I walk around aimlessly as the sun beats down on me. I have nowhere to go and have nothing on me except an ‘I Love Egypt!’ T -shirt, cargo shorts, and a crap pair of sandals that are giving my feet blisters. All I can think is, ‘Martin, you dumbass.’ I just nod in agreement with myself and keep trudging through the endless sand. Egypt. It is one big desert, and nothing is alive here around me. I don’t even think I’m alive anymore. All around me it is empty, I feel like I am the only one on this planet. Coming here and exploring was just a disaster from the beginning. I look up into the blue cloudless sky, imagining a helicopter landing and taking me away from this nightmare. There is no food, water. Oh god I long for cold ice water on my tongue. And I have never hated sand more until now. It just gets into all of your clothes, shoes, and face.
    This is the way my life ends I think, sitting on the sand. The touch of the sand burns my skin because of the amount of sun exposure it is getting. It sticks to me everywhere because of how much I am sweating. I let out a scream of rage so loud my voice cracks into the hot air, hoping someone would just find me. Nothing screams back to me and I hang my head in disappointment. I look to my left and on a hill is a tree. A tree in the middle of nowhere? How on earth is it still alive with no rain for months? I walk over and inspect it. It is a little tree, probably no more than six feet high and three feet diameter. The branches are winding and mangled in every direction while the trunk looks as skinny as an index finger. I look around and I am in a state of confusion. There is absolutely nothing here for miles and miles except this little tree. I’m so dehydrated I decide not to trust my senses because for all I know, this could be a hallucination. I sit down and lean against the tree and look out to the hills and more hills of unknown. This tree must be real if I can touch it. I close my eyes and the images of the past two days go through my head.
    I woke up on Wednesday morning at 7:30. My tour of Egypt was going to be over the next day and I wanted to make the last day count. I got on a tour bus that would drive us around to different places. There was a family of four in front of me and two men in the way back. It was the afternoon when I was in the middle of taking pictures of the sights around me, the bus came to a screeching stop, making me hit my head so hard on the seat in front of me; I was unconscious.
    Now, back in the desert, I look at my blue digital watch; the date is Friday, and it is 10:00 in the morning. I was supposed to be on a plane back home to Wisconsin yesterday. And today I am supposed to be at my job, working in IT, fixing computer problems. I keep trying to remember what happened while I was passed out. I feel the bump on my forehead with my hand. It throbs and stings and I look back at my hand that has a smear of blood. I let out a heavy sigh; everything is racing through my head. What the hell happened to me? I am just thankful I have a little shade from this tiny tree, shielding me away from the blazing sun. I close my eyes and fall asleep.
    All of the sudden, I hear an engine in the distance, and I open one eye. A truck. I have never been so happy to see a filthy truck in my life. I stand up waving my arms and scream for it. It drives towards me and comes to a stop ten feet away from the tree. An old, fragile man comes out and looks at me, speaking broken English.
    “Why you here?” he questions. He instantly looks at my forehead and ushers me to go into the truck. He is around 5 foot 4 inches and has wrinkles everywhere on his face. He has a little hat on and wears a plain white shirt that has his gut bulging out. I run to the passenger side and see a bottle of water. The air conditioner in the car is on full blast and I chug the water until there isn’t a single drop left. The old man walks slowly to the back of the truck and takes a bucket full of water. He comes back to the tree and waters it. He does it with so much care.
    “Buckle,” he says to me when he comes in. He points towards the seat buckle and wants me to strap in. I just look at him and decide to go into detail about everything. “Sir, My name is Martin Phelps. I was just lost in the desert for two days and I have no idea where on earth I am. I live back in Wisconsin in the United States. I am a tourist here on vacation because all I wanted was to do something spontaneous before I turn 30 next month. But that resulted in me starving, dehydrated, and the bleeding on my forehead. I was on the tour bus when all of sudden I blacked out. You are the first person I have seen in what feels like forever. I need to go to the local police station or hospital. I just need help,” I blurt out. The old man just blinks at me and starts driving back to civilization, when all of a sudden his truck sputters and stops.