BooksBarbecue
Back The Wild Ones Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. PRAISE FOR The Wild Ones
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. The Beginning, or How Paheli Became the First Wild One; With a Cameo by Taraana, the Boy Made of Stars.
  7. An Introduction; Hold On to Your Hats.
  8. The Sweetness in the Sugarcane, or The Impractical Nature of Immortality
  9. Paheli: The Vagrant Experiences of a Mango Addict
  10. Cotton Candy Sugar Screams
  11. From the Book of MEMORIES
  12. “Will You Walk into My Parlor?” Said the Spider to the Fly.
  13. The Best Ice Cream in the World, Teddy Bears, and a Tree Creature.
  14. From the Book of MEMORIES
  15. I.
  16. The Reappearance of the Boy Made of Stars and the Plight of the Girl by the Oleander Lane.
  17. Paheli: An Interlude in Blue
  18. Besieged in the Between
  19. Tea, the City of Stairs, and the Story of a Boy
  20. From the Book of MEMORIES
  21. Heartbreak, Stone Buildings, and Tandoori
  22. Observations, Conversations, and Hot Parantha
  23. Paheli: The Spies Who Came In from the Between
  24. From the Book of MEMORIES
  25. The French Quarter, the Spanish Half, and Eulalie
  26. Paheli: The Eggplant Overture
  27. Sunny Jelly Beans, Po’Boys, and “Alouette”
  28. From the Book of MEMORIES
  29. The Keeper of the Green and the Mysteries of Magic
  30. Blood and the Between
  31. The Library of the Lost and the Stories of the Silenced
  32. Walking in Wicked Ways or The Importance of Balık Ekmek
  33. From the Book of MEMORIES
  34. Looking for the Needle in the Haystack
  35. Paheli: The Peculiar Crackle in the Electricity
  36. Ten Degrees Past Despair
  37. The Fault in the Stars
  38. The Blue City in the Mountains
  39. Paheli: Disharmony in the Attics
  40. From the Book of MEMORIES
  41. Paheli: Continued
  42. The Politics of a Body, the Politics of Pleasure
  43. The Medina, the Riad, and the Red City
  44. Paheli: The Atlas Mountains, the Cozy Rooftop, and the Confession, Possibly of Love
  45. From the Book of MEMORIES
  46. Souks, Spices, and Survival: A Guide into Chaos
  47. Jemaa el-Fna: The Mosque at the End of the World
  48. Paheli: A Moment in Chartreuse
  49. From the Book of MEMORIES
  50. Paheli: On the Frailties of the Heart
  51. Sonagi, or A Sudden Rain
  52. Paheli: The Cheese in the Trap
  53. Paheli: The Maze and the Minotaur
  54. A New Era, a New Dar; the River Sings
  55. The Burning Door, the Fallen City, and Taraana 2.0
  56. Paheli: The Beginning of Forever
  57. From the Book of MEMORIES
  58. Moving One Rock at a Time Will Eventually Move a Mountain, aka Goodbye
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. More from the Author
  61. About the Author

“Away from here. You won’t ever need to return to this city if you don’t want to.”

The girl’s lips quiver, and she barks out a sound that is perhaps meant to be a laugh. “You know what hurts the most? Everyone I thought I could unconditionally call my own betrayed me in the most terrible of ways, and yet I still love them. I still want them to love me. The thought of never seeing them again horrifies me. Even though they hurt me so badly. Even though they are still hurting me, I can’t let them go! It’s tearing me apart inside.” The girl brushes her tears away with the back of her palm. “If I go with you, will I stop hurting so much? Will this pain go away?”

Paheli chooses her words carefully. “Eventually the pain will dull. Eventually it will ease. It will take time, but it will happen.”

The girl shakes her head. She gives us no warning. Just turns her back and takes a step. The moment slows. Paheli scrambles to grab hold of her.

An absence of sound. Then:

A crash. A car alarm. A window opening. A sudden scream.

We didn’t even know her name.

The Blue City in the Mountains

I.

We leave Istanbul the same night. We gather Taraana and the few belongings we are loath to leave behind, open a door into the Between, and step through. We will not return to this city for a while. Not until the unnamed girl is a memory and not a recent experience.

How many unnamed girls are there, do you think? How many unnamed girls disappear due to emotional and physical violence done to them?

How many girls are there who are on the brink of a fall, falling, or fallen? How many of their stories will we never hear? Do you ever wonder that?

We do. We think about these girls all the time. We wonder what their names were. What they dreamed of. What they could have been.

II.

The number of words in a pen full of ink, the number of flowers in a hive full of honey, and the number of turns in the mazelike streets of Chefchaouen; these are the things we most love to ponder to keep the grief at bay.

Have you ever been so sad that everything tasted salty?

It is early morning when we arrive in Chefchaouen. The alley we step out into is narrow, blue, and deserted. We don’t talk as we walk single file to the place we call our own in the old town. The buildings here are interconnected, and as we open the door to the house that belongs to us, we can hear the sounds of people in the houses nearby, waking up and readying to meet the world outside.