By MB Valente

—Hello, and welcome to Where in the World, the game show where we tell you to get lost! Today we’re playing with Justine.

—I’m excited to be here. Actually, I hadn’t heard of this show before yesterday, so I am excited in a sense but also confused.

—Not to worry, the game is simple: I describe a place on planet Earth, and you tell me where in the world it is. Do you think you can do that?

—Um, I guess we’ll find out.

—Okay, Justine, here’s your first question. You’re standing on sand that stirs in a blistering meridional wind. Above you loom great crumbling structures of stone, each receding to a point as if designating the heavens, warning visitors from above to stay away. Each block seems impossibly large to have been moved by puny human arms alone, and yet the structures are so undeniably ancient that no earthly machine could have made them. Where in the world are you?

—Wow. This seems like a trick question, but I’ll say the pyramids of Giza?

—Correct! Elegantly deduced, Justine. We made a good choice with you.

—Thank you?

—On to our next question: the heat of the Egyptian desert is pinched out like a flame, and a sudden chill raises the hairs on your neck. It might just be the Antarctic latitude, and yet. The shadow cast by the eighty-foot monolith looming above you feels like more than the mere absence of sun: its cold grips you by the heart. The surface of the monolith is perfectly smooth and reflective, and whatever it mirrors appears as if lit from within. In its black glass, you see yourself glowing and flawless and alone in a dark sea of stars. Where in the world are you?

—Okay, this one’s easy. You’d have to be living under a rock for the past year not to get it. I’m at the South Pole, at the tourist landing site.

—Correct! Yes, that was a bit of a freebie. But remember, this gets harder the longer we play. Ready for our next question?

—Bring it on! …I mean, yes.

—Now your reflection loses its inner light, warps and compacts. No longer floating alone in a starry bath, you find yourself surrounded by the squashed, inverted reflections of a hundred other humans milling in a tree-lined plaza. Office buildings are made liquid by the curved steel of the mirror. People snap photos and point at their reflections. The air smells of lake. Where in the world are you?

—I actually happen to know this because I was just there. It’s strange, because I was visiting the Bean or “Cloud Gate” or whatever it’s called and thinking exactly that, how small, how pitiful it made me look… when this girl came up and asked me where we were. Quietly. Intensely. Sort of like you just did. And I thought that was weird, because it’s such a famous landmark. But then she was obviously a tourist. It’s subtle, but they do stand out, don’t they? Those eyes. Anyway, sorry, the answer is Chicago?

—Correct! Nice personal touch to your answer, too. Don’t hesitate to use your emotions to activate your memory. Lean into those feelings, Justine. Now, the lake-sodden air turns crisp and takes on a hint of salt. You stand in the shade of rustling olive trees atop a limestone cliff that plummets toward a cerulean sea. The crying of seagulls sounds lonely. Where in the—

—Home. The village where I grew up, on the Côte d’Azur. That’s where I took her after Chicago. She said she wanted to see where I was from, so she could really know me. I hadn’t been back in ages — they aren’t exactly happy memories — but it felt so… no one’s ever looked at me the way she did. Those eyes like black glass. We hiked up to the cliffs and she turned to me and asked, “Where are we?” but she knew that already. She was really asking something else, about who I was and how I kept on living in a world like this, and I didn’t know what to say, I just started crying, and she held me while the wind blew our hair around us, and I told her I loved her. She didn’t say it back. At the time I didn’t care. I never thought she would leave like that, the very next day — just gone, overnight — after coming so far…

—Côte d’Azur, France, is correct. You’re doing really well, Justine. Really, really, really well. 

—But why, is what I want to know! Why cross an ocean with me, to somewhere I thought I’d never go again, why make me feel that way then disappear? Why in the world would she do that? What was it all for?

—Well, most experts agree the tourists are trying to learn about the planet. Some people will tell you not to answer their questions, in case they’re planning colonisation, but the relevant government agencies have all concluded they mean humanity no harm. It’s been suggested that tourists feed on human emotions, but come on, that’s a bit out there, isn’t it? They obviously have a superior intelligence and know how to subtly encourage feelings of confidence and self-worth that lead to an emotional outpouring: that spill of golden light that oozes out of you like nectar, sweet and nourishing and best washed down by a cool draft of melancholy, the kind distilled from hopes patiently constructed only to be dashed. In any case, that’s our game. And you won, Justine, you won. But there’s no prize, unfortunately, and you’ll go home with nothing. We, however, have gained more than you know.

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