The archaeologist sat down in the musty chamber; the sunlight had begun to fade away and he knew that there would be little chance of his own personal survival in the dank dark recesses of the ruins. Sitting on the ancient, millennia old, stone floor, the archaeologist shifted uncomfortably and thought about his life choices and how he would miss his brood, his family, his mate, and most of all, living, but then all of a sudden, the ground shifted too, as if it too were uncomfortable with the man sitting in his lonesome in the tomb.

The archaeolosist stumbled to his feet, but it was too late, the floor beneath him crumbled away like one would expect from millennia old stone ruins, and the archaeologist was swallowed up by the dark like a worm in the maw of an immense rocky fish.

"Well, this is the end for me I suppose," groaned the archaeologist to himself.

He tried to shut his eyes, but the dust from the crumbled rock floor made his eyelids resist and stay agape. Soon, the archaeologist found that he could no longer see anything—the world around him was dark as pitch and as quiet as the empty tomb he had fallen through.

But alas! A handful of lights glinted before him from all around him, star-like in appearance, twinkling with celestial light. The archaeologist tried to clean the debris from his sore eyes to get a better look at his surroundings.

"Am I… dead…?" he asked himself. The archaeologist did not believe in an afterlife, but could not think of any other possibility; the lights were shimmering so beautifully that they mist have been a gift from the gods above.

Suddenly, sounds erupted from all around him; sounds of all shapes and colors. The archaeologist was startled by the cacophony, the orchestra of raqueterring, the chorus of noise, the quartet of cacophony! But the archaeologist soon realized that the noises were not just meaningless fuzz, they were voices—hundreds of voices, human perhaps? He could not say. He squinted to try to get a better grip on what the voices were saying:

"Lisssssssttt- ooo- Radio La- a- a- a-" one voice intoned. Another voice said some sounds, but time had garbled them too beyond comprehension.

"Dub- dub- bul- youuuu- en-" a voice shrieked from the starlight.

"Anj En Pi Arh" concluded a voice from a distance with a tone of finality.

The archaeologist could not understand what the voices were telling him. He was confounded, confused, baffled, bamboozled, and he couldn't move on from that.

"What could it possibly mean?" the archaeologist asked himself aloud.

The new silence was quickly pierced again by a new voice.

"He- e- e- low I'm Ja- a- a- ad Abumraaaaaaaaad" the voice proclaimed. Suddenly a second voice followed,

"And I- I- I- I'm Ro- o- o- o- o- ber-" the voice was punctuated by a piercing static, then resumed. "Kr- ul- ul- ul- ul- wich" finished the voice.

The first voice spoke anew: "And too- oo- day we- e- e- e- are go- ing- ing- ing- to talk abou- ou- ou- out each other- er- er- er-."

"B- b- but Jad-d-d, we- e- e- e- e- can't do tha- at. We ne- e- e- e- ed to stay proooo- fesh- sh- sh- unal."

"I- I- I- know bu- bu- but I need you- ou- ou. I lo- lo- love you Rob- ob- ob- ie."

The second voice did not respond. The archaeologist could only hear a deep heaving sound, like a bellows fanning a bonfire on a cool summer's night by the glisterning sea, and a high pitched sound akin to the quenching of ember-red irons in a cold bath. Then silence again.

Suddenly, from the abyss, an old voice returned, one of the voices from the chamber where the archaeologist was originally sat. its voice boomed in the expanse of the nothingness:

"Today, Jad will be playing for Robert Krulwich of New York City, New York for my voice on his home answering machine and for his heart."

The voice changed as it had done before:

"Okay Jad, so you will need twelve points in order to beat Paula Poundstone's score and to win Robert's heart. Are you ready?"

"Ye- e- es" said the "Jad" voice.

"St- st- st- op!", the "Robert" voice cried out from the darkness, "You don't- t- t- t- need to to to to to prove it to meeeee. I lo- lo- lo- love youuu. I nee- ee- ee- eed you- ou- our touch."

The archaeologist could not understand what was happening. The entire day had been a strange ordeal, and now he was left more confused than before. The archaeologist closed his eyes against the winds of gravity and tried to dream of home.