In the ear­ly hours of dawn, Zaleekhah steps out onto the deck of her house­boat by the Riv­er Thames, her sur­round­ings calm as the riv­er swathes qui­et­ly in dark satin. Wrapped in a fleece and ten­nis shoes, she embraces the seren­i­ty of the Thames, the pull of run­ning has been her life­long com­pan­ion, often seen by her hus­band as a means of escape from some­thing unre­solved in her past.

As she runs, her body strug­gles at first with the cold air push­ing against her nos­trils, the ini­tial dis­com­fort giv­ing way to flu­id move­ment along the Chelsea Embank­ment. She encoun­ters ear­ly ris­ers and those just return­ing from nightlife, their lives inter­sect­ing in the dim light of morn­ing. Amidst the bus­tle, she reflects on her envi­ron­men­tal work, specif­i­cal­ly the impacts of pol­lu­tion on the river’s crus­taceans, reveal­ing alarm­ing truths about the ecosys­tem, such as the harm­ful plas­tics found in the stom­achs of mit­ten crabs.

Zaleekhah finds a sense of con­nec­tion with the Thames, once declared life­less, now teem­ing with aquat­ic life yet still suf­fer­ing from urban waste. Her research has spanned across dif­fer­ent cli­mates and loca­tions, reveal­ing the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of water and cli­mate crises. The irony of human­i­ty’s neglect of water, an ele­men­tal force greater than time, weighs heav­i­ly on her.

While run­ning, mem­o­ries invade her thoughts, pulling her back to her child­hood in Turkey, where she recalls hik­ing with her par­ents, feel­ing the safe­ty of their pres­ence. This nos­tal­gia trans­forms into anx­i­ety as she nav­i­gates her emo­tion­al land­scape, cul­mi­nat­ing in a phys­i­cal ache urg­ing her to keep mov­ing, lest she drown in the past.

Reach­ing her uncle’s opu­lent home for din­ner, Zaleekhah feels the famil­iar dis­so­nance of step­ping back into a world that feels for­eign. Uncle Malek embod­ies the essence of a suc­cess­ful immi­grant, yet she sens­es his inter­nal strug­gles with belong­ing. Their con­ver­sa­tion dances around fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions, dis­ap­point­ments, and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences. As they exchange con­cerns over her recent mar­riage trou­bles, the weight of unspo­ken fears about iden­ti­ty and alien­ation becomes pal­pa­ble.

Despite the com­fort­able sur­round­ings of Uncle Malek’s man­sion, Zaleekhah car­ries a sense of dis­com­fort, feel­ing the need to be “nor­mal” while grap­pling with the com­plex­i­ties of her life’s choic­es. She nav­i­gates through her mem­o­ries of child­hood, offers an unre­fined glimpse into fam­i­ly dynam­ics, and reflects on the com­pro­mis­es inher­ent in famil­ial love and expectation—all under­lined by her ongo­ing com­mit­ment to the envi­ron­ment that binds her to her work and inner self .