This story reads like a monologue from the unnamed narrator. It centers around Iram, a "lost city" mentioned in the Qur'an, sometimes also known as Iram of the Pillars. Iram in the story is a place somehow outside of time; her father and uncle are often there, even though they are dead. The story meanders between past and present, Iram and other places like Cairo or the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It also details the falling out that the narrator's father and her uncle had; they were not speaking at the time of the uncle's death. The narrator also is trying to bring more domestic items to Iram, like her father's old poetry tapes, so that it will become a real place. Overall, the story is pretty confusing and vague.