The Curse - evening with Ned

As I often did when I worked, I put music on, this time my “Good Strong Rock” playlist. It gave me the punch I needed after the hard day we had. I was proofing my daily report on Alice Cooper’s Poison when I saw a shadow at the entrance of my tent. The music was loud enough and I hadn’t heard Ned call out my name. He came in and the words “I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison” echoed between us. We just couldn’t look away from each other. The sexual tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

The song was soon replaced with Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and the spell was broken. I lowered the volume to barely audible.

"Good choice of music !"

I was a little bit embarrassed. "Thanks."

I got up. "What can I do for you?"

"I thought you might want something stronger than coffee." He handed me a bottle of beer and I sighed with a smile.

"Thanks, that's a nice thought."

We sat down and savoured the bitterness.

"So, what made you become an archaeologist ?"

I dived into my memories.

"I was born and raised in Iowa. And the historical course in school is poor, so I didn't know much about European history. For my tenth birthday, my parents took us to England. London, Cambridge and up north to Edinburgh and Scotland. It was all nice and well until I realized a little countryside church had been built before America was discovered. I was stunned. I just couldn't believe this pile of rocks was older than the Mayflower."

Ned smiled. "Yeah, we're that old." I could hear his pride in his British accent.

"Anyway, I started studying the history of Europe, and I went back in time, always further. Egypt, Mesopotamia, India."

"And why did you settle on the Nabataens?"

"Chance, really. I was with a study group in sophomore year, and we had to research some aerial photos of Jordan and Petra. We all had Indiana Jones fresh in our minds so it was fun. We knew they were a nomadic people, building cities where wells were dug, so everyone was looking on the usual routes. I looked away from the trail and spotted some weird shapes, too sharp for natural hills. My professor sent my report to the Jordanian Ministry of Antiquities and they organized a survey. I never looked elsewhere."

"So, you found Al-Waead."

"I just looked in the right place."

Twenty years later, a whole city is out of the ground, and it's not done yet.