I had just arrived, and we were catching up in the living room, when the air raid sirens went off and my phone lit up with this message:
We grabbed David’s kids and headed for the basement, which was filling with people of all description — old and young and in-between, dogs-on-leashes and cats-in-arms, carrying blankets and water jugs, their hair askew and faces pillow-lined as it was after midnight and most had literally jumped out of bed and gone straight down the stairs. When the warning says “missile threat,” you just don’t know, so you hustle.
The five of us climbed into David’s SUV, as it had seats. Those without cars just sat down on the concrete. And we waited, watching each other impassively, for what seemed like a very long time. Eventually, we got the all clear and went back up.
In Dubai, it’s basically all high-rises so you can see for miles. Uplit from below, Vegas-style, we could see billowing columns of smoke rising from the airport and the tourist hotels downtown. Too shocked and tired to say much more than, “Wow,” we went to bed.
I am a religious swimmer, so early the next morning, I bounced down to my favorite pool, the best pool I’ve ever actually been in — 400 feet of real-sand beach entry, chaise lounges, palms, slides, splash-pads and wave-makers — only to be hauled up short by this:
It was a ghost pool, its water line completely devoid of beautiful people in swimsuits and devoid of me backstroking in the warm sun, smiling gratefully at the heavens.
I retreated to the apartment, brooding about the headlines blaring across the globe and the meaning of it all, but if I’m honest, mostly about the swimming pool that would not be mine. The laps and leisure lost. I mean, the pool wasn’t the whole point, but it was a big part of it — the pool lifestyle.
Days passed, gazing at the shimmering, empty waters below through an apartment window:
Days otherwise filled with explosions, as about 1000 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones rained down on Dubai, almost all of them intercepted and detonated well overhead.
It was mostly sound and very little fury. The main risk was debris and propellant from the blown up Iranian SRBMs and Shahads.
A rather gloomy malaise settled over the city, and me, and David’s family of five. I think part of it was the realization that everybody’s property values had, at least temporarily, gone down by about 30%. And everything was closed, schools, the airport, even the local liquor store, which is a particularly harsh slap when one is confined to a small apartment with children.
About half the city had fled in cars, bound either inland away from the bombing or across the border to well-defended Saudi.
We tried to stay positive. It was exhausting, so we took turns.
But the bombardment slackened noticeably on days three and four, and then, on the morning of the fifth day, I looked out the window and there was a swimmer in the pool! And more streaming through the gates, knees-up, running down the beach entry and diving in, splashing and frolicking like it was last call for pooljoy at the end of the world.
The pool had reopened!
I pulled on my swimsuit, and as fast as I’d run down to the bomb shelter on the first day, I ran down the stairs to the pool, straight through the open gate and dove into the sparkling clear water, felt it rushing over me, cleansing my spirit in the enveloping flow. Everywhere around me, kids and adults were laughing and lolling in the waves. In that moment, despite all the ominous portents of the last few days, it felt like everything was going to be okay.
In this industry, we often refer to water’s “magic,” at least I do, and this was it — the magic of water. All those downcast faces were lit up once again by the realization of life and hope.
There were worse days ahead for everyone, all of us in the pool and the city and the region, but water reminded us of the point of it all, and why life matters, which is the spirit.
A week later we were inching along through the traffic outside Dubai airport, looking for a place to pull over and check in. A line of cars ahead and behind, slowly creeping forward. The airport had just reopened. The first flights were getting fighter jet escort out of UAE airspace. I’d been anxiously waiting for my chance to go — nothing feeds desire like restraint.
There was a bright flash about 200 yards right in front of us, and then a blast of sound and wind shook our SUV. A perfect orange ball appeared before our eyes, spreading across the windscreen like a fast-inflating hot air balloon. It grew full, beautiful and terrible, then began blackening at the edges, turning from orange to deep smoky gray, and then collapsed into a single stalk, and up it went, forming the head of a mushroom in the sky.
I looked over at my nephew. We’re the oldest and best of friends, but it seemed like I was seeing him for the first time. There was a lot in his eyes, our past, our families, awe, excitement and courage. He smiled and said, “I guess I better let you off here.”
We both jumped out with the rapid, focused movements of people who are being hurried by fear, and popped open the back. I grabbed my pack and said, “Love you, man.” It wasn’t a formality, I really meant it. We quickly embraced, and I joined the jostling, panicky stream of people pulling travel bags and run-walking toward the terminal doors. I looked back and saw David already driving toward the smoking point of impact. There was no other way to go.
Some time later, as I stood butts-to-nuts with a terminal full of people all crammed into the Dubai airport bomb shelter, all of them like me, it seemed, waiting for the tiny bathroom that was never intended to serve this capacity, I realized it had all changed for me. Having felt the blast myself. It was like the pressure wave penetrated my shell and reached my protected core.
It was real now. I had passed from seeing-on-screens to feeling.
