Everything to Gain: An Asset, Inc. Novel

Chapter 3

3

It wasn’t the heat that woke me, but rather the shadow that briefly passed over my face in regular intervals, like the lights of a neon sign splashing through a hotel window. My eyelids lifting seemed to be the only part of me that moved on command. The open expanse of an unmarred sky filled my vision. Blinking, dots multiplied in front of my eyes from the brilliant rays of the sun that seemed to spotlight me as if I were the sole actor on a stage. In descending, concentric circles above me were my supporting cast members donning costumes of black feathers and bare, red-skinned heads.

Shifting my gaze, I realized one of the pals of the circling cast members already joined me on the stage and was hopping in my direction for a closer look. The thought of waving my arms to discourage his curiosity amounted to a twitch of my fingers. As hot grains of sand shifted around my digits, I realized I had no recollection of how I had come to be where I was when I regained consciousness. As the curious creature hopped closer, I recognized it as a vulture. Wasn’t carrion their meal of choice? And if they ventured so near to me, how long have I been lying here? The presence of the feathered foe didn’t concern me as much as his size. Perhaps it was due to my position at ground level looking up, but he appeared to be as large as a German shepherd.

“I’m not dead yet,” I said, or at least those were the words that strung themselves together in my mind. What emanated from my weak larynx was a croak.

The carrion-eater fluffed his wings and c****d his head as if he wasn’t used to his meal making a sound. He paused, just out of reach. Willing my fingers to gather a fistful of sand, it took more energy than I believed I had to toss the grains his way. His startled response was to flap his wings and take to the air, the liftoff stirring up more of the sand.

Turning my head to look in the other direction, I closed my eyes in an attempt to stop the tilting horizon. Behind my lids, I noticed the ache in my skull. Is this what a migraine felt like? Or had another vulture pecked at my gray matter? To postpone my body becoming a buffet for whatever called this part of the globe home, I needed to ensure there weren’t any scavengers, or other predators, close by.

Forcing my eyes to open, I worked to focus on scanning the space around me. Sand dunes. Waves of heat shimmered in every direction, rising from the rolling, shifting hills. I tried to lick my lips, taking two attempts before realizing the dried, numb apparatus traced roughly over chapped lips and did nothing to relieve the discomfort. How long have I been out here? And where was “here”?

Just because no animal immediately wanted to consume me didn’t mean I could continue to lie on the sand, exposed to the elements. Wiggling my fingers and toes, sensation flooded into my extremities. I rolled to my right side, knowing my dominant arm would have the best chance of pushing me vertical. Sitting up, I clutched the sides of my head as the sudden movement awakened what I thought to be a previously mild ache. Squeezing my eyes closed against the stab of pain, the sting of sunburned skin on the back of my hands and face barely registered. Breathing deep, I assessed if there were other parts of my body that were injured. Besides an overall soreness, nothing else seemed amiss. Peering down the front of me, there was no visible blood. Sweat rings created an interesting pattern on the white linen tunic I wore. Matching pants ended above my ankles. Simple leather sandals adorned my feet, their straps crisscrossing over the top of my toes and around my heel, holding onto bottoms that appeared to be made from a basket.

Searching around, I wondered if I had brought a canteen of water with me, a purse with an ID, money, or a cell phone. When nothing stood out against the beige sand, I realized only the water and the ID were important. The first to save my life, the second to tell me who the hell I was.

My name, or any memory of where I found myself and how I had arrived, was gone. However, the survival instinct to get up and get moving was strong. It took more than one try, but eventually, my torso found a delicate balance atop my legs. There was a breeze, and my mind served up the information of prevailing winds, the turn of the earth on its axis, the current position of the sun and its most likely trajectory, and which direction I should travel. Though there were no visible footprints remaining from my trek here, my position of collapse indicated from which direction I had come. In considering retracing my invisible steps, a sense of dread pricked at the edge of my awareness. Had I been running away from something? Someone? Glancing down at the lightweight clothes that created a thin barrier between the sun and my skin, I knew this was not my preferred, or usual, attire. Looking again at the horizon, there was nothing that gave an indication of a mountain, a town, or a roadway. Nothing moved except grains of sand pushed by the air currents, and my companions who felt a need to observe my movements from overhead. Choosing, I put one sandaled foot in front of the other. East.

While my body continued in the direction I had chosen, with little interference from me, it left room in my mind for conscious thought to try and piece together what I knew and remembered. Did I have a family? In which country was I born, and was I a patriot of another? Did I have a college degree? Was I married? What did I do for a living?

The temperatures began to drop along with the sun. Twilight held the dunes in a soft lavender light. The alpine glow marked the layers of the atmosphere, from faded gold to pale pink, purple, then deep blue. The black of night poked by starlight began directly behind me. My vulture escorts disappeared, perhaps deciding there must be an easier meal elsewhere.

Pausing to enjoy the gentle shift away from daylight, I noticed a dark shape a short distance in front of me. Severely dehydrated people hallucinate, and I wondered if this was a gift from my splintering mind moments before death in an effort to offer me what I needed most. Unable to douse the spark of hope that what I saw was a tree line, and therefore a water source, not a mirage, I continued forward.

Like moss near a waterfall, where airborne droplets of moisture are enough to sustain life and support growth, my body recognized the increase in humidity. As much of a geological phenomenon as the dunes were, so was the underground stream that, due to shifting rock layers, broke through the surface of the earth’s crust to run for a hundred feet before collecting in a small pool, then disappearing again beneath the sand. Thick-branched bushes and tall-leafed grasses clustered around the bank of the short stream. There was no need for the roots to grow deep in search of moisture, as they would only encounter dry sand instead of the life-giving water that had risen in order for the fauna to exist in an otherwise barren landscape.

I dropped to my knees on the bank, uncaring that the wet sand would add its mark to my already worn and stained clothes. In the fading light, I couldn’t tell if there were fish in the water. Though I heard no call or splash from frogs, my ears discerned the buzz of insects. From somewhere in my encyclopedia of knowledge, I decided that Beaver Fever, caused by drinking water downstream from where beavers have dammed up a river and polluted it with urine, wasn’t likely, and if the water was moving, I might not need the purification pills I didn’t have. Cupping my hands together, I immersed them in the stream. Cool. Wet. Elated that it appeared to be real, not an excellent hallucination by a mind in its death throes, I brought the water to my nose and sniffed. I had a sudden flash of pulling delivery cartons from a refrigerator and sniffing to see if the leftovers had turned. Clean. The water lacked any faint aroma of chlorine. I knew these flashes of insight were important, slices of information that would help me fill in the vacancy of my memory, but right now, my survival depended on what I held in my hand. I sipped.

The first drops of water revived my cells, but it took several palmfuls before my throat worked right. Careful not to drink too much, too fast, I alternated swallowing with looking closer at the foliage, measuring the length and width of the stream and the pool, and recognizing the constellations that shined vibrantly in the sky. With my thirst slacked, I laid back against a clump of grass and studied the stars. The database I seemed to have for scientific knowledge told me which hemispheres I was in. Based on inferences regarding the season, I narrowed down the continent, and even the most likely country. Because there were no clouds to obscure the stars, a rainstorm was unlikely to occur before dawn. The brush that surrounded me was the only shelter available. With my thirst temporarily satisfied, and my body worn out from the physical exertion that brought me from wherever I started to this moment, including hours in the sun, I dropped into sleep. Only after a bit of rest did the dreams begin.

Perhaps it was the level of exhaustion or the exposure to the elements, but the images that played themselves on the inside of my eyelids weren’t the visual metaphorical pictures my subconscious would deliver during times of stress. These had a different feel. Memories? I wasn’t sure, but the more I chased them or tried to hold on to one of the flashing scenes, the faster they slipped away. I forced myself to be still in the ethereal space, like an audience member in a movie theater, hoping to remember the details. In the final picture, I stood on a balcony wall. The white stucco construction that reflected the moonlight was the south wing of a palace. Domes, painted in gold with a ring of blue tile that separated the white stucco from the curved tops, were interspersed along the roof of the royal home. I couldn’t see anyone through the glass door that divided the balcony from the room. I hesitated, expecting someone to see me, to question what it was I was doing on the wall. Instead, I stepped back into the open space below.

I jackknifed up, my heart thumping hard. I pressed my hand over my sternum to prevent the organ from creating its own exit. In the moments it took for my eyes to adjust to the pre-dawn darkness, for my breath to cease rushing in and out, I recognized the buzz of insects. The oasis. Looking up, I gauged the degree of movement the constellations had trekked across the sky and determined I had slept for about six hours. Soon, the sun would rise. I still had no way to carry water, and I wasn’t sure when I would cross a road or reach a town.

Shifting on the cool sand, I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my shins. It did nothing to quiet the rumbling in my belly, but it did remind me of all the places that were sore. The last image from my dreams, the one of the white palace, made me search the sky for the moon. Three-quarters full. So, I hadn’t been away from the palace for more than a day. I wasn’t sure if it was waxing or waning, but its proximity to the western horizon confirmed how much time remained before my skin would once again suffer the effects of the African sun. Realizing I had been on the continent before, even though the constantly shifting sand dunes made it impossible to map the same route, there was a tug at a memory, a familiarity to the seemingly endless landscape of sand and sky. Deciding I should continue before dawn, I rolled to my knees, then leaned forward to again drink my fill. Humans, like all animals, could exist for some time without food. Not so without water.

Standing, I stretched my arms overhead and shook out my legs. I apparently had taken care of myself before waking up in the Sahara the previous day. My body was toned, and my mind didn’t recoil at the thought of the unknown hours and miles ahead of me before I encountered another person.

Deciding a swim in the water would refresh my clothes and spirit, I unbuckled the sandals, then waded into the cool, flowing stream. I refused to entertain the thought that the giant tiger fish, known as the “piranha of Africa,” could have found their way from the Nile to this piece of paradise. The vegetation that grew here supported wildlife in the form of insects and birds, but nothing of the long, black, slithery variety. Lying back, I submerged myself, enjoying the reprieve from the heat, the grains of sand in my hair and under my clothes, dried sweat, and the fear and confusion of not knowing who I was or how and why I had ended up in Northern Africa, likely Egypt. Standing, I slicked my hair back from my face and walked to the edge of the stream. I attached my shoes, then followed the dark strip of wet sand and emerged from the foliage surrounding the stream just as the water disappeared back into the earth.

With an unobstructed view, I searched what I could see of the horizon. No campfires. No glow of lights from a city. No ribbon of red or white indicating vehicles on a highway. With the moon at my back, I continued east. Unless my luck continued, and I discovered oases along the way, I wouldn’t last the distance to the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, or Israel, whichever was closest and lay directly in front of me.