste was. The grinning woman I just saw in the photo with Tommy? I wanted to ask him but didn’t want to pry. He seemed to be carrying so much weight on his shoulders. I used to feel jealous about his relationship with my father, but I was being petty. If my dad was the presence in Tommy’s life that was going to make things a little bit better for him, how could I stand in the way of that?
We both stayed silent as a full minute ticked away.
Tommy spooked me when he started talking again. “But then the dream changed. It became … like, perfection’s only possible at a cost, if I’m making sense. Like, for example, if you want eternal happiness, you gotta do something ugly first. Like murder.”
Where did that come from? I stared at Tommy in the nocturnal glow and barely recognized him. His face was sharper now, more angular, his bronzed skin paler, green eyes appearing darker in the night. I pressed my bag with the tablet closer to my side. “Murder?”
He didn’t look at me. His silence was haunted. Despite my better judgment, I left my sun lounger to sit next to Tommy. I was close enough to feel his body heat. He flinched at our sudden proximity, but then his body immediately went slack, relaxing. He turned to face me, his expression returning to its normal, kinder features.
I said, “Tommy, we’re all different after the oasis. Minh doesn’t even think the oasis was real. Lori and Luke are obsessed with the tablet. And I…” I stopped myself from confessing my own obsession. Tommy didn’t even know the tablet got broken. Could he feel the presence of one of its pieces in my bag?
He shrugged. “I don’t blame Minh, to be honest. If it’s healthier for her to imagine that none of it was real, then it’s okay. I know what really happened. I was there. But I’ve been feeling odd ever since we came back. Like I lost a part of me, or like someone I cared about dearly has died. And this is different from watching Rowen … seeing him dead. It was awful what happened to him, but I barely knew him. The only way to explain it is … I went through five foster families when I was a kid, but the only time I actually felt like I belonged was with family number four. I was close to my foster mom, Celeste, but she got sick and I had to be moved into a different home. When Celeste passed away and I heard the news, I got this pain in my chest, and it wouldn’t go away for months. Like I was completely scooped out, turned inside out, a piece of me erased. It still comes back sometimes, that pain. Like a bone that healed after being broken, but it still hurts when it rains. Or like the phantom pain of an amputated limb; I’ve read about that.”
I reached out and touched him on the shoulder, to reassure him. But my hand lingered. “We all saw Rowen dead, and now we have to deal with it. We just cope in different ways. And then there’s PTSD or survivor’s guilt or whatever. Isn’t it natural for us to feel that? We’re all going to need professional help when we get home. And the things we did in the oasis … That wasn’t really us. Those were versions of us who were placed in unbelievable circumstances and forced to react to unprecedented events.”
He considered it, my hand still on his shoulder. Who was I, trying to rationalize what happened when I myself needed help understanding it? But perhaps it worked for Tommy, because his features smoothed out.
“Are you saying that kiss wasn’t really us?” he asked, an eyebrow subtly quirking up. Tommy was watching me intently, like he could see thr
ough me. But maybe he didn’t see me at all—just a version of me he wanted to see. All the same, I melted under his scrutiny. The tablet piece in my bag pinged. And then I was kissing Tommy, our hands tangling, hearts beating in erratic unison.
Like a long blink, there was a moment of absolute nothingness between our lips not touching and then our lips touching, two states of being that were bridged by a breathless second. Tommy was embracing me, hands sliding over my back. He was a good kisser, excellent even, and I was eager to melt into the sensation of his mouth moving against mine.
When we let go of each other, he was looking at me the way I’d seen people look at their objects of desire in movies. In the moonlight under the starry sky over Dubai, this was the most real moment I’d experienced ever since escaping the oasis. I patted my bag, and the tablet within it, when Tommy wasn’t paying attention. If all of this was really the tablet’s doing, did I really care?
GHOSTS AND SMUGGLERS
All was quiet and gloomy in the shared suite upon my return. The room service feast was long over, leftovers piled upon the delivery cart and exiled outside. Lori and Minh must’ve already been in bed, but I found Dad waiting for me in front of a silent TV. There was a movie on. An old one, from the look of it. A scraggly white man, desperate-eyed and worse for wear, was sitting in a shallow puddle in what looked like a room filled with sand. There were well-defined dunes inside that room, and it was dark but the sand was glowing—or maybe it was just the glare from the TV screen. The man was looking across this long, wide industrial room filled with sand dunes at two other people at a distance. They were staring back at him. The subtitles on the screen revealed the man’s words, something about immortality and god. I couldn’t place the movie, but the sand dunes felt real to me, prophetic even. I looked away in alarm, searching for any of that mist I thought I’d seen earlier, but the room was normal.
The couch was made up with fresh bedsheets, a lacy pillow waiting for me. Upon seeing me, Dad stood up awkwardly. He turned off the TV, cutting short the miserable man’s perilous travel across the room of sand. I was never going to learn whether he made it safely to the other side.
“I got your phone, Alif,” Dad said in a low voice. I accepted it, the plastic of it cold, unpleasant to the touch. “Try to get some sleep,” Dad added. “I’ve arranged for a wake-up call for all of us at eight and in-room breakfast for eight thirty. You and the girls need to be ready to check out by nine thirty.”
I nodded, searching for anything to say to him. This was my dad, someone I adored. But I felt empty, my insides scooped out.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, more to myself than to Dad. He reached for a hug. Our contact was brief but very real. Too real. I was relieved when he let go of me, irrationally concerned he was going to tease my secrets out of me via touch. I knew my thoughts weren’t logical, that Dad had no reason to suspect anything bad of me. But I was also acutely aware of the tablet in my bag and how it was meant to be mine and mine alone.
After Dad left, I got ready for sleep and stretched out on the couch, the bag containing the tablet squished under my pillow. I played with my phone a little, though its bright light was hurting my eyes. There were dozens of missed calls and hundreds of social media notifications across my accounts, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. But I did check my email. There was a lot in there. From Mom and Dad, from strangers requesting interviews, and from random school acquaintances I had barely spoken to in months—or ever.
And then there was an email from the University of Southern Melbourne. Its date stamp was fairly recent. But with timelines all muddled in my head, it took me a long moment to place the email’s delivery to the day of the desert sandstorm. I then just stared at the subject line: “Notification of your application’s outcome.” But they’d already notified me. They’d already rejected me. I’d deleted that email permanently. Was this some sick joke? Or an administrative oversight?
Despite my better judgment, I clicked on the email, preparing myself to feel the sting of rejection once more. But something was different now, this particular moment in time laying over my memory of the very same moment months ago. This email started off with “Due to an administrative error…” and then instead of “unsuccessful on this occasion” as a similar message had informed me in the past, this one said “we are pleased to inform.”
I got in! I got in! I got in! I wanted to get off the couch, to scream and shout and dance. To shake Minh and Lori awake! To celebrate! And I wanted to come clean to Dad—I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps; I wanted to pave my own path. It was all very new and scary, but that’s what I wanted for myself. I had a luxury of choice, after all, and it felt nice to be in the position to choose.
But my body was heavy, and growing heavier with each breath my shuddering lungs took. I didn’t jump up, didn’t scream, didn’t do any of the things I wanted to do, but instead I read and reread the email, each time checking that it was still there. And it was.
I must’ve fallen asleep with my phone in my hand. I woke to the glow from the TV. That weird movie was on again, still silent and subtitled. The man was once more sitting in his miserable puddle, and the sand dunes were very still around him. The man was saying strange things about god and immortality like it was all totally normal, like that’s what you did in a room full of sand.
Someone was sitting on the far side of the couch, where my feet were. I didn’t feel any weight on my legs. This was a dream, I realized. My hands were frantically searching for the tablet, relaxing only when they scraped against its shape under the pillow. Even in my sleep, the tablet was drawing me in.
The longer I stared in the direction of the weightless phantom, the more its features came together.
It was Rowen. The second I made that realization, he faced me. He could see me. He was trying to tell me something. No, not tell—yell—he was screaming at the top of his lungs! He was angry, veins and muscles bulging on his neck and face. But no sound was reaching me as I watched in terror. Glued to the couch, I couldn’t move. Rowen was wearing the same clothes as the last time I saw him, his shirt torn and stained with blood. There were gaps in his stomach and chest where the spikes had pierced through him. Invisible flies were buzzing. I focused on Rowen’s mouth. Could I read lips? Murderer, Rowen was screaming over and over. Murderermurderermurderer.
Rowen was gone, but so was the hotel room. Over my head was the sky full of stars. Hanging low, oppressive. Against my back was the harsh ground, and in the wavering night air, I could distinguish the outlines of Minh, Luke, Lori, and Tommy. They were sleeping not far from me.
No, no, no, no, no! Please don’t send me back there, I begged and cajoled, offering the Queen of Giants everyone and everything in exchange for my freedom.
In response, the indifferent stars brightened, heralding the inevitable approach of morning. But the glow wasn’t coming from above. Rather it was coming from the TV, its screen glimmering in the room’s darkness. Creeping shadows danced on the walls. My blanket was on the floor. Shivering, I leaned down to pick it up and saw a few of those unmistakable white-and-gold Al Nassma candy wrappers, scattered on the floor close to where Rowen’s ghost had been sitting.
I slid off the couch and came to crouch on the floor. I picked up one of the wrappers, but it melted away. My fingers were left curling over thin air.
I whimpered, a soundless cry that stirred me awake—for real this time. My heart was beating and my clothes and blankets were soaked with sweat. I was lying faceup on the couch, staring at the white, featureless ceiling.
* * *
The days of Western archaeologists and explorers taking their finds out of the countries where they were excavated were long gone now. And the international pressure for the return of ancient treasures to their countries of origin was mounting—a movement that might leave most European and North American museums half empty. Both my father and mother were paragons of ethics when it came to working with ancient sites and neg
otiating fair agreements with local governments and communities. So where did all of this place me, the archaeologists’ daughter who was about to smuggle a mysterious tablet from Dubai to Australia?
I compartmentalized it all and tried to keep my face calm and not at all suspicious as I walked into the international-departures zone in Dubai’s airport. Still shaken up by my dream from the night before, I tried not to make eye contact with anyone while keeping one hand casually inside my carry-on bag, my skin tingling against the tablet’s jagged side. Mere physical contact used to trap me in visions, making my head spin, but now the effect had ebbed, reduced to a faint buzz. Did it mean the tablet’s power was weakening now that it was broken? Or was I just desensitized to its influence from prolonged exposure? Regardless, I was now asking the tablet for a safe passage, not in specific words but in fears and desires—the language I knew it understood and spoke well. Somehow I knew this was also something Lori was doing with her own piece of the tablet. The rest of our group were flanking us two, but casually so.
Sweat coated the insides of my palms when I got my first glimpse of the security checkpoint, swarmed by uniformed officers. They were going to scan my carry-on, and they were going to see the tablet. They’d take it away. Of course they would. These days, Dubai’s airport workers were trained to be extra vigilant, what with the increasing cases of trafficking of cuneiform tablets and the like looted from Iraq and other countries in the region. Smugglers were profiting off wars and human misery, selling precious artifacts to greedy private collectors. I despised them all for it, and yet I was about to break the law myself. Regardless of the circumstances and my reasons for smuggling the tablet, I felt guilty and probably looked it.
Pulsing, the tablet grew cold against my fingers, so cold I had to let go of it, afraid it would freeze my sensitive fingertips. Having my hand semihidden in my bag would be suspicious at this point, anyway. Carefully, I placed my carry-on bag on the conveyer belt and watched it disappear into the mouth of the scanner. I stiffly walked through the metal detector and waited for the bag to reappear on the other side. I picked an angle from which I could watch the stern officer assigned to the task of inspecting whatever passed through the machine. I watched her frown deepen and then … relax, disappearing completely.
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