And then I saw him one evening. I was standing by the window watching the traffic in the street. It was all very ordinary, and nothing provoked my specific attention. Then there he was, right there, down below, leaning his back against a lamppost, enveloped in light, and raising his head toward me … What was he waiting for? How was I to know what he wanted? And if I knew, would I give it to him? My heart beat faster, and I broke into a sweat. Despite the tension and fear, I remained nailed in place, staring at him, unable to move. As he was looking at me from afar, he slowly smiled and took a yellow book from under his arm. He raised it up and waved it … Wait, it was my book! The very one in which he is the protagonist.

I ran to the shelf above my bed and began searching for my copy of the novel … All my books were there except … God! Luqman actually had been here! I had not been hallucinating or imagining things. He really did come into my room, mess around with my things, and take his book from my shelf. Then he left, and now he has come back. He enters and exists without anyone spotting him, and he is down there this instant, waving at me. Isn’t he doing it to make me understand that he has come to realize that he is the same Luqman as the one in my novel, and that therefore I must acknowledge it too?

I returned to the window, my legs shaking and scarcely able to hold my weight. I stood off to one side, thinking maybe I could see him without him seeing me. When I leaned over to steal a glance, the electricity suddenly cut out, and I could see nothing but darkness. I glanced at my watch. It showed 10:25. That meant the power had gone out a full twenty-five minutes behind the daily schedule.

———

These two cadavers of flesh and bone and blue veins, lying here in my lap—are they my hands? And these creased, knotted chopsticks connected to my palms, are they really my fingers? Is this cold slab that rises and falls under my chin at a steady rate, is it my chest, behind which hides my heart? How is it that I am sitting inside my body without feeling it, and I cannot see any of the organs or distinguish the different parts?