Maxim flew to Dubai for four days to escape the rain and deadlines. On the second evening, he sat down at the hotel bar and ordered a beer that cost as much as a kilo of mangoes in Kyiv. Next to him was a girl with glasses who was laughing loudly at her phone. It turned out that she, Anya, was also from Ukraine, had flown in for a conference, and hated conferences. They argued about whether hummus from a Lebanese kiosk or a five-star restaurant was better, and went to check it out for themselves. They ate hummus on a bench near Jumeirah, and Anya told him how she once fell asleep during a presentation and woke up to the sound of her own snoring. Maxim admitted that he was afraid of heights, but still climbed the Burj Khalifa ‘because it was embarrassing not to.’ They exchanged cat memes as a farewell and went their separate ways — without numbers, without plans, just with smiles and a slight taste of tahini.