[Short story] Strangers in the Sand

It was late afternoon as I stepped out of the car, the sun still bright and a balmy breeze on my skin. I did a quick check before I locked up — pedometer, headphones, iPod, a bottle of water. A few stretches, a little spot-jogging. I bent down to tighten my laces in readiness for the run.

This was my routine on most weekends. I was here in the Middle East on a yearlong assignment at the bank I worked for. My regular workday included long hours and indiscriminate food choices- it was easy to pile on the pounds. I had hit upon this routine reluctantly at first, but now I truly looked forward to these moments alone with my thoughts, perfecting strategies as I jogged at a slow pace listening to my favourite music.

The beaches in this part of the world are breathtaking. Everything is tastefully and neatly laid out. The deep blue sea is abutted by a vast sandy beach, which gives way to a large, beautifully tiled promenade. Lining the promenade are landscaped gardens with lush lawns, and beyond these grassy stretches are the parking lots.

The beach usually had a large turnout on weekends — people arriving in groups armed with grills, tents, cushions, carpets, chairs, partying in the open till the wee hours. Children rode toy bikes and cars on the promenade while their parents watched from the lawns. Today, though, the beach was bereft of activity except for a few scattered figures. I was surprised, but not unduly troubled since I had the place almost to myself.

It began rather imperceptibly at first. Circular waves of sand moved inland, blown by the wind off the sea - beautiful to watch, quite unlike anything I had seen before. I even considered taking a picture. But the haze intensified quickly and I realized, in that instant, that I was in the midst of a sandstorm.

I had witnessed sandstorms before - from the safety of my car, short spells where visibility dimmed a little and sand hissed against the tyres. I thought this too would pass and jogged on. But I noticed the woman jogging ahead of me turn hurriedly and begin running back, and the few others nearby scurrying to their cars, hastily gathering picnic mats and baskets. I should have followed them.

All of a sudden, I understood why they had fled. The circles of sand gathered momentum and density, and in no time visibility around me dropped to nearly nothing. A low, freight-train roar filled the air, rising and falling in waves, punctuated by the sharp, persistent hiss of sand against every surface. The world shrank to a few feet in every direction, and then those feet disappeared too.

I stopped in my tracks. Needle-sharp sand particles pierced my skin and eyes. I couldn't breathe as sand entered my nostrils, and I fumbled in my pockets and covered my nose with a paper tissue. I was caught in the middle of a sandstorm with absolutely no idea how to protect myself.

Now I understood the sparse turnout. There must have been warnings I had missed. I regretted continuing to jog after noticing the others leave. I froze as I could not see even a few inches ahead - the haze and the sand in my eyes left them watering and useless.

My mind raced as I quickly weighed and discarded options. I had lost my sense of direction. I fumbled for my phone, head bent low, a hand uselessly covering my eyes, tried to open the compass application - but I had never used it in this location and wouldn't be able to interpret the readings effectively. My only option seemed to be to switch on the phone's torch and plod forward through the haze of sand and wind and fear. I even contemplated lying flat on the ground and waiting for the storm to pass, but it showed no signs of letting up. Eyes nearly shut, I kept inching forward against the wind, unsure if I was holding a straight line, praying not to ram into something.

   

Faint sound of footsteps. I turned eagerly and called out, but my voice was swallowed whole by the wind, and sand rushed into my mouth. And then I saw it: a light, bobbing, advancing through the dust towards me. I had no idea what or who to expect, but I felt an almost overwhelming sense of relief wash over me.

 
                                  

He emerged from the haze, the light from his phone cutting through the dust. I had never been so relieved to see another human face. When he was close enough, I saw he had a carpet draped over his head, which protected him somewhat better than I was. He offered it to me without a moment's hesitation. He muttered something in Arabic, grabbed my hand firmly, put the carpet over my head, signalling me to squat down. I slid down slowly, waiting for the ground to come up to meet me. We sat there in that tiny space barely inches from each other. In any other time and place, this proximity would have been unthinkable. Here, with the storm pressing the carpet down around us and his breath audible inches from my ear, it felt like the most natural shelter in the world.

He was using his turban to cover his nose, and he extended it to me. I held it gratefully and opened my eyes a little wider to look at him properly - mud-spattered, with a heavy crop of thick black hair, and something in me was simply, unreasonably glad that it was him.

   

We worked together to open the carpet further and create more room – Herculean, in the wind.  We finally made a small tent securing the ends with our feet. Every time a particularly vicious gust blew, the carpet billowed and freed itself flapping above us, we laughed like children - helpless, gasping laughter that cut through the roar of the storm. I don't know if it was relief, or absurdity, or simply the strange intimacy of shared danger, but in those moments, I felt closer to this man whose name I didn't know than to many people I had known for years. What felt like several hours turned out to be just three-quarters of an hour before the whirling and hurtling sounds began to die down.

The air finally cleared.  We pushed the carpet away with a huge sigh of relief and stood up. Dust lay over everything - the ground, the trees, the lawns, making the place entirely unrecognizable. He said something in Arabic and began sprinting towards the parking lot. I followed, seized by the same urge to reach the safety of my car.       

Only two cars remained in the lot, both a muddy brown. I opened mine and began cleaning the windows with a paper towel that's when I caught my reflection and saw how terrifying I looked. I took out a water bottle and washed my face vigorously, dismayed to find sand deep in my hair and ground into my clothes. My shoes had turned almost black. I turned to look for him and found him cleaning his car nearby.       

I got into my car and pulled it alongside his, then stepped out. I said the only word in Arabic I knew: “Shukran!”

I waited for him to finish and held out my hand. He offered his grimy hand rather hesitantly — and I understood: we had shared something real, but the world outside the storm still had its rules. I took his hand anyway, and he let me. He said “Maa salamah,” which I knew was goodbye, then gestured gallantly for me to drive away first.

I watched him shrink in the rear-view mirror until the road curved and he was gone — and I felt, absurdly, like I had left something behind in the parking lot. I didn’t know his name, or what he did for a living, or whether I would ever see him again. None of it mattered. I had been through a crisis, and I had shared that moment with a complete stranger, and something between us had been forged that no storm could undo.

 There are times in our lives where we experience encounters in the least likely of places -encounters that bring perfect strangers close as they collaborate for survival. In an instant, all the barriers that divide us - language, religion, creed, custom,  fall away, and we interact simply as human beings. We may part and go our separate ways, but the memories are etched forever in our hearts, carried with us to our graves.