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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

“No one can stop him. No one ever wants to,” Taraana says, his words soft enough to be mistaken for the sound of the raindrops falling on the wooden railings of the balcony.

“We have had enough of being victims,” Kamboja spits out.

“What can you do?” Taraana asks. “Unless I stay in the Between and never venture out, he will capture me. Even if I stay in the Between, he will find a way to take me. He has resources that I don’t. His family and his allies are more than I will ever be able to claim.”

“We are your family now. We are your allies, and we will be your resources. You helped me when you didn’t need to. You helped all of us. Your fight is our fight.” Paheli drains her cup and looks at Taraana. “We haven’t had enough of living yet. We are not willing to give up. Are you?”

From the Book of MEMORIES

GHUFRAN

CITY OF ORIGIN: BAGHDAD

The inimitable truth of loss creeps up on her like the sun rising in the morning—only without the light. She is made up of yellow ribbons dipped in blood and memories of fear and filth. When the sunlight brushes the leaves of the date trees, she stands at doors listening for her own footsteps and wonders if there is a curve in time where she can meet herself. Escape from her thoughts is impossible except on Fridays when the muezzin calls the world to prayer and she finds peace, briefly, from the blue in the sky. But the afternoon nearly always finds her weeping behind the curtains of her sister’s house.

She has poetry, a dirge or two, scribbled in henna black on her sand-scarred arms. Her palms are full of lines that talk of lives shorter than the last film someone smuggled in across the border. Her kisses, and she is stingy with those, taste like goodbye and her eyes are continually searching the crowd for faces she knows she will never see again. She hides her hair and her body in voluminous material the color of a shroud. Her toes curl bashfully in the sand, remembering the ground her feet will never walk on again. Mismatched bangles clang on her hands and her lips shape questions that will never be answered.

She has the scent of the desert, the madness of the desert, and the sorrow of it. She has screams in her mouth and blood on her hands. She is what they removed to find space for the liberty they gifted, this woman.

Heartbreak, Stone Buildings, and Tandoori