Dried vines were dangling from the acacia branches. There was a single bird on that tree, singing a song that became inaudible when the wind blew. The pollens of acacia were everywhere, on my shirt, on my bike. It almost felt like the tree was happy to see me like it had not seen a human being in decades. It swung with the wind like it was approving me to go ahead.

I haven’t seen another soul since 3 hours in that deadly desert, except the bird that was also probably lost in that desert like me, finding another soul. I felt light-hearted in his presence. I looked him in the eye, neither of us blinked. He was so small that I would have hidden him in my pocket and nobody would know.

Deep down I knew I was alone but somehow I made myself believe I wasn’t. I sat under that tree, took a sip from my water bottle, calculating how much water I had left for the day. I tried to talk to him, the bird you know, but he didn’t respond so I tried again speaking softly as not to scare him. Finally, he responded with a slight “chirp”. It made me happy, very happy actually. So I talked again, asking him questions about him, about his life, about his family, if he had any, but he seemed like an introvert. He responded to me very rarely and when he did, he did only a slight “chirp”. I thought he didn’t like me but when I offered him some food he swooshed past me and sat nearby. I asked him if he wanted something and he said, “Chirp”. That’s all he said.

I think the desert made my brain go crazy because I was talking to a bird. It felt crazy. Three years ago this same thing happened, I was sitting under a tree in summers in my hometown. A street dog was sitting with me and I talked to him, I asked him about his life on the streets if he is getting enough food or not. During this conversation, a man was watching me and from that time he started calling me “A dog talker”. But I never cared about what I was called. But this time it was different, I was lost, lost in a desert with not a soul for miles and miles away except me and that bird. So I was not crazy, I was talking to the bird so that I could feel less alone. Maybe he thought the same, maybe he was lonely too or maybe he was waiting for someone, I don’t know.

It was afternoon now, I don’t know the exact time as I was not wearing a watch and my phone was dead. But I could tell by the sun’s position that it was around 2 p.m. I learned that from a tv show, that sun reading thing. It can be very useful sometimes. But in that tv show, nobody told me how to avoid the scorching heat of the desert. It was so hot and I had few sips of water left with me. I thought, “I should be worried now”, but in reality, I was not afraid, not afraid that I might get stuck here forever (or 2-3 days at least).

I slept, I slept in that heat and I woke up to an orange sun that meant that it was almost dawn. I sat and slept there for almost 4 hours, instead I should have used that time to find someone or some road that lead to civilization, at least. But instead, I slept like I was in a 5-star hotel in a fancy Indonesian city, laying in a queen size bed sipping vodka. Instead, I was in a desert, lost and alone.

It was a good dream.