The canal in which Zorah dies functions as a symbol of the unsolvable mystery of her death. The geophysical conditions of the canal mirror the uncertainty regarding what really happened to her.

The canal is located far away from the Sharaf family’s home, making its unfamiliarity its defining feature. The fact that Zorah stumbles upon the canal during an extended detour in a family trip suggests that she is never meant to pass by that canal in the first place, lending both practical and symbolic credence to the interpretation of her death as accidental. Moreover, the canal exists alongside a stretch of road that is known for its hazardous shape, putting many motorists at risk when they use the road as a shortcut. The initial investigation thus suggests that Zorah’s lack of awareness of this road’s hazardous features, along with her lack of experience as a driver and the poor weather conditions, all contribute to her fatal car crash.

At the same time, the submergence of the car in the water symbolically points to the absence of clear physical evidence as to the causes of the crash. No one clearly witnesses the car going into the water. When the car is discovered the following day, the people using the canal gate initially don’t realize that there’s a car underneath until one of them dives down to inspect the blockage. Their shared confusion over the discovery, as well as the police’s subsequent inability to provide an explanation for what happened, drives the mystery of Zorah’s death and foreshadows the lack of resolution surrounding it.