She left the garden through the wooden gate in the ivy-covered fence and vanished from sight. I sighed wearily and opened my eyes to the dark. This dream could only mean that I’ve not yet escaped the call of life. However often I think of you during my waking hours, these weird fantasies mock my sleep.

—

Mustapha embraced you affectionately and then peered sadly into your eyes. You noticed that on his bald pate there now grew a heavy black shank of hair and couldn’t help remarking, “Congratulations. How did you manage to grow it?”

He answered with unaccustomed seriousness. “I recited the ‘All-Merciful Sura’ at dawn.”

You were astonished. “When did you find your way to God?”

“When you departed from the world for this place.”

“Why did you come?”

“To tell you that Zeinab is working with the energy of ten men.”

“God help her!”

He looked around at the house, the garden, and the fields. “What an ideal love nest or artist’s retreat this place is!”

Nonplussed, you said, “So you’re still the jester!”

He sighed. “For us children of the Stone Age, jesting is the only recourse, but I see you’ve become infatuated with despair.”

I backed off, saying, “Haven’t you realized that my senses are dead?”

He shrugged his shoulders and climbed up a cypress tree until he’d overtaken the current moon high above the horizon. His bald head glimmering in the moonlight, he shook a bell in his hand, and as it rang, insects of all sorts came to the tree and proceeded to dance in a circle around it.

I sighed wearily and opened my eyes to the dark. This dream could only mean that I’ve not yet escaped the call of life. However often I think of you during my waking hours, these weird fantasies mock my sleep.

—

Yesterday as I was roaming around the garden, reciting the poetry of Majnun, I suddenly heard a gruff voice coming from behind the northern wall where the canal runs.

“Hey, man, where’s the door?”

Peering over, I saw Othman perched on a motorcycle. Little flags, the sort used by people of the village for decoration on feast days, embellished the handlebars and wheels.

“Don’t come in,” I said peremptorily.

“Haven’t you witnessed the miracle?” he exclaimed. “I’ve crossed the surface of the canal by motorcycle.”

“I don’t believe in miracles.”

He laughed loudly. “But we live in an age of miracles.”

I retreated a step. “What do you want?”

He said augustly, “I’ve come as the family delegate.”

“I have no family.”

“Don’t you know of the miracle? New branches of your family have appeared on all five continents. Wouldn’t you like to return to that remarkable mixture of platinum and coal?”

I defied him. “Aren’t you aware that our real family is nothingness?”