*Etext of Shahrazad Perceived the Dawn, by Paul Cox*

This text was written from the 1st-17th of November, 2003 for 
National Novel Writing Month. See http://www.nanowrimo.org for more 
information.

This work is hereby released into the Public Domain. To view a copy 
of the public domain dedication, visit 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ or send a letter to 
Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, 
USA.

******This file should be named shrpd10.txt or shrpd10.zip******



















Shahrazad Perceived the Dawn

A Tale of Grain



By Paul Cox


















ON THE FIRST NIGHT

       *       *       *       *       *

   "The next port above El Kateef of any note on this coast is that 
of Graine ... This is a port of some importance, seated in a fine 
bay; and the town is large and populous, though the sandy desert 
presses close upon its walls, and no vegetation is to be seen around 
it, within the range of human view. It seems always to have preserved 
its independence too ... and they still bear the reputation of being 
the freest and bravest people throughout the Gulf."
   --James Silk Buckingham, 1816

       *       *       *       *       *

















CHAPTER ONE
The Storyteller's Tale

"There is no help for it; I must crucify a man who sells conserve of 
pomegranate-grains lacking pepper!" Ali stood in the aisle of the 
Sultan Center supermarket, scrutinizing a jar of some sort of 
preserve. It wasn't even pomegranate actually, something called 
blackcurrant, but he was fairly certain it didn't contain any pepper. 
Imported from Italy or someplace. Another shopper shot him an odd 
glance as she passed by with a laden cart. Ali shot her one right 
back, and explained, "It's a quote from the Thousand Nights and a 
Night. There was this old man who sold sweets, but he was really a 
runaway prince from Cairo, and..." She didn't stop, just continued on 
a bit faster down the aisle. Ali put the jar back on the shelf 
upside-down and stood contemplating the rows of jam, trying to 
remember what he had come here to buy. He flipped a few more jars 
over as his mind wandered to other topics. Grocery stores were not 
good places for him--fun, sure, but actually buying anything was the 
tricky bit. How long would the contents of one of these jars actually 
remain in edible condition, in a best-case climactic scenario? Years? 
Decades? How about out in the desert? Snapping back to his present 
situation, Ali realized that he had turned every jar on the shelf on 
its lid. No mean feat, really--there must be hundreds of the things. 
He slipped around the corner before anyone noticed. Surely it 
wouldn't actually harm the contents, but he still felt just a bit as 
if he had done something wrong, violated the supermarket code.

He wandered down the next row, attention roaming from one brand of 
laban to the next. No idea anymore what he'd come here to buy. 
Probably nothing, just with a general intention of getting something 
to eat. He hadn't had much of an Iftar meal tonight. Did he feel like 
drinking an entire litre of laban? No, of course not. Why was he 
still looking at it? Giving up on the whole food and shopping issues 
as a lost cause, he jumped on the cart-guard-rail and walked along 
its length in the direction of the doors through which the outside 
world could be dimly seen. The store was pretty dead right now; most 
shoppers came in during daylight hours this month to stock up for 
their lavish Ramadan dinners at sunset. By now--he checked his 
Russian pocket watch-- at almost midnight, the cafes and restaurants 
were the places to be. From now until the morning light, getting in 
that last-minute bite to eat. He could care less about the cafes, the 
coffee and the sheeshas, but he really ought to find something to 
keep him going until morning. An odd dilemma for one walking through 
a huge supermarket, true, but some imperceptible force was keeping 
him from being able to make a single purchase here. The tastiest food 
product on Earth could not part him from his money while he was in 
this supermarket and in this sort of mood.

He stopped once more on his way out to poke the bread for a few 
seconds, humming loudly to himself. His greatest weakness of all it 
was, poking the bread. It wasn't his fault. The bread was asking for 
it. He gave it one final angry poke--perhaps denting the loaf for 
good--and tried to storm out of the store. He couldn't count even 
this action as a success; the clerks didn't even notice. He needed to 
work on his storming technique, and having to wait for the automatic 
doors to open didn't help either. Outside, he squeezed behind the row 
of shopping carts lining the front wall of the shop and retrieved his 
worn leather briefcase from where he had stashed it earlier.

He squeezed back out onto the sidewalk amidst several curious 
glances. The brightly lit Salem Al-Mubarak Street fronting the Sultan 
Center was as packed as the supermarket itself was empty. This was 
the heart of Salmiya, the most happening district of Kuwait as far as 
the younger crowd was concerned. 'younger crowd', as in, well, his 
age. For some reason Ali himself didn't find it particularly 
happening, or hip, or anything else. He scowled at the strategically-
positioned row of expensive motorcycles and the coffee shop behind 
them on the other side of the street. Strange, harsh music throbbed 
forth from the crowded establishment. Enough of this place. Ali 
hurriedly turned towards the western length of Salem Al-Mubarak 
Street and started walking to... somewhere.

He walked far down the street, towards the coast and the outskirts of 
Salmiya. As the music faded in the distance, the mysterious force 
projected on his soul by the Sultan Center seemed to fade behind him 
as well. The heavy briefcase swung at his side and he began to 
whistle. The long pointed sleeve of his thob shillahat on his 
suitcase-arm worked itself free from its careful wrapping and trailed 
behind him in the slight night-time breeze. He stopped to unbind the 
other sleeve as well--it was warm enough out tonight, a bit warmer 
than usual for November. It was nice that Ramadan came earlier this 
year. Last year it had been absolutely freezing at this time of 
night. Of course, it would be much colder out in the desert, without 
concrete covering every surface and holding onto the sun's heat for 
hours on end.

Ali crossed another traffic-laden street and hopped over a railing 
surrounding a section of road work. He climbed through a couple 
sections of the concrete pipe that was being laid, getting the 
sleeves of his thob shillahat a bit dusty for his indulgence. It 
wasn't the most practical garment for some things, he had to admit. 
And even less fashionable than practical these days. In fact one 
might truthfully call it a complete anachronism--the body-length 
cotton shirt with its wide triangular sleeves had been seldom seen 
outside the cultural museums of the Gulf states for the last few 
decades. Its more modern-looking cousin, the dishdasha, had won out 
completely in this country. Ali had only ever met one old man who 
still wore the thob, and that had been a few years ago at the Friday 
Market. The one he was now wearing he'd had specially tailored by a 
Filipino downtown, using a picture in a library book as a guide.

He spotted another human being up ahead, silhouetted in the stream of 
headlights. It was a bored-looking man selling dates from a little 
folding table on the side of the road. "Peace be upon you", Ali 
offered. Here was the answer to his pangs of hunger--dates, the most 
concentrated source of energy known to Kuwait. In the old days, dates 
were placed on nutritional par with meat, and considered a meal in 
themselves. The pearl divers would go out for the entire day in their 
dhows with nothing but a handful to sustain them, so surely he could 
make it through to breakfast with a quarter kilo of the things.
"And upon you be peace", grumbled the date merchant in a pronounced 
Syrian accent.
"A quarter kilogram of your ripest please, my good Damascene. No, on 
second thought, better make it a half kilo. I've been walking a long 
ways, and who but God is to say how much farther I must walk this 
night?"
The man raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and began filling a small 
paper bag.
"I really must be careful now", Ali continued, "for these dates 
remind me a bit too much of a story from the Thousand Nights and a 
Night. Are you familiar with the tale of the trader and the jinni?"
The man lowered his eyebrow, raised the other one, and shook his 
head.
"A trader of great wealth was traveling to another city, and he 
stopped along the road to eat some dates such as these. He sat down 
next to a well, and tossed the stone of his date down it. All at once 
a monstrous  jinni appeared out of the well amidst a cloud of smoke. 
It brandished a mighty sword and bellowed, 'Stand up that I may slay 
thee, even as thou slewest my
son!'. To make a long story short, the jinni's son at the bottom of 
the well had been struck full in the breast by the date stone and 
killed. So the jinni killed the trader in revenge."The Syrian paused, 
holding out the filled bag of dates. "What? That's it?"
"What else is there to tell?"
"That story doesn't make any sense. What's the message?"
"There is no message, people like the trader can't be helped by 
morals and fables. For no matter how careful we are, we all toss date 
stones now and again." Ali selected a date from his bag and ate it, 
throwing the stone over his shoulder to illustrate. He waited a few 
seconds, listening, strangely disappointed.





CHAPTER TWO
The Smuggler's Tale

ring-riiiing-riiiing-ring ... riiiing-riiiing-riiiing ... ring-
riiiing-ring ... riiiing-ring-riiiing....

There it was, the secret doorbell ring. Whoever it was sure had good 
timing--Katie was just pulling a fresh batch of pies out of the oven. 
She set the tray on the counter and hurried to the front gate. 
"Looking for a little Iftar treat?" This must be a new guy, short, 
bald and chubby, definitely a Brit.
"Yes, I heard this is the place to come. Smells like I'm right. Hi, 
my name's Ian. Mr. Ian Woon."
They shook hands through the bars of the gate, then Katie opened it 
and let him in.
"I'm Katie, Maths teacher by day, pork dealer by night. Did the 
Mahboula crowd send you here?"
"No, the Fintas Towers bunch. Funny, I would normally find the idea 
of pork pies baked by an Aussie a frightening one. But I've been in 
this place almost a month now, and at this point I'd take a bite out 
of a live pig if it ran past."
She smiled cheerfully. This guy was going to be a good customer, 
hopefully he was employed here on a good long contract. The problem 
was, the best customers were usually also the types who got out of 
town the quickest.
"Oh come on, try before you criticize. I promise there's no wallaby 
in it, just the finest Victorian Landrace"

She led Ian into the kitchen, which was still thick with the smells 
of cooking. Selecting one of the smaller, sample-sized pies off the 
hot tray, she broke it and offered the larger half to the Brit. She 
ate the rest in one bite and watched in mild amusement as her 
customer's eyes glazed over at the taste.
"How anyone could consider that unclean is beyond me," he spoke at 
last.
"Hey, people who can ban all alcohol are capable of anything."
"Ah, speaking of that.... "
"Mahboula Beach Resort. It's close to Fintas. Mostly homebrew, almost 
tastes like beer or wine, but it gets the job done. If you're lucky 
someone might have got some gin or vodka through, but when they do 
they usually don't like to share."
"Thanks. Oh, I'll take a dozen pies for now. I've already been 
informed as to the price."
He pulled a thin bundle of folded Kuwaiti dinars out of his shirt 
pocket and laid them on the kitchen table. Katie grabbed the spatula.

      *      *      *      *      *

It was all very exciting, this smuggling business, and it appealed to 
her inner subversive, but it was starting to get a bit old. The 
thrill of striding through Customs with a load of suitcases packed 
full of pork, ham and bacon was still a rush, albeit one she only got 
to experience every few months; from that point on everything else 
was starting to feel a bit too much like work. Even her newest 
acquisition, a triumph of smuggling that would ensure her a spot in 
the history of expat Kuwait, was starting to seem like more trouble 
than it was worth. This was most definitely not what she had come to 
the Middle East for. The Maths teaching wasn't much fun either, not 
that she ever expected it to be. There was only one reason anyone 
came to this country to work, and it sure wasn't to have fun. She 
must be the only expat here who had other, deeper motivations. Maybe 
she should learn from the rest and stick to making heaps of money.

Sitting down on the corner of her bed and looking in the mirror, 
Katie reminded herself once again, as she did almost every night, 
that she really was in Arabia, land of her childhood dreams. She'd 
really left the boring town of Toowoomba behind and come, all on her 
own, to the mysterious deserts of the Middle East. It was sounding 
more and more silly all the time, but she still remembered the way it 
had felt the day she left her home country--it was only two-odd years 
ago, after all--and she wasn't letting go of her mission this easily. 
She was here to make meaningful contact with a foreign and ancient 
culture, God damn it, and she wasn't going to let anything stand in 
her way, not even the culture itself. She straightened her white silk 
gatra, stood and checked her dishdasha, and forced a smile. There, 
her new haircut was the best yet. The person in the mirror was 
unmistakably a young Western man, dressed in the traditional Kuwaiti 
style.

She hated having to resort to this, but she'd realized eventually 
that it was the only way. As a woman, she couldn't do anything in 
this society. Sitting around with the wives, veiled and house-bound, 
talking endlessly about the most domestic and inane subjects--not her 
idea of cultural interaction. Real life here was lived by the men, in 
the nightly Diwaniyas, arenas of epic social and political 
confrontation. That was where she needed to be, and this costume was 
her ticket in. As ancient and cliched as the trick may be, she had to 
disguise herself as a man to get what she wanted. It all sounded good 
enough, but in reality it wasn't working out quite as well as she had 
hoped--now four months into the experiment, she was still finding the 
society almost as closed as ever. It helped when Ramadan arrived 
though; now was the most sociable and garrulous time of the year. Now 
she'd set her sights on one of the most prestigious Diwaniyas in the 
city, one frequented by Assembly ministers and artists. She felt a 
surge of confidence that tonight was the night she'd really break 
through to the inside.

       *       *       *       *       *

Katie pulled into the front of the Al-Maysarah Diwaniya in her SUV 
and jumped down to the enormous driveway, scaring a stray cat away in 
the process. She hoped that wasn't some sort of omen. No matter, time 
to do this thing, and a big entrance was the most important part. She 
strode in, trying to exude confidence and friendliness at the same 
time, through the impressively-modelled entrance arch and into the 
bright Diwaniya hall. As usual, the decor tried for elegant and 
overshot the mark, losing its way amongst the thousand-dinar curtains 
and Italian chandelier. As usual, the long sofas lining the room were 
draped with about twenty Kuwaiti men in spotless white dishdashas, 
lounging and talking to one another with dignified casualness. As 
usual, everyone turned their heads and stared for a brief second when 
Katie entered. They nodded a salaam, and she answered. One aspect of 
the culture she would never quite understand was why they always 
looked so uncomfortable when they did that. It was well known that 
Diwaniyas were open to all men, regardless of nationality, social 
standing, or even familiarity. She wasn't crossing any boundaries 
here.
"What's wrong, don't see many foreign men wearing your traditional 
clothing?" she asked in her best Arabic to the old man sitting 
closest to the door. His eyes narrowed perceptibly, but he shook the 
hand she offered. "You must admit, it really is the best suited to 
this climate. I do not understand why anyone wears Western dress in 
Kuwait."
"Welcome, I am Omar Al-Maysarah," the man replied, glancing around 
the room nervously.
"My name is Ken, I am from Australia, but I've made Kuwait my new 
home. I'm teaching at the Al-Dasman school, but I'm really just here 
to learn about the culture." That was her usual introduction; she 
thought it covered all the basics. "And what do you do?"
"Businessman."

The visit didn't turn out any different in the end, in fact it was 
possibly even more of a disaster than usual. At least the food was 
good. After her eighth cup of tea, Katie decided to cut her losses. 
Even though most of the discussion tonight centered on the situation 
in Iraq, nobody showed much interest in talking to 'Ken'. She tried 
every trick she could come up with to break the ice and start a 
dialogue, any dialogue, but the men just didn't respond. She wanted 
to stand up and shout, "Hey! don't you care about the outside world?! 
Is your culture so great that you can't be bothered at all to share 
it with others, or learn about their ways?!" Instead, she stored the 
comments for future use, gave her (mostly ignored) goodbyes, and 
shuffled out the gateway. With a shout of frustration, she lunged at 
the stray cat which was now sleeping on the hood of her SUV, scaring 
it away yet again.

She jumped up behind the wheel and roared off into the busy night 
time traffic of the fourth ring road. For some reason she felt like 
going for a walk along the sea-front, something she hadn't done since 
her first week in Kuwait. She needed to think hard about what she was 
doing here. She'd promised herself from the beginning that she would 
be understanding and never critical of this culture that was not her 
own, but they sure were stretching their luck, the bastards. She 
reached up to snatch the white cloth off her head, then thought 
better of it and put her hand back on the wheel. Wearing a dishdasha 
without a gatra would just look ridiculous.





CHAPTER THREE
The Captain's Tale

The Captain reclined on his bench at the ship's wheel, the brat 
standing on the middle rung of the railing to the port side. Stupid 
kid, God willing he'd fall and be done with it. The big passenger 
yacht cut a path through the dark and deserted waters of the Gulf, 
still warm from the long-since-set sun. "Warm and filthy," the 
Captain thought out loud. The brat turned his head, coming even 
closer to falling overboard with the action. "Warm and filthy," he 
repeated by way of explanation. "E'en as far out as Failaka Island, 
you can see the garbage they dump in here. No respect for th' sea, I 
tell you. It's a wonder their destal... desalination plants don't 
clog up with all of it. If it gets much worse, they will, and then 
the city won't have a single drop o' water to live on. Let's pray for 
an oil spill, kid."

The Captain reached beneath the ship's wheel into his rucksack and 
rummaged around for a few seconds, pulling out a bottle of cola which 
he opened on the metal corner of the bench. He took a quick swig, 
then added a bit of his special ingredient from the smaller square 
bottle he kept at his side. Jackson's perfume was best added to 
something that didn't taste like, well, Jackson's perfume. No matter 
how much you watered it down, though, you could never quite get rid 
of that smell. He had come to loathe that smell like nothing else 
during his years in Kuwait; if it wasn't the only cheap source of 
alcohol around--or if there was any way to survive in this country 
without that alcohol--he'd never sail within a mile of the crap. 
There were much, much nicer perfumes around... like her perfume. Now 
that was a scent he could drink forever.

"You don't like our country very much, Captain." The brat had now 
climbed from the railing onto the fiberglass canopy over  the deck.
"Smart thinking, kid. Maybe they're teaching you somethin' in school 
after all."
"But why do you live here then?" the brat persisted.
He drained a third of the cola-perfume mixture, flinched, and pulled 
up his left sleeve. Holding his arm under the single light bolted to 
the canopy, he displayed a jagged row of gruesome scars.
"I was born in Hebron, in Palestine. You may have seen it on 
television. Enough said." That should shut the kid up for a while.
"Did you fight in a war against the Zionist Entity?"
"I fought in a war against a bulldozer, and th' bulldozer won. Now go 
below deck and get us a couple more colas."

Baby-sitting wasn't part of his job; if he'd been thinking straight 
at all, he would have charged extra for it. This trip had started out 
well before Iftar as an ordinary Failaka Island run, carrying a bunch 
of rich Kuwaitis out for their Ramadan camping parties. Normally he 
would have spent the night on the island and brought a new load back 
in the morning, but a certain young widow among the passengers had a 
son who just wouldn't stop complaining. She must really have wanted 
some peace and quiet if she was willing to hire the entire boat just 
to carry the brat back to his grandparents. He'd undercharged her by 
half anyway. Ah, those eyes.

"I think I have a big problem, kid. I think I'm in love."
The brat was climbing the stairs from below deck, orange soda firmly 
attached to lips. He hadn't brought back any other drinks. Ah well, 
the Captain thought, screw it. He took a long swig straight from the 
perfume bottle, soon after which everything became infinitely more 
clear.

"Love, 'tain't even th' word for it. It's something far greater than 
that. We're meant t' be together for the rest of time. 'Tis the will 
of God, I can feel it. I've never felt this way 'bout anythin' at 
all." He felt around in his rucksack and reverentially lifted out  a 
plastic bag. "See this? It's my gift t' her. You know what this is?"
The brat mumbled something into his soda and climbed back up to his 
perch on the railing.
"It's a cunifarm tablet, straight from Iraq. I gave a ride to some 
guys comin' down from there a few months ago, an' this's all they 
gave me. They said 'is from the museum, 'is thousands of years old. 
And I want to give it t' her, as a gift. That's how strong my love 
is. I'll bet you 'is as ancient love poem." He gingerly returned the 
treasure to his bag and took a few more drinks of the Jackson's 
perfume while he reflected on the majestic depth of his feelings.
"I'm dead serious, I don't know what'll become of me if we can't be 
together. Society is trying to keep us apart, but it can't, our 
love's too pure an' strong. Oh how terrible 'tis, two lovers kept 
apart by the walls of Society. Better that Society be destroyed than 
it stand in our way."
The brat was retreating back down the stairs now, so the Captain was 
forced to raise his voice to be heard. Someone had to hear him.
"I'm in LOVE, ya hear me? LOVE!!" He gestured widely at the skyline 
of Kuwait, now drawing very close up ahead. "Tear this city down t' 
make room for our weddin' bed!!" He thought that sounded nice, 
whatever it might mean, so he shouted the command even louder. "TEAR 
THIS CITY DOWN TO MAKE ROOM FOR OUR WEDDING BED!" That last part 
didn't really make much sense, actually. "TEAR THIS CITY DOWN! TEAR 
IT DOWN!" He imagined a great armored bulldozer--a gargantuan version 
of the one that tore down his house years ago--driving right through 
the middle of the skyline, knocking towers into the sea. He'd like to 
see that. "SEND IN THE BULLDOZER!" It was no use, the city couldn't 
hear him. The whole world smelled of that damned perfume, and they 
couldn't hear him. There was nothing for it, he would have to crash 
his boat. He hoped the brat would understand.

The trick was in finding the perfect spot. As long as he was going to 
crash, he might as well make the most of it. No sense in plowing a 
couple of feet up the beach, scaring a seagull or two, when you could 
be causing some real destruction. He shifted the ship's wheel to set 
them on a course further north, towards the center of town. There was 
one place in particular where he'd always dreamed of crashing--Sharq 
Market. The massive waterfront shopping mall was only a few years 
old, the most modern and expensive complex in the city. Swarming with 
rich bastards, buying European sunglasses, eating fast food, picking 
up women. The Captain pushed the throttle up as high as it would go. 
The yacht roared, rocking and bouncing over the water's surface. 
There was the mall straight ahead, all lit up for the Holy Month. And 
in front, next to the attached marina packed with luxury powerboats, 
a boat ramp leading up to the side of the mall. It wasn't quite 
perfect; he'd wanted to crash through the full-length sea front 
windows, but those were too high above the shore. The ramp would land 
him somewhere in the parking lot. Oh well, this time of night there 
should be more than enough very expensive cars parked there. He could 
make out the shoppers on the second floor now, oblivious to his 
imminent arrival. One last swig of Jackson's and he tossed the empty 
bottle over the rail into the boat's foaming wake. The brat had 
better be holding on tight, here's the ramp. Crap, he should have 
thought of a good shout for the occasion, too late now. 
"YEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!" For the split second of weightlessness 
after leaving the ramp, everything seemed a whole lot better.

The parking lot was indeed packed wall to wall. The finest works of 
automotive engineering money could buy rested resplendent in long 
straight rows, chrome and other more exotic alloys reflecting the 
soft light of the Ramadan moon. Masterpieces of design, each more 
sleek and perfect of form than the last. One particularly striking 
and expensive row of almost three dozen of these sports cars became 
the unwitting landing pad for the Captain's vessel, their well-waxed 
bodies offering little friction to meet the yacht's forward momentum. 
It crossed the entire length of the Sharq Market parking lot in a 
matter of seconds, crushing millions of dinars of Kuwaiti oil wealth 
before plowing into the center of the Gulf Road. Here the vessel 
ended its destructive run; anyone driving on the Gulf Road in the 
predawn hours of Ramadan already had the reflexes of a cat, and a 
large boat entering the lanes of traffic at a right angle through the 
hedge presented no real danger and little surprise to a Kuwaiti 
driver. It did, however, have the makings of one hell of a traffic 
jam.

The Captain's expectations were far exceeded by the trip, in fact he 
felt quite pleased with the outcome. He would never have bet on 
making it as far as the Gulf Road. He grabbed his rucksack--didn't 
look like anything was broken--and slid down the listing deck, 
jumping over the railing to the road a meter below with a flourish. 
He dashed quickly to the sidewalk, turned and stared grimly at the 
beached vessel as he imagined an uninvolved passer-by might, shook 
his head in feigned amazement, and walked away. He walked east, 
cuneiform tablet and three bottles of perfume clinking together over 
his shoulder. Funny, he couldn't quite remember what all that had 
been about now. Love, or something.





CHAPTER FOUR
The Cat-Watcher's Tale

Ramadan was very different in Kuwait early in the 20th century, 
especially in the summer of 1920. That was the year Abd Al-Aziz Bin 
Abd Al-Rahman, the Saudi conqueror of Najd, turned his sights on the 
defenceless city-state. His feared Ikhwan army, desert warriors of 
the Muslim Brotherhood, looked to make short work of the peaceful 
harbor town. Without even a wall for protection, it was surely 
doomed. Thus the entire populace turned out to help build just such a 
wall as quickly as possible. Men, women and children of all ages 
hauled sand and mud into the wooden moulds, packing it hard with 
their feet. The Holy Month arrived when the construction work had 
only just begun, but the people worked on through the fifty-five-
degree days regardless of the added burden of fasting. By the time 
Ramadan finished and the Eid celebrations came, the city stood safe 
behind enormous ramparts with eight towering gates. The Ikhwan were 
surprised by the miraculous appearance of the defences when they 
finally launched their attack soon after, and were driven away after 
a short siege at the Red Fort of Jahra a short distance from the 
city.

Kuwait had grown far out into the desert since those wild days, and 
all that now remained of the great Ramadan wall were four of the 
gates. Largest of these was Jahra Gate, which once opened to the Red 
Fort and the great Western caravan path. It now sat alone and with 
its mighty wooden doors permanently closed, shaded from the moonlight 
by trees and office towers, in the center of a busy roundabout at the 
end of the First Ring Road. A plaintive meow echoed from somewhere 
within the structure.

"I know, I know, I hear you. Don't expect the world to come to a stop 
just because you're hungry." Yasser watched closely for a break in 
the traffic circling the roundabout, trying to gauge how long a dash 
across the wide road would take. He turned briefly to give orders to 
the two other cats that were sitting upright on the wall behind him 
with curious eyes. "Don't try to follow me across. Those drivers out 
there wouldn't even notice running over someone of your size. Just 
wait." The white cat began washing its paws while the spotted one 
just rolled over on its side. They had obviously never intended to 
cross anyway; they were content to sit here and watch him get himself 
killed. He pulled his notebook out of a back pocket to write that 
thought down. These two were such spectators, Mighty Paw and 
Flycatcher. The note-taking almost caused him to miss a perfect gap 
in the stream of cars; he ran to the bushes on the far side with half 
a second to spare before the next speeding pack of SUVs closed in.

It really was dark here behind the screen of trees. Jahra Gate was a 
hulking black mass in the middle of the clearing, meowing sadly. The 
cry sounded like it was coming from high up, possibly even the roof. 
Yasser located the even blacker entrance to the gatehouse and felt 
his way in, wondering whether he really ought to break down and start 
carrying a flashlight for jobs like this. Cultivating cat-like night 
vision sounded nice in theory, but he doubted whether even a cat 
would be able to see anything in here. The sound of another meow 
helped him find the stairs. They were littered with plaster rubble 
and something that crunched like either leaves or paper, all of which 
he tried his best to avoid stepping on. This wasn't an operation that 
required any degree of stealth, of course--he just liked to stay in 
practice. By the time he emerged onto the observation post on the 
roof of the gate, his pupils had dilated to the point where he could 
see almost perfectly in the shadowy clearing. There, he knew he was 
better off without a flashlight. MEOW!! The cry right next to his ear 
made him duck with surprise. Ah, so here she was, a skinny black 
kitten with comically large white ears. She looked completely 
miserable crouched between the pointed battlements. "Hello, young 
one. What an old dusty place you've found to stay in. I'm guessing 
either you're a big history lover or you're afraid to cross that road 
again."
mrreeeow.
"Alright, I'll give you a lift if you're going my way." He picked up 
the kitten by the skin of her neck and placed her on his head.

After retracing his steps through the inner rooms of the gatehouse, 
trying to navigate solely by memory without touching the walls, 
Yasser returned to the curb with his new passenger. The other side 
looked twice as far away from here. Mighty Paw and Flycatcher were 
still over there watching and waiting. They may have to wait a while 
longer - the traffic was only getting worse, and from the inside of 
the circle it was impossible to see more than a few meters up the 
road. Cars seemed to appear without warning from beyond the curve of 
the bushes, not following any sort of predictable pattern. He started 
to think that he may have gotten himself into a bit of a bind. The 
kitten's meow left no doubt that she considered this the last straw.

He crouched on the curb, waiting for a lull in traffic that he could 
never quite be sure of. Once more he thought he saw it, but before he 
could even stand up another three cars roared past, apparently drag 
racing. He'd already circled the bounds of his trap and the bushes 
were just as high and obstructive at every point. This might as well 
be an island in the middle of a rushing river. He took the kitten off 
his head and held her up in the minimal light. "So I guess if we're 
both living on this island now I might as well introduce myself. 
Name's Yasser, I'm a reporter. And you..." He looked the scraggly 
little animal over for distinguishing characteristics. Something 
special was in order for this one. "What do you think of the name 
"Ears Of Destiny?" The kitten simply stared at him, enormous ears 
sticking out at two different angles. "No objections then? Fine."

Yasser reached for his notebook to record the name, but was 
interrupted by an SUV that--wonder of wonders!--screeched to a halt 
in front of him. He opened the backseat door and jumped in, and the 
driver pulled off again immediately; idling for long in the middle of 
a roundabout was best avoided. It was a formidable woman, probably in 
her forties, hair covered with a light blue scarf. She had huge 
hooped earrings that lent her a comical appearance not entirely 
unlike Ears Of Destiny's.
"Well? What were you up to in there?"
He climbed into the front seat with Ears Of Destiny; the lady glanced 
disapprovingly at the kitten as she left the circle for the First 
Ring Road.
"Hi, I'm Yasser, I'm a... reporter."
"For what, Al-Seyaasa?" she shot back. Was she suspicious or just in 
a hurry?
"Nothing like that, just--you know--a website. I write about events 
among the, er, cat community here in Kuwait, and post it all on the 
internet." He added: "I like to say that it's their city, we just 
feed them."
"And just who reads that?"
"Anyone in the world can, that's the wonder of the internet..."
"But who actually reads it?" she rejoined triumphantly as if 
finishing off a political debate.
"Ah. Headed into town, are you? I live over near Kuwait Towers if 
you're going that far."
"Only if you tell me exactly what you're planning to do with that 
kitten."

It took only a few minutes after he returned to his flat to give Ears 
Of Destiny some food and photograph her for the Chronicle website. 
Now the big question was where she should go from here. Easily 
solved--he'd drop her over at the Towers, where Sparrow and The 
Abbess would look after her. They were good, understanding cats who 
wouldn't mind showing a young kitten the ropes. Not nearly as 
territorial as some of the others, plus there was plenty of food to 
go around over there. Ears Of Destiny looked like she'd need it 
judging by the way she was attacking that plate of chicken. While she 
scarfed the rest of it down, Yasser made notes on the Jahra Gate 
incident to write up later on as a full-length article. He'd focus on 
the inherent pathos and mystery of a young feline living alone in an 
ancient citadel, cut off from the rest of the world. The "rescue" was 
not so important; he didn't like to write about anything he himself 
did. He was supposed to be the invisible observer, the chronicler, 
not some kind of hero. Not even the most committed observer, however, 
could resist the cries of a frightened and trapped kitten.

That's why he had always thought Schrodinger was full of it.





CHAPTER FIVE
The Wastamancer's Tale

Rashid Bin Hamed Al-Sabah the Wastamancer helped himself to a few 
more stuffed vine leaves and a can of cola off the holiday buffet 
table and returned to the sombre atmosphere of the Diwaniya hall. The 
topic had turned, as it always did at some point in the night, to the 
debacle in Iraq.
"Can't you see that it's a no-win situation for Kuwait? Of course I 
trust the Amir and the Al-Sabah family to steer us through it, but 
they really have their work cut out for them."
"Nonsense! Have you even been reading the papers today? The Arab 
World is almost one hundred percent behind the United States now, 
after all these months of terrorist attacks in Iraq. How can anyone 
still support the Iraqis?"
"That's putting it a bit strongly, my good friend. One is inclined to 
wonder just what sort of papers you read."
"I prefer to take a more philosophical view of the issue..."
That's it, thought Rashid, here comes the philosophy. His father 
ought to set a precedent and ban poets from his Diwaniya outright; 
they were attracted to these things like flies. He took another drink 
from the cola can and left the rest sitting on the windowsill  along 
with his paper plate. No matter, he was wasting his time here anyway. 
He wasn't in any mood to listen to these old fools' opinions on the 
Imperialist follies across the border, and it wasn't helping his 
wasta one bit. He silently walked across to his father to talk his 
way out.
"Ah, Rashid, there you are," his father Hamed bin Aziz said around 
the mouthpiece of his smouldering sheesha. "We've got a big group 
tonight. How's the halwa holding out?"
"I don't know, I didn't notice it."
"Would you mind checking? You know what I always say, halwa is the 
most important part of Ramadan."
"Yeah, I'm sure the servants will take care of it. You tell them that 
every night. Listen dad, I'm thinking about heading over to the Al-
Maysarah Diwaniya, I think some of my friends might be there."
"Sure, sure." He waved his hand dismissively. "Tell Omar I said 
hello, and thanks for that tip on the Slovenian lumber stock."
Rashid left the building as fast as he could--it sounded like the 
conversation was turning to women's voting rights, and he just 
couldn't stomach that discussion one more time.

He slid into his shining black car in the side driveway, taking off 
his gatra and dropping it on the other seat. Then he pulled his 
dishdasha over his head and set it aside as well. He couldn't drive 
properly in the stupid dress; he'd never wear it at all if it was up 
to him. Underneath he was wearing a designer British t-shirt and 
jeans, his preferred outfit. He tore out of the driveway with as much 
tire noise as he could muster and accelerated down the lane towards 
the Gulf Road. At the same time he flipped on the sound system and 
some heavy duty hip-hop started blasting out, courtesy of the 
Superstation. The Al-Maysarah Diwaniya, he thought, haven't been 
there since--what--July? None of his 'friends' would be there, that 
was just an excuse for his father. His 'friends'--if by that word he 
meant guys he knew who were his own age--would all be down in Salmiya 
now, wasting their time. He'd have half a mind to join them if it 
wasn't for the Revolution.

One of the first things he had learned about life was the importance 
of wasta. Wasta was the very fabric of Kuwaiti reality; what it 
boiled down to, basically, was knowing the right people. More 
importantly than that, though, was putting those connections to work. 
If you had lunch with the Treasury Minister's secretary, that was 
wasta; if you used that connection six months later to get yourself a 
driver's license at the age of fifteen without a driving test, that 
was wastamancy. That had been two years ago however, he had learned a 
lot since then. There were so many tricks to it--knowing exactly 
which name to drop on whoever you were trying to influence was most 
important, but there was also the tone of voice, the confidence you 
conveyed. You had to make them think you knew exactly what you were 
doing; that you and your contacts and the whole status quo knew the 
outcome; that this was business as usual, and it would happen whether 
they chose to make their own life difficult by standing in your way 
or not. Rashid was a born wastamancer. He sometimes thought he could 
see the threads running through this society from one person to 
another as shining strands of a spider's web, which he could pull and 
tie at his leisure. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was an Al-
Sabah, born into a branch (if a rather weak branch) of the great 
family that had ruled Kuwait for as long as there had been a Kuwait. 
No, that didn't hurt at all.

He turned onto the Gulf Road at last, coming within inches of another 
car traveling 120 Kph. He sped up for this stretch. While dodging 
between other, slower vehicles at an extraordinary velocity, he 
turned down the volume on the hip-hop and pulled his mobile out of 
the pocket of the discarded dishdasha. Better get some intel from his 
mentor.
"Hey, Mohammed, how's it going?"
"Rashid! Peace be upon you. Not going so well, I must admit, this 
court case is really a pain. And just what are you up to tonight?"
"Sorry to hear that. Don't let those dirty dogs get you down, I'm 
looking into helping you out."
"I told you you don't want to get involved in this Rashid. They'll 
take you apart with me."
"Come on, you've taught me better than that. Anyway, I'm headed to 
the Al-Maysarah. Just checking whether you know what's going on down 
there tonight."
"Sorry, I've been out of the loop lately. Say hello to Omar for me, 
he's making me a rich man with that Slovenian thing. Not so sure that 
it'll help me much now."
"Good luck, talk to you later."
Mohammed had been playing the wasta game for a long time, and had 
taught Rashid everything he knew. He was an Al-Ghanim, and his 
merchant blood made him only play for money. But he was getting old, 
he'd slipped up and made some enemies, and now they were closing in. 
Rashid hadn't actually decided yet whether to come to his aid--he had 
much bigger plans, and he didn't want to destroy them over something 
so trivial. He was an Al-Sabah, and they never just played for money.

All at once, he was forced to hit the brakes for the first time since 
leaving his father's Diwaniya. It wasn't just a red light--he never 
stopped for those of course--in fact, this looked like a serious 
traffic jam. It stretched as far as he could see up ahead towards 
Sharq; there must have been a serious accident up there. Should've 
taken the First Ring Road, now he was screwed. Too late to turn onto 
a side street, boxed in on three sides. He rolled up the curb onto 
the wide median between two of the trees planted along it and turned 
off the engine. Might as well walk for as long as this mess was going 
to take to clear up. He may not make it to the Diwanya tonight, but 
he wasn't so sure he really wanted to go there anymore. His flow of 
enthusiasm seemed to have stopped along with the flow of traffic.

After about a minute of walking, he was surprised to see a dark 
rounded shape blocking all lanes of the road in front of Sharq 
Market, flashlight beams playing over its surface. No wonder there's 
a jam, he thought; what kind of accident was that thing? It could 
almost be taken for some sort of alien spacecraft, landed in the 
middle of Kuwait. There was a flash of blue and red from behind him--
police car. It pulled up at his side.
"Is that your vehicle on the median back there?"
The force of his wasta lashed out compulsively.
"Sorry if it's any trouble, I'm going to a party at Commissioner 
________'s house, it's nearby. I'll send someone over to fetch the 
car when I get there." The name he spoke didn't even register in his 
own mind; it was simply pulled automatically from the appropriate 
mental file for this situation. The effect on the two policemen, on 
the other hand, was like an electric shock.
"No trouble, sir. We'll post an officer to guard it until then. Good 
evening." The car did a U-turn in the empty lanes and sped away.
Hah, too easy. But that was just party tricks. He continued on down 
the median.

His mood was taking a turn for the worse the further from his car he 
walked. 'Party trick' it may have been, but it was about as useful as 
any he could hope to perform, and you couldn't run a revolution like 
that. The problem was, anyone on whom wasta could be used was by 
definition already invested in the status quo; there was no way on 
Earth to con such a person into willfully destroying their whole 
comfortable world. Wasta represented the problem, the weakness and 
corruption of the government Sheikhs and the Al-Sabah family behind 
them all, so how did he really expect it to be the solution as well? 
Help would have to come from outside the system altogether--from 
regions where his powers were useless.





CHAPTER SIX
The Slave's Tale

"Happy Birthday", Mr. Vijay from the Agency said without a hint of 
malice as he took Laxman's passport from him. "Come see the house 
now?"
The house looked like the usual sort, meaning it was a near-palace of 
outlandish proportions, boxy and pure white. The pointed mock 
battlements around the top were just a bit too much, even by Kuwaiti 
standards. The strings of lights outlining its square angles for 
Ramadan didn't make it look any friendlier. The Agency man led Laxman 
past the ornate and oversized wooden doors to the discrete servants' 
entrance behind a date palm around the side. He paused to find the 
right key on an overloaded Statue of Liberty key ring.
"I know what you're thinking," Mr. Vijay continued indulgently, 
"you're thinking you've hit the big time. Let me tell you about these 
houses. Big house means lots of meters of floor to clean, that's all, 
you can be sure they don't pay any better than anyone else."
"And my passport?" Laxman already knew the answer to this question.
"Thinking about leaving already, huh," the agent laughed and waved 
his clipboard at Laxman. "You Sri Lankans are always in a hurry to go 
home, it must be a beautiful island. No, you signed up for six years 
and that's what you'll get. If you've saved enough KD for a ticket 
home after six years you can go to China for all I care, but if 
you've sent all your salary back to your family like the rest then 
you'll probably find yourself with another six-year contract. That's 
just the way things work here in Paradise."
You'd think the Agency would have found someone not quite so 
thoroughly unpleasant to show the new employees around. Having to 
give up his passport and freedom to this repulsive scoundrel was just 
adding insult to injury. He followed the man through the servant's 
entrance into the kitchen.
"Are the Kuwaitis who live here..."
"Stay away from the owners if you know what's good for you," Mr. 
Vijay interrupted, "and they will ignore you right back. They talk 
about us as parasites." He opened one of the doors a fraction to give 
Laxman a view of a brightly-lit sitting room, sparkling beneath 
crystal chandeliers and wall-sized landscape paintings. "I prefer the 
term 'zookeeper' myself." He chuckled at his joke and pulled the door 
shut. They continued up a narrow flight of stairs to an equally 
narrow hallway, Mr. Vijay pointing to one of the four doors that 
lined it as though loath to touch the thing himself. "This is you, 
the others belong to the cook, gardener, and another cleaner like 
yourself. Lazy Filipino, he's likely to make you do all the work 
anyway."

Laxman let himself into the unlocked room and surveyed grimly the 
single bed, shelf and window. Thank the gods he wasn't planning to 
stay, this was downright depressing. His father had always assured 
him constantly that working in Kuwait, no matter at how lowly a job, 
was far better than living with the war and suspicion back home; 
right now, however, Laxman would rather go to Sri Lanka and join the 
Tigers than stay one night or day in this place. He wondered how much 
time he should give Mr. Vijay to leave the neighborhood before making 
his getaway.
"Okay, is that everything? I'd really like to get some sleep... Sir?"
He turned and saw that the door was closed behind him. Mr. Vijay 
hadn't followed him in. He dropped his modest duffle bag and grabbed 
the doorknob; it wouldn't open. The asuras had locked him in! He 
kicked the bottom of the locked door four times, then walked to the 
bed and sat down. It collapsed to one side, two legs falling off with 
a clatter. He could imagine Mr. Vijay justifying the action in the 
morning: we do it with all the new employees for the first few 
nights, just until they get settled in. Why did you need to leave the 
room anyway if you didn't want to run away or steal something?

Ah well, Indra curse them all. This didn't change his plans one bit, 
it only made things a bit more complicated. He rose from the broken 
pile of bedding and checked the window. Sealed tight, and he didn't 
fancy breaking anything if it could be avoided. There was another 
small door that turned out to open into a tiny and foul-smelling 
toilet which this room shared with the one next door, but if there 
was anyone over there they had locked their entrance from the 
outside. Knocking provoked no response. He was starting to think 
that, in the long run, a broken window wasn't that big of a deal, 
when he noticed a trap door in the corner of the bathroom's ceiling 
above the shower. Perfect, he had to remember to give many prayers of 
thanks to the Remover of Obstacles if he made it out of here tonight. 
Lifting a thin piece of plywood, he nimbly climbed up into the pitch 
black room above. It struck him then that he had left his duffle bag 
behind in the room; he didn't feel at all like going back down for 
it, even though it would only take a moment. Better to start out 
fresh with only the three dinar in his pocket--if he didn't have a 
passport, he didn't really have anything anyway. A few seconds later 
and his eyes had adjusted enough to find the door of the empty store 
room.

The roof of the house with its ocean breezes felt cool and refreshing 
after the airless interior. It wasn't much less of a prison though. 
Laxman tried the two other doors leading downstairs and both were 
bolted tight--only the empty storeroom was open. He stood behind the 
pointed decorative cranellations along the front of the roof and 
looked down. He guessed he'd have to make creative use of the strings 
of lights the owners had put up for Ramadan. Easy enough, they were 
the type made of clear plastic hoses with the lights on the inside, 
just strong enough to hold his weight. He hoped so anyway. Still he 
was hesitant, if only because he hadn't the slightest idea where he 
would go from here. If only his dad had given him more than five 
days' warning about all this he could have planned everything out 
properly; that was probably the exact reason his father had kept it a 
secret. Laxman had always known that his eighteenth birthday would be 
a big deal for him, in fact he had looked forward to the occasion for 
years. But this wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind all that time. 
As soon as he reached eighteen, he was no longer covered under his 
father's work visa, a fact he'd always mistakenly seen as his chance 
to 'return' to Sri Lanka. Whether his father truly believed he was 
better off staying and working for one of these crooked servants' 
agencies, or whether he simply didn't have the money on hand to buy 
his son a ticket to Colombo, Laxman couldn't be sure. It would only 
have been a return home in the most technical sense anyway, and in 
the eyes of the officials who would have checked his Sri Lankan 
passport; in reality he'd been born in Dubai and moved to Kuwait with 
his father when he was six, immediately after the country opened up 
to South Asian workers following the Gulf War. His dad had only been 
allowed to bring one family member into Kuwait with him, and he chose 
Laxman instead of his mother (she was back in the village now, bless 
her) because there were so many 'opportunities' here. Hah. 

Where he would go next could work itself out when he was on solid 
ground. He peeled a lighted cable off the corner of the house like a 
climbing vine and tied the top end around a water pipe. He knew 
clearly enough where he was ultimately headed, of course. Sri Lanka, 
India, even Pakistan would do--they were all the same to a Gulf kid. 
He still spoke perfect Tamil, Sinhala and Hindi, and he could easily 
disappear into the crowds of the Subcontinent. That was the real 
world, not these soulless oil cities turned upside-down by wealth. 
Laxman had grown up reading the great myths in the books of his 
school library, of the battles of the Pandavas and the exile of Rama 
and all the rest. That was the world he belonged to by right, and it 
was only an ocean away. He'd make it there if he had to swim.

Climbing over the fake battlements, he descended from the roof on a 
thread of light. Getting to India would be anything but easy for an 
eighteen-year-old with no passport; Rama never had to deal with 
Kuwaiti prisons or unpayable fines, or with his father for that 
matter. The only real option open to Laxman was to lay low for a 
while, avoid running into anyone who might recognize him, and keep 
his eyes open to possibilities. That, and pray every minute of the 
night to the Remover of Obstacles.





CHAPTER SEVEN
The Towers

His briefcase really did seem to be getting heavier the longer Ali 
walked. He fished the last date out of the crumpled bag in the pocket 
of his thob shillahat and popped it in his mouth, not savoring the 
taste quite so much as he had the first dozen or so. Half a kilogram 
of dates was an awful lot to eat no matter how long of a journey one 
was engaged in. He pulled the last stone of the last date out from 
between his teeth and tossed it into the undiminished and never-
slowing stream of traffic. For the last time there was no effect; the 
jinnis really were slacking off these days. Exactly where was he now? 
Everything looked so different from down here on the side of the 
road. There was a sign, suspended high above the traffic: Bnaid Al-
Gar, straight ahead. So if he kept on his present course, following 
the tail end of the Abd Al-Aziz Bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-Saud Custodian 
Of The Two Holy Mosques Expressway (a.k.a. the 30), he would soon 
reach the sea right at the Kuwait Towers. Not much of a destination 
really, he would have liked some place more exciting. Set forth for 
Damascus... Set forth for the coast of India... Set forth for the 
biggest purpose-built tourist trap in Kuwait... Didn't quite have the 
same ring to it.

He did have to admit they looked the part--at least from a distance--
when they finally came into view beyond the housing blocks. Three 
white spires tapering to needle-like metal points, one piercing two 
spheres encrusted with glittering geometric tiles and another a 
single sphere. The whole thing looked like a giant science fiction 
moon base from a very unimaginative and over-budgeted movie. It was 
really just a relic of the heady Space Age optimism of 1970's Kuwait, 
when the oil would last forever and carry mankind however far it 
wished to go, when oil meant a country was a part of the modern world 
and no longer a part of the "troubled" Middle East. It had been 
altogether one of the most intentionally and unabashedly modern 
monuments of its day; building something like that was just asking 
for trouble.

He considered these points as he approached the still distant spires 
along the last stretch of the First Ring Road, and came to the 
conclusion that he just didn't care. It was just one more stupid 
self-glorifying monument (it wasn't even necessary to go into the 
obvious phallic significance.) The only difference between the Towers 
and, say, a giant statue of Saddam Hussein was... well... that the 
Towers were still standing, really. For now. Useless structures like 
these never lasted very long; great stories outlived such inane 
concrete follies by millennia. It was the stories that...

The light of the moon darkened for a full second. Ali glanced up too 
late to see what had cast the shadow. There were no clouds of course-
-this city hardly knew what a cloud looked like--and even over the 
traffic noise he should be able to hear a low-flying airplane. A 
secret military experiment, or a dragon, or something even stranger 
the name of which had never been spoken by a human tongue? He'd just 
assume it was a dragon until the shadow-caster chose to show 
his/her/itself and provide him with evidence to the contrary. A blue 
dragon, five meters in length, flying low in search of prey. Yep, 
that was a satisfactory enough explanation for him.

Dragon or not, he hoped it wasn't an omen. Nah, who was he kidding, 
he hoped it WAS an omen. An omen meant that something momentous was 
about to happen. Still watching the night sky above with its stars 
and planets (and dragons?) washed out by the light of the city, he 
almost stumbled right into the middle of the intersection with Sour 
Street. The best way to the Towers was to follow Sour to the Gulf 
Road, so he turned left and walked on, eyes straying upwards at 
intervals. From the Gulf Road--busy as ever in the westbound lanes 
but a bit less so eastbound--he could see the smooth silent ocean 
backing the palm trees, restaurants and littered beach. He couldn't 
walk much farther in this direction; the land would come to a point 
at the Towers, and after that he'd either have to stop, head south-
west towards Sharq and downtown, or swim. He pulled out his pocket 
watch again for the first time since leaving the Sultan Center in 
Salmiya. It was an old-looking hand wound Russian model that he'd 
found at the Friday Market almost a year ago. You could find anything 
at the Friday Market. Three o'clock!So he didn't have as much time 
left as he'd thought; the final call to prayer heralding the approach 
of Imsak would echo from the minarets before long, and that was the 
signal to eat up before dawn and the start of the day's fast. Come to 
think of it, why did they still play the 'call to prayer' when it was 
really a call to cram oneself full of last minute snacks? Never mind 
the modern decay of the Holy Month, the implication for him and his 
walk was that if anything was going to happen tonight, it had better 
appear soon. Maybe-dragons flitting across the moon didn't really 
count.

He covered the last stretch to the Kuwait Towers and strode through 
the open gate in the fence surrounding the open flagstoned area at 
their mighty feet. The observation deck in the highest sphere was 
closed, so nobody was around to make him buy a ticket for admission. 
The instant he passed the gateway he was struck by a sense of great 
importance that came out of nowhere and enveloped him. This was 
definitely where he'd been walking to through the early morning 
hours, and he was about to find out exactly why, he could feel it in 
the air. He realized that for the first time in a long while he felt 
like a character in a story, which was a feeling he liked. The 
excitement was building to such an intensity that Ali actually began 
to run, between the wide smooth trunks of the Towers, illuminating 
himself briefly in the spotlights shining on them, to the sea's edge 
beyond. He grabbed the railing to steady himself and looked around 
frantically, up at the huge globes suspended above him, down into the 
inky water bobbing with plastic bags, left and right along the 
deserted pier. Nothing, nothing at all, just another corner of the 
same old Kuwait. What had he expected, that blue dragon? The feeling 
was still with him though, that was for sure. He turned around and 
saw other figures between the Towers.

There, in the exact midpoint of the triangle, was what looked like a 
young foreign woman wearing... a dishdasha? He took a cautious step 
forward; she just continued to stand still as if spellbound. This was 
a part of the puzzle, the feeling that was invading his mind told him 
that clearly enough. But she wasn't the only one, there were at least 
one other coming, not yet in the light of the Towers.

There was a small scraping sound to his left, from the side wall of 
the enclosure. A man about his age, in a dark green shirt and darker 
pants that made him difficult to see, climbed to the top of the high 
partition holding something small and furry. One cat, then another, 
leapt up beside him. The man's expression was that of one who had 
just seen a jinni disappearing down a dark alley.

Another furtively appeared into the spotlights, a young Indian 
looking deeply frightened. He stared at the woman in the dishdasha, 
she stared at him, and then they both stared at the person on the 
wall. That person leapt down, landing with hardly a sound, and paced 
towards them followed closely by the two cats. Ali realized that he 
himself was still in the shadows at the pier's edge and the three had 
not yet seen him. Without a second thought he took five more steps 
forward into the light. Another round of staring began.

Before that round had even run its course yet another figure emerged 
from the darkness in the direction of the gate. A teenager with an 
impressive haircut and what Ali assumed to be very fashionable 
clothes, the look of cool-ness undermined by a profoundly confused 
expression. The five strangers stood in silence--or rather the 
ambient sounds of the Gulf Road--considering each other's 
significance. It was plain to see that they were all host to exactly 
the same unexplained feeling of... what? Purpose? Destiny? Whatever 
it was, they had now met, and something was to happen. It felt like 
deja vu in reverse; not that he'd seen these people before, but that 
he would be seeing a whole lot of them in the future. Most of all, it 
felt like a beginning. This thought reminded him of one of his 
favorite axioms: every beginning was also the end of something else. 
Fine by him.

He was starting to deliberate on whether to begin composing some 
words to possibly speak to the others when a large unshaven man with 
a backpack and a small glass bottle stumbled into the area of light. 
"Has anyone seen my boat?" he cried like an incantation, and the 
mysterious feeling fled into the slowly fading night.

















ON THE SECOND NIGHT

       *       *       *       *       *

   "Hallo there! cast off the cable and pull up the mooring-pole!" 
Quoth Nur al-Din, "Whither bound, O captain?" and quoth he, "To the 
House of Peace, Baghdad," --And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day 
and ceased to say her permitted say.
   --The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night; translation of Sir 
Richard F. Burton

       *       *       *       *       *

















CHAPTER EIGHT
The Coffee Bean Room

Laxman sat on the edge of his thin mattress, trying to stack stray 
coffee beans more than eight high. Eight seemed to be the upper 
threshold; a ninth would cause the stack to collapse every time, no 
matter how careful he was. He tried once more, watching the 
precarious tower fall before the ninth bean he was holding between 
his fingers had even touched it. The sound of falling coffee beans, 
though no less miniscule than one would imagine, somehow woke up his 
room mate.
"Was that the Iftar call to prayer? Can we eat now?" the Captain 
mumbled, rolling over into a sitting position on his own squeaking 
mattress. It emitted a loud pop in protest. He hadn't been too happy 
with the comfort level of the bedding when they had arrived in the 
early morning, so he'd improvised with a roll of old bubble wrap he 
had scavenged from the corner of the room.
"No, it was the sound of seven coffee beans falling," said Laxman 
incredulously, "how could you even hear it over there?"
"Everything sounds loud in this tiny room, I'm used to the wide open 
sea with the wind in my ears." His mattress produced another sharp 
report, making him wince. "Hell of a place to have a headache."
"No offence, but you probably wouldn't have that problem if you 
hadn't drunk so much perfume last night. Drink some black coffee or 
something, they say that helps."
The Captain surveyed the cardboard boxes of coffee beans, stacked 
right to the ceiling.
"Real funny, kid. Even if we had any hot water, it isn't Iftar yet. 
We're not all infidels here."
"How do you know it's not Iftar? Can you see the sun or hear the 
mosques from our little room? I sure can't."
"But... but surely the others wouldn't leave us here past sunset? 
That's inhuman! I'll starve if I can't break my fast!"
Laxman doubted the large, muscular man would starve after a month 
adrift at sea. He may not be the smartest Arab he'd met, but he sure 
looked like a tough one.
"Never mind that, they shall come for us when they shall come for us. 
At least we're in a safe place right now."
"So you're hiding out too, kid? I think I crashed my boat last 
night."
"That's what we gathered, although you weren't too coherent. I didn't 
crash anything, but I am hiding out--I'm trying to return to my own 
land against the wishes of my employers, and they definitely have the 
upper hand. I don't know where I would have gone if... all of you 
hadn't shown up."
"Who are... we? All I remember is being brought here by some people, 
and a young kid telling me I could sleep here for a while."
"I don't think any of us know who 'we' are, we all just sort of ran 
into each other, and now we're stuck. Do you remember what it felt 
like there at the Towers? Indra's Heaven, it was amazing."
The man scratched his tangled mass of hair, willing his brain to 
recall more details from the recent perfume-hazed past.
"No, I don't remember anything about any towers. But if we're hanging 
out together now, that's fine by me. I'm a Captain without a boat 
now, what else would I do?"
"And I'm a traveller without a passport. We should get on just fine." 
He tried a nervous little laugh. "I'm Laxman from... Sri Lanka. And 
you..."
"Just call me Captain, that's good enough."
Laxman waited a few moments, but it sounded like that was all the 
response he was going to get.
"The others, are they on the run," the Captain restarted the 
conversation at last, "is this some sort of escape ring? I know about 
operations like this up in Iraq. If you're not careful you end up 
chopped apart for organs, or so I heard."
"Oh no, of course not. They were three Kuwaitis and a Westerner, I 
think, and none of them seemed to know each other either. I didn't 
get to learn much about them because Imsak was called before we'd 
been properly introduced and everyone was in a hurry to eat as usual. 
The one in the t-shirt brought us here--he seemed to be someone of 
great influence. I feel we will be safe under the watch of such a 
Kuwaiti."
The Captain actually laughed out loud. "Hahhaar, you trust a Kuwaiti? 
So young and innocent."
He punctuated his comment by collecting a handful of loose beans off 
the floor with a single sweep of his hand, stacking ten of them in a 
single column with deft ease.
"This isn't the first back room of a coffee shop I've been shut up 
in, if you know what I mean."

They kept talking for what must have been at least an hour, Laxman 
relating his whole life story and the Captain only dropping the 
occasional cryptic hint of information. There was no sign that the 
other four strangers would appear anytime soon. He wondered how long 
they should wait before giving up and venturing beyond the bounds of 
the cramped store room and the toilet next door--he was hungry, going 
on very hungry, and his companion must be five times as hungry 
judging by the frequency with which he mentioned the fact. But the 
Kuwaiti kid--Rashomon, was it? No, probably not--the Kuwaiti kid had 
given him dire warnings about that sort of thing. The front part of 
this establishment didn't look like the kind of place people like him 
and the Captain could hope to blend in. They would just have to keep 
waiting. This running-away business entailed much more waiting around 
than Laxman had expected; much more and he'd start to consider it 
downright boring

 All pressing and not-quite-so-pressing topics of conversation now 
having been exhausted, the Captain was keeping himself busy opening 
each identical cardboard box in the room, unstacking them and 
restacking them following a much less organized system in order to 
check the contents. It was all plastic bags of coffee beans so far, 
as the labels on the outside made perfectly clear (COFFEE BEANS, they 
said), but he wasn't buying it. This was the perfect place to smuggle 
something--like black-market whiskey for instance. Now that would be 
a find worth the effort, five or six free bottles of something the 
Kuwaitis with their huge wallets and expensive tastes regularly paid 
sixty-five dinar a bottle for. Plus, the Jackson's perfume taste had 
never quite left his poor hungry mouth.
"You know what coffee shop this is, don't you?" the Indian kid said. 
"I really doubt the largest coffee shop chain in the world is going 
to be involved in liquor smuggling."
The kid was good enough company, but he kept on showing his ignorance 
of how Kuwait really worked. Had he really been living here since he 
was six years old? That had been one sheltered childhood. He 
continued his search. "Aha!" This one didn't feel quite the same. But 
it was lighter than the others, not heavier as liquor should be; that 
must mean... Dammit. He folded back the flaps and dumped the pile of 
compact discs in flimsy home labelled sleeves on the bean-strewn 
concrete floor. "Dammit." He'd hit a pornography load, and not even 
the printed kind. He picked a VCD up from the top of the pile. The 
Indian stared as if he'd watched him dump severed human body parts 
out of the box. "Let's see, 'Shades and the...' Ohhh, that's just 
wrong." He gathered up the heap of discs and stuffed them back in the 
box hurriedly. "Best not to get involved with that stuff. Regular old 
pornography is fine by me, but that's just taking it a bit too far. 
Wow, I sure am hungry."
"I can't believe you just... " the Indian stammered, "who would have 
guessed that Star..."
"I keep telling you there's much more to Kuwait than you've seen from 
your school playground. Anyway, I've heard rumors about this company. 
Do you really think there's one on every street corner in every city 
in the West just because they brew a good cup of coffee?" He was 
having fun blowing this kid's mind, but he sure could use something 
to eat right about now.
"That's absurd."
"Listen, you ever been to Friday Market?"
"Yeah yeah, I know, you can buy anything at Friday market. That's 
what everyone always says."
He chuckled. "They do, do they? Well it's not true. Ever been to 
Friday Market when it's not Friday? that's where you can buy 
anything."
"Friday Market when it's not Friday... I know you're lying about 
that, it's just an empty field on other days of the week. I've seen 
it."
"Nah, it's not in the same place."
The Indian's jaw dropped half an inch further. "If it's not on 
Friday, and it's not in the market, then why do they call it..."
"They use the same folding tables."

"Do you ever help with the smuggling? I mean, you have--had--a boat."
The Captain was now finishing up returning the boxes to some 
semblance of order, with the special lighter-than-normal box stashed 
somewhere in the very, very back. There really were some sick freaks 
in Kuwait these days, that was for sure.
"It ain't worth the risk. Regular Kuwaiti passengers pay much better. 
Although I did help out a few men from the North a while back who'd 
managed to get their own craft stuck on a sand bar. Wait, look at 
this--here's what they gave me in return. A brainy kid like you 
should get a kick out of it." He picked up the rucksack crumpled 
beside his mattress and pulled out the plastic bag-wrapped bundle, 
pulling off layers of cotton and plastic. He handed the tablet within 
to the Indian, not removing it from its final transparent covering. 
The kid looked every bit as surprised as he'd hoped, and took the 
artifact from his hands with great care.
"Great Garuda! So when you say they were coming from the North..."
"That's right. What do you think it says?"
"Come on, I'm not that brainy. It could be anything, a verse from the 
Epic of Gilgamesh, a magical incantation, a letter to, I don't know, 
a king or something."
"I've spent a lot of time looking at it, and I think it may be a 
song. Don't ask me why."
"This should be kept safe in a museum."
"I'm sure it was in a perfectly nice museum a few months ago. A lot 
of good it did it." He grabbed the cuneiform-inscribed tablet back 
from his companion and wrapped it up again. "I was planning to take 
it to the Friday Market on Tuesday and see what I could get for it, 
but then I fell in love and my plans kind of changed."
For some reason, that had a greater effect on the kid's composure 
than anything else he'd told him.
"Oh...k...ay. It's a good thing we're stuck with each other's 
company, Captain, it's going to take me a long time to understand 
you."

The knock on the door came without warning; they'd been expecting it 
for so long, they had given up on thinking about it. About time, the 
Captain said to himself, I could eat a dolphin. A Kuwaiti with a 
friendly face and a funny triangular dishdasha--this must be one of 
the other four, he vaguely remembered seeing him last night--opened 
without waiting for an answer and gave a little bow.
"Peace be upon you and good evening friends, I hope all is well with 
your quarters."
The Indian stood stiffly and offered his hand. "And upon you be 
peace. Your name was... Mohammed?"
Mohammed shook the offered hand and smiled. "Hello again Laxman. No, 
I'm Ali. I don't think there's anyone by the name of Mohammed in our 
group. I guess we beat the odds."
Ali reached for the Captain's hand as well. "And we definitely missed 
your name last night, friend."
The Indian beat him to it--"Just call him Captain. That's good 
enough."
"You're looking much better tonight, Captain. Hungry though, I'll 
wager; it's almost eleven out there in the real world."
They followed the stranger out of the coffee bean room at last.





CHAPTER NINE
The First Divan (Or Meeting)

A side room of the coffee shop had been arranged for them, separated 
by a curtain of heavy cream-colored fabric from the main sitting area 
that muffled the blaring Superstation pop outside to an 
indecipherable slur. Someone had tried to make a decent conference 
table by pushing four of the miniscule round tables, designed to hold 
only two cups and two mobile phones, into a cluster at the center. 
Energetic abstract paintings featuring very wide brush strokes 
('caffeine' being the apparent underlying theme) clung unnoticed to 
the walls behind a few potted palms, diffuse lighting banishing all 
shadows from the niche. Three clear plastic cups in various stages of 
coffee removal sat on the table cluster, along with two mobile 
phones--one the basic dark blue model that was carried everywhere in 
Kuwait by those who did not care much about mobiles, the other a much 
smaller and slimmer variety with a brushed titanium case, hi-res 
color screen, and built-in camera lens. Yasser, Katie and Rashid sat 
all on one side of the cluster, three empty chairs across from them.
"But seriously," Katie said gesturing at the smaller mobile, "when 
was the last time you actually sent someone a photo from that?"
"I haven't ever. Sometimes my friends send me pictures of their 
girlfriends. At least that's what they say they are, even though the 
women usually aren't even looking at the camera." Rashid finished off 
the last of his drink and picked up the mobile, pushing a few buttons 
pointlessly. "But you know what they say in the TV ads: if you can't 
think of anything to do with a camera phone, your life just isn't 
interesting enough."

The muddy throb of the Superstation coalesced into a few seconds of 
clear--but no less indecipherable--music as Ali, Laxman and the 
Captain entered the room behind the curtain. The three at the table 
cluster lifted their cups and nodded in greeting to the newcomers. 
They filled the three empty chairs and the Captain dug through his 
rucksack, taking out his own dark blue mobile and setting it on the 
sub-table opposite Katie's so they wouldn't get them mixed up. Ali 
did the introductions in his own style.
"Welcome to all, and peace be upon you. most of us know each other 
very well from last night--or at least feel we do--but the Captain 
here indicates that he would benefit from having his memory 
refreshed. Firstly, this is Rashid  Ibn Hassan Al-Sabah, wastamancer 
extraordinaire, whom you both have to thank for your timely 
accommodation. This kind..."
Katie took over in the interest of moving things along. "This kind 
guy is Ken from Oz, and this one likes cats. Who wants coffee?"
Laxman and the Captain communicated by their shrugs that such a thing 
was far outside their budgets.
Rashid stood up. "Don't worry, the people who run this place are... 
friends of mine. The coffee's a gift of hospitality. Have you changed 
your mind, Ali?"
Ali shook his head with mild distaste. "No, I'm still not certain why 
we even chose this place for such a momentous occasion. Coffee shops 
are fine--the Thousand and One were created in the coffeehouses of 
old, after all--but this place... it's like the very mascot of bland 
soul-destroying globalization."
"Stop complaining and have a frappa-wotzit," Katie answered, sucking 
the last of her own frappa-wotzit noisily. "They're great, almost 
exactly like the ones back in Australia."

Rashid returned after two minutes of debate between Ali and Katie, 
carrying a tray with drinks for the two newcomers as well as 
replacements for 'Ken' and himself. He told the newcomers exactly 
what they wanted to hear: "I also sent someone to get some food for 
you two. It should be here in a few minutes." He sat down to find a 
text message waiting for him on the color LCD of his mobile, from an 
unfamiliar number:

y does she dress lk a man?

Rashid began discreetly typing in a reply. Ali tapped the sub-table, 
causing it to rock unsteadily. "Now that we all have our chemical 
slurry, I do believe we may get started. Welcome to our little 
group's first divan."
Katie interrupted immediately. "Like a sofa?"
"No," Ali sighed, "divan as in a council of great import."
"Why don't we just call it a meeting? What is this, King Arthur's 
court?"
Ali's reply was cut short by the vibrations of the Captain's mobile, 
which made the little table rock yet again. The Captain mumbled 
something that may have been an apology and picked up the phone.

i thnk she thnks we thnk shes a man. jst pretend





CHAPTER TEN
The First Divan (Or Meeting) Begins For Real

"As I was saying, welcome to our little group's first hobnob 
session," Ali started up again sarcastically. "Sorry. To get right to 
the point, do any of us know why we are here?"
The group looked at itself across the four tables in silence, albeit 
silence with a muffled pounding beat.
Emboldened by the obvious cluelessness of the company he was keeping, 
Laxman spoke first. "I think," he said, "we all know why we are here. 
We all felt the unmistakable force of destiny last night, there's no 
doubt in my mind that the gods have brought us together for a reason. 
Not one of us hesitated to come here tonight and sit with complete 
strangers, just to discuss our experience, so I imagine what we each 
felt was more than a passing notion." He shrugged.
"Well said, friend," Ali replied, "I don't think any of us can argue 
with that succinct rendering. We are six now, and we shall remain six 
until we complete our... destiny, as you say, although I think the 
word 'purpose' is less loaded. This we know to be a simple fact. When 
I asked why we are here, on the other hand, I meant just that--why. 
can anyone enlighten the rest of the group as to the nature of 
this... 'purpose'?"
The niche returned to throbbing silence. It was finally Rashid who 
answered, spreading his arms wide.
"I take that to mean nobody has any special information then. I sure 
don't, but I do have an idea. I get the feeling from what I've heard 
here that all of us are... not satisfied with the way things are in 
Kuwait, in one way or another. Doesn't that mean we've probably come 
together to bring about a change?" He'd meant it to be a rhetorical 
question, but Laxman answered it before he could expand further.
"Not necessarily. I know I'm sure not happy about this place, but I 
don't feel any need to change anything, I just want to get out. How 
do you know we're not meant to travel, the world is a big place and 
Kuwait is not the greatest part of it by far. Half of us don't even 
come from here."
Katie raised a hand. "I can see there are many possibilities, so 
let's be logical about this. If the gods do have a purpose for us, 
I'm sure they have given at least one of us some idea of the plan. 
Otherwise it would defeat the purpose. We just have to work out which 
is the right idea to follow, and the way to start is by making a list 
of every one we can think of. Anybody have paper?"

Ali turned in his chair and picked up the scuffed leather briefcase 
from behind him, balancing it on one of the miniature tables. He 
opened it and pulled out a plastic comb-bound book of A4 paper about 
a centimeter thick, printed on in a tiny font. "The last few pages 
are blank. Here's a pencil too." He handed Katie the book printed 
side down along with a pencil of moderate length and put the case 
back on the floor next to his chair. Katie began writing on the top 
sheet of paper, holding it in her lap where the others couldn't see 
it.

Idea 1 (picture-phone guy) = change Q8.
Idea 2 (sri lankan guy) = go somewhere else.

"Care to expand on your plan?" She gestured to Rashid. He sat up 
straight again, starting to speak slowly and gaining in speed as he 
drew their attention.
"Well, there are only six of us, but I believe we shouldn't be afraid 
to aim high. Something needs to change in this country, in a big way. 
We all know that, and I felt from the moment we met at the Towers 
that we are the ones to do it. I get the inside perspective on the 
running of this place every day, so I can tell you all for certain 
that Kuwait is being run by puppets of foreign powers, has been for 
two centuries in fact; the leaders are old, weak and decadent, a 
cause behind every problem we encounter in the country. We're sitting 
on some of the greatest oil wealth in the world, but we're giving it 
away for spare change." He swept his gaze across the table. "I know, 
you don't need me to tell you all that. It's common knowledge that 
the government is corrupt. Everyone talks about it, but nobody ever 
does anything about it. What's not so commonly known is its many 
weaknesses. It may sound crazy to talk about pitting ourselves 
against the government, but History shows that it is only the crazy 
ones who have what it takes to bring about real revolution!"
He banged his fist on the table to emphasize the last word, aiming 
carefully for the center so as not to knock it over.
His small audience broke into brief applause; his delivery had been 
excellent. After clapping, there was a pause while Katie partially 
erased and updated her notes.

Idea 1 (picture-phone guy) = Animal Farm.

"Right, I think that may be a winner. Anyone have an alternate idea? 
How about our second option of leaving town?"
Laxman spoke up again. "I still think it's closer to the truth. Why 
fight to change this place when there are so many better lands to 
discover? At the Towers, I felt strongly that the destiny we were 
sensing lay somewhere beyond the seas, at the end of a long journey. 
If there's one thing the ancient sages taught me it's that anything 
worth finding must be found after a long journey. You agree, don't 
you, Captain?" He looked to his roommate hopefully.
"Sure why not. Let's blow this joint. You and me have been here more 
than long enough, and God knows it would do the Kuwaitis some good to 
see the real world. Find me a boat and I'll sail us right outta here, 
leave the rest of the madmen to rot."
Rashid could see they were getting distracted; he spoke rapidly. "We 
have this whole country for the taking! Paradise isn't something you 
go looking for, it begins at home! I can tell you right now we won't 
find a single country on Earth that's any better than this one as it 
is right now. That's what we're here to change." That gave them all 
something to think about, which they did for a few moments.
"Um, can you add something to the list for me too?" Yasser asked 
softly. Everyone looked to him in unison. He blinked.
"Of course man, two isn't exactly a whole list. We need all the ideas 
we can get." Katie wrote beneath the first two items:

Idea 3 (quiet guy) = 

The full sonic range of the music in the main room returned before 
Yasser could begin, bringing with it a young man in an official 
coffee shop uniform carrying a bulging paper bag and the smell of 
fast food. Rashid nodded to the man.
"Thanks, Just put it on the tables here for my friends."





CHAPTER ELEVEN
Laxman And The Captain Finally Break Their Fast At One In The Morning 
(Not Counting The Coffee)

The Captain tore at the pile of greasy fried chicken like he was in 
danger of it getting up and running away. Laxman made do with french 
fries and something labeled "coleslaw"; nobody had asked beforehand 
whether he was a vegetarian. It didn't matter, the chicken looked as 
thoroughly disgusting as the rest tasted. He was too hungry to care 
anyway.

Katie surveyed the wholesale destruction of the chicken carton. 
"Respect. Now for idea three..."
"Yes, well," Yasser picked up, "I was sort of thinking about, I don't 
know, going out into the desert. To start a farm or something."
Even the endless music outside seemed to fall silent for a moment.
Ali tried to smile. "What sort of farm would that be? A little 
unorthodox, out in the desert and all."
"I... I'm not sure, I hadn't thought too much about it. I just think 
the desert would be good, like leaving Kuwait but not completely. And 
kind of also like making our own paradise, or whatever Rashid was 
saying before. I don't know, what do people usually farm out in the 
desert? They keep camels, right?"
Katie started to draw a line through the third item on the list 
without making it too obvious what she was doing. Then she stopped, 
tilted her head to one side for a few seconds, and leaped to her 
feet, predictably knocking over half of the table cluster. "That's 
it! You're brilliant! Oops, sorry."

She picked up all the empty plastic cups, mobile phones and chicken 
bones that she had scattered around the niche before returning to her 
seat to explain. She couldn't stand a mess like that. The others 
waited, baffled.
"Okay, I'm not just a Maths teacher." That revelation didn't provoke 
much in the way of astonishment.
"I spend a lot of my time cooking and selling pork products that I 
smuggle into the country from Australia." A bit more of a reaction.
"On my last trip a couple weeks ago, I smuggled in a pair of live 
piglets, male and female. I'm raising them in my back courtyard." Ah 
yes, there it was.

Ali was the first to reply in any coherent manner. "How exactly did 
you manage something like that?"
"Anaesthesia, some large suitcases with breathing tubes, a direct 
flight, and some friendly help from a fellow traveller in keeping the 
Customs guys busy. No worries, though it's not an experience I'd like 
to repeat anytime soon."
"So you actually plan to raise and... breed them?" asked Rashid. He 
looked thoroughly impressed."I never thought that far ahead. It was 
just a challenge. I knew I wasn't likely to stay in the country long 
enough to make much out of it, but I can always sell them to someone 
else and cover my expenses if I leave. The bigger problem is where to 
raise them. My courtyard is fine for two pigs, but the whole idea is 
for them to have lots of babies. Now we have this new plan, a farm in 
the desert..."
"It's wonderful," Yasser spoke up again, pleased to have something 
made of his idea. "We can farm pigs! Keeping the place secret will be 
easy, with Rashid's wasta."
"You know it!" Rashid was not one to pass up a compliment. "But... 
why? Pig farming is a long ways from revolution or journeys to other 
lands. Do you really think Destiny touched us last night just so we'd 
go into the pork business?"
Katie jumped on that one. "Let me tell you something about pork. 
Producing it would be more like gold mining than farming. Even with 
the cost of equipment, feed and water, our profits will be 
astronomical. He had it right when he talked about building our own 
paradise out there--we'll be able to do anything we want. Away from 
this crazy city, we can think clearly about what we're doing with 
ourselves and plan it properly. Then we'll be in a position to launch 
our revolution, or continue travelling even farther away, or just 
stay there and build our own community. Anything."
The Captain clapped his hands together and leaned forward. "I know 
the place for it." He tapped the side of his head in the spot where 
he apparently imagined the knowledge to reside. "In the desert to the 
west--I'm certain I can find it. Beats the hell out of the coffee 
bean room. Good stuff, pig-smuggler."
Ali stared  into the empty fried-chicken carton on the table in front 
of him as if he wished it were a crystal ball. He summed up the 
feelings of everyone at the table with uncharacteristic brevity. 
"Sure, at least it's a plan."

The mood in the room lightened tangibly once the decision had been 
made. The details were worked out, and it was agreed that there was 
no reason to wait around. Lingering feelings of purpose made them 
impatient, and the only thing more consolatory than planning was 
action. They would meet just after Iftar tomorrow night and say their 
goodbyes to life in Kuwait. The companions stood stiffly and filed 
out beyond the curtains; there was still time before morning to make 
some preparations. Katie was on her way out as well when Rashid 
grabbed her wrist, turning her back towards the table. He spoke 
slowly as he pointed to each vacated chair around the trash-littered 
cluster of tables. "Laxman. The Captain. Ali. Rashid. Yasser."
She gave him a crooked smile. "Thanks, I'll try to remember now." 
They followed the others out into the main coffee shop, still crowded 
and noisy, and through the front glass doors. Katie looked at her 
plain dark-blue mobile phone as she passed from the air conditioning 
into the warm night air. Its LCD still displayed an opened text 
message; she didn't remember receiving that. She stopped on the 
street's edge and lit up the little monochrome screen.

i thnk she thnks we thnk shes a man. jst pretend

















ON THE THIRD NIGHT

       *       *       *       *       *

   And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
 Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
   Lift not thy hands to IT for help--for It
 Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
   --Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, Quatrain 72.

       *       *       *       *       *

















CHAPTER TWELVE
Into The Sands

Ali sat in the back of a rusty white pickup truck bouncing down the 
Fahaheel Expressway with three Filipinos on their way home from work. 
The pickup trucks were the cheapest way to get around, much cheaper 
than taxis either official or amateur, but they could be hard to 
catch anywhere in the area of his flat in Salmiya. He'd been lucky 
tonight. The three were passing around foil containers of Filipino 
food and talking animatedly in their native tongue, Iftar having just 
been called. Two of the men had sat for the first few minutes of the 
ride in silence, straining not to miss the call over the wind in 
their ears, heads turning to follow the minaret of each mosque that 
passed by. The third man had laughed at their caution, crouching on 
the bed of the truck and spooning rice into his mouth between 
stoplights. That had been fairly brave of him, actually--he must not 
have guessed that the stranger riding with them might be a Kuwaiti. 
The penalties for eating in view of the public during fasting hours 
were quite severe, much more so for the lower classes of immigrants.

The truck dropped him on the edge of the Bayan residential area and 
sped off onto the Expressway again. He looked at the address he had 
written down and at the map posted at the top of the street, heading 
straight down the road towards the correct block. He carried his 
briefcase in one hand, and a duffle bag in the other--this was more 
or less everything he owned, mostly just clothing. Bayan was a 
residential area populated almost exclusively by Kuwaiti families of 
a more modest lifestyle (of course that was relative; the houses were 
still enormous by most standards.) A strange place for an Australian 
woman living alone to have her address. But then, nothing surprised 
him anymore about 'Ken'.

He quickly found the right street and house in the fading light. The 
gate was open and a dark green SUV sat outside, the back filled to 
the ceiling with boxes and supplies. Setting down his luggage, he 
rang the doorbell next to the gate and 'Ken' appeared almost 
instantly, wearing rubber gloves and an apron over her dishdasha.
"Ah, Ali, here you are just in time to help me get the pigs into the 
car." She pronounced his name like 'alley.'
"But of course. The flesh of swine may be unclean as stated in the 
Noble Quran, but don't worry, I'm not antipathetic to touching them. 
I can always wash my hands afterwards."
He followed her into the sparsely decorated house and through the 
kitchen to the illuminated back courtyard, which was indeed set up as 
a makeshift pigpen with a blue tarp covering one end. The smell was 
definitely something unique, but he'd better start getting used to 
it. Two small, stocky and hairless animals got up from their bedding 
in the corner and trundled towards them, emitting peculiar noises. 
Ali realized he'd never seen a pig before in real life, and had only 
the vaguest impressions of what one should look like.
"Alright, you grab Pink there--she's the female."
'Ken' reached for the male piglet, who changed his mind and took a 
step backwards when he saw they weren't here to feed him.
"Come on Floyd, I'm taking you somewhere much nicer. Don't get 
skittish now." She offered Floyd a carrot from her apron pocket, 
which was enough to keep him content while she picked him up and 
carried him out through the kitchen. Meanwhile, Pink sniffed Ali's 
slipper suspiciously. Ali snatched her up, making her squeal and 
squirm around frantically. He ran after 'Ken', holding the writhing 
animal at arm's length away from his clean thob shillahat.

They put the pair in the SUV on the floor of the backseat, glancing 
up and down the dark street to make sure nobody had noticed the 
transfer. Ali stuffed his duffel bag into a gap between the boxes in 
the 'cargo bay' (or whatever one was supposed to call the boot of an 
SUV), but took his briefcase with him to the front seat. 'Ken' tossed 
apron and rubber gloves on the backseat and ran back to the house to 
lock up. Returning, she jumped behind the wheel. "Seat-belts fastened 
back there? Good. We're off."

They drove in silence through Bayan, up the Fahaheel Expressway, and 
around the overpass onto the Fifth Ring Road westbound.  Traffic was 
at its worst right about now, but at least it was moving almost as 
fast as ever. The omnipresent mavens and hotshots dodged and wove 
their way between lesser drivers at dazzling speeds, revelling in the 
challenge of the post-Iftar rush. Ali hoped his driver was up to the 
task; this was no place for your average Australian. She turned and 
looked him in the eyes for a brief second, attention snapping back to 
the road ahead as a sleek car screamed in front of them at close to 
twice their speed. She turned again long enough to speak.
"Ali, do you think of me as a man?"
He picked his words carefully. "I can if you wish me to. I like to 
think I'm very open-minded about... these sorts of things."
"No no, not like that. What I mean is... I'm not actually a man. Can 
you tell?"
"Yes, it's quite clear. I was under the impression you just liked the 
clothing."
She hit the steering wheel. "Shit. Listen to me, do you think anyone 
might take me for a man?"
"It's possible... I think. If you were standing very far away, or if 
they had particularly bad eyesight."
She hit the wheel twice more. "I don't get it, back home they always 
told me I have a boyish figure. It must still be the haircut."
"No, I'm sorry, I really don't think it's the haircut. To be 
perfectly frank, I don't see any way you could possibly pass for a 
man. You just... look very female."
"So you're saying I've been making a complete fool of myself in every 
Diwaniya in Kuwait for the past five months?"
"You went to a Diwaniya like that? Oh my."
She hit the steering wheel again, this time with her forehead.
"Alright," she sighed after a moment of resignation, "I guess you can 
call me Katie now. That's my real name. If I wasn't on my way to live 
far out in the middle of the desert, I'd die of embarrassment."
"Don't worry about it, Katie. You did bring some ordinary clothes 
along with you, didn't you?"
She gave a little laugh. "Yeah, I was planning to 'reveal my secret' 
and switch back to being female as soon as I got out there anyway. 
This gatra drives me crazy." She pushed the double ring of black rope 
into place from where it had slipped on collision with the steering 
wheel.

After progressing beyond a certain point along the Fifth Ring Road, 
the traffic mercifully began to thin out until they were almost 
alone. A kilometer past the most outlying residential area--mostly 
still under construction--they came upon the site of an accident in 
the darkness. A truck lay on its side, leaking copious amounts of 
liquid that caused the road's surface to reflect their headlights. 
Ali rolled down his window and sniffed. "Olive oil?" A very old man 
materialized out of the night and tottered up to Katie's side of the 
car. She rolled her window down as well.
"Do you need help? Is anyone hurt?" she asked in Arabic.
"No, I am the only one. God is merciful. The other car drove away, 
but I can not." He scratched his head, not looking too shaken, just 
sorrowful. His gatra was of the rough red-checked style, much like 
Ali's in fact. "Where are you two young men going tonight?"
Katie couldn't resist firing a quick smirk at Ali.
"We are going out into the desert... to camp. Sorry, I don't think we 
can take you into the city."
"God is great! Please let me come with you into the desert!"
Katie and Ali looked at each other. "He must be blind as a bat!" Ali 
wondered.
"Oh, shut up." She turned back to the old man. "Why do you want to go 
there?"
"Why do you want to go there?" he echoed.
She turned back to Ali. "You've got to admit, he's very enigmatic. 
Whaddaya say? It's always smart to have a crazy old man around for 
good luck, or so my mother used to tell me."
"Do you really think that's a good idea--what about the pigs?"
"Listen, couldn't this be part of the 'purpose' we're all tied up in? 
What if this guy is supposed to be part of our group? Destiny 
couldn't be much clearer than having him ask."
Ali shrugged broadly. "That's stretching the concept. I for one am 
not experiencing the same sense of import as at the Towers, and that 
feeling is what I now consider the calling card of destiny." 
"Maybe he feels it, and pleading to come with us is his crazy-old-man 
way of expressing it."
"Let me talk to him, my Arabic may be more up to the task." He leaned 
across to her window, where the old man was waiting expectantly. 
"Peace be upon you, friend. Do you wish to join us at our camp for 
any particular reason, or do you feel something telling you to go, 
something... bigger than yourself?"
He slowly chewed on something, or possibly nothing. "If I go, of 
course it is because God wills me to go. He is the all-knowing, the 
all-doing."
That wasn't what Ali had in mind. Following his usual course when 
trying to decide something like this, he thought about the Thousand 
And One, trying to remember all the cases in which strangers were 
picked up along the trail side. Sometimes it turned out well, 
sometimes very, very bad, but always more interesting. That was how 
the Thousand And One was with most things, which was the big problem 
with using it as a guide.
"Okay, get in. Welcome."

The old man hunched in the back seat, eyes locked on the two piglets. 
He gave no indication whether he knew what they were, or was just 
suspicious of them out of principle.
"Was it the second water tower after the Doha Spur where we're 
supposed to look for the marks, or the third?"
Ali rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're planning to get us lost 
already. No, I'm sure it was the second, which if I'm not mistaken is 
that dusty specimen right there."
They turned off next to the faded inverted cone of concrete and found 
the line of white flour pointing down a poorly-maintained asphalt 
track leading straight into the night. Rashid had driven the Captain 
and Laxman out earlier in the afternoon, marking the path for the 
others as they drove. Yasser had preferred to travel alone; he said 
he had a lot to carry. Katie accelerated down the track, scanning the 
shoulder for more flour as their headlights passed over it.
"Excellent," said Ali, "they should have most of the camp set up by 
the time we get there. Rashid sounded confident about being able to 
get tents and other supplies, and I'm inclined to trust him on such 
matters."
Katie frowned. "I've been meaning to ask you about that. Rashid. Last 
night he was sounding a bit zealous, eh?"
"Ah, you refer to his dreams of usurpment and conquest. I wouldn't 
let him worry me, he's young and he's a Sabah. We can squash his 
enthusiasm if it starts to be a problem, I know I didn't get into 
this for politics or guerilla warfare."
She leaned back and tapped the wheel. "So what is your excuse? I 
know, irrefutable sense of purpose yadda yadda, but really. You never 
added to the list last night, in fact you were almost as quiet as 
Yasser."
"I happen to know that if I asked you that question, you would say 
you're 'just along for the ride.'" Katie's blink told him he'd read 
her correctly. "I guess I could say the same thing. I'm just a lover 
of stories, and whatever may happen to us I think I'm going to be 
able to tell an extraordinary one when it's all over. Let the 
enthusiastic ones take the wheel, I say."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Silence Of The Desert

The stretch of desert was remote from humanity, but not from the 
artefacts of human civilization. It had been previously used by the 
United States military stationed at Camp Doha and other, less 
publicized locations as an empty space to dump supplies and equipment 
they no longer needed. Judging by the look of it, they must have 
requisitioned an awful lot more tires than were necessary at some 
point in the past. Heavily treaded tires of all sizes, some of 
ridiculous enormity, were scattered half-buried in the sand as far as 
the eye could see. In between the tires lay an equal abundance of 
empty ammunition boxes, looking like miniature houses built in a 
miniature landscape of black basalt rocks and soft moon shadows. The 
makeshift camp lay in a hollow between two low ridges in the midst of 
the dump, lit by the Ramadan moon and a blazing campfire. A dark 
Bedouin-style tent had been set up with some reinforcement from a few 
of the tires, boxes of supplies and jerry-cans of water lined up 
along one side. The four figures sitting on tires around the fire and 
the many smaller figures sitting on every available perch in the 
hollow were lit up even brighter for a short time by the headlights 
of a second SUV as it pulled up alongside the one that already sat 
parked at the foot of one ridge.

Ali and Katie jumped down onto the sand, their passenger climbing out 
of the backseat with difficulty. They left the headlights burning for 
the moment and walked to the edge of the fire. The four sitting 
around the fire looked at the strange old man; the new arrivals 
looked at the dozens of cats crouched all over the campsite. Nobody 
in either group saw fit to make a comment. Katie signaled to the 
group to follow her, leading them past the myriad stares of cats to 
one of the larger tires leaning up against the hillock opposite the 
tent. They all helped to tip the huge piece of debris on its side and 
roll it a short distance from the tent, letting it fall in a flat 
spot with a cloud of dust.

The two pigs were fetched and put in their new temporary pen with a 
carrot each and a blanket on top protecting them from the chilly air 
of a desert night. The group returned to the circle of firelight and 
joined the old man, pulling up extra tires. Still none of them 
talked. A white cat padded over and hopped up next to Yasser without 
a sound; another, a skinny black kitten with large ears, was curled 
up in Ali's lap before he'd even noticed it. A few other cats 
approached, but most kept at a safe distance from the flames despite 
the smells wafting in their smoke. The source of these smells was a 
grill set up over one side, pieces of chicken laid out on it. The 
Captain poked at one of them with a skewer meditatively. Rashid 
looked at the wizened stranger sitting next to him and then at Ali, 
arching his eyebrows. Ali shrugged. Rashid looked at Katie. Katie 
shrugged. Rashid shrugged. A stray breeze blew through the cinders of 
the camp fire, causing a miniature tornado of glowing ashes to dance 
over the sand to Yasser and dash itself to pieces against his rubber 
seat, scaring the white cat away. Laxman got up to go to the 
bathroom.

A desert runner skittered behind one of the seats and grabbed a crumb 
of bread from their earlier meal in its serrated mandibles. A desert 
runner was a large black species of ant with very long legs. They 
survived in the harsh environment by covering exceptionally large 
territories in their nightly search for plant seeds and other bits of 
food, rushing over the sand at an incredible speed--for an animal of 
their size, at least. This particular runner had strayed even farther 
than usual from her nest tonight; she had not done so for any real 
reason involving the camp or its human and feline inhabitants, merely 
based on whatever inscrutable whims drove the mind of an ant. Now 
that she had found her prize of bread, she could not quite remember 
how to return to her home and sisters. She sniffed the ground with 
her five noses, trying to trace the scent of her own passage, but so 
many different and unfamiliar vapors filled the air--smoke, burning 
flesh, the various smells of large mammals--that even ten noses would 
not have been up to the task. The truth was, her tiny brain was 
overloaded. The runner fled from the light and smoke for clearer 
regions where she could get herself sorted out properly. Out there 
the lizards danced, leaving the rippling tracks of their passage 
crisscrossing between the military detrius as they hunted with 
ruthless skill. But she was not afraid; it is a fact that an ant 
fears nothing on Earth.

Laxman returned to the fireside and sat down. He threw another three 
pieces of wood--slats from an old packing crate stamped with cryptic 
military abbreviations, scavenged from another part of the dump--onto 
the coals and the dying flames sprang back with renewed vigor, 
catching a hapless chicken wing in their hungry embrace. The Captain 
did not reveal any hard feelings as he stabbed the burning wing on 
his metal skewer, blew it out, and cast it over his shoulder. This 
was the starting flag for a brief race among the nearest eight cats, 
won by a fierce-looking tom with a truncated tail. He sauntered off 
into the hillocks with his only-half-charred prize, stubby tail held 
as high as he could manage, followed closely by two other hopeful 
cats. Katie started as if she had suddenly remembered something 
important. The others watched with interest as she lifted the  double 
black ring and white cloth of her gatra off her head and tossed them 
both into the fire; the cloth disintegrated instantly, sending black 
flecks rising and floating away in the column of hot air, while the 
ring simply smouldered. They all smiled at her in what they hoped was 
an encouraging and accepting manner, except for the old man, who just 
didn't do that sort of thing even when he did know what was going on.

They sat for a while longer, Ali, Katie and their elderly ward 
partaking of the chicken once the Captain deemed it well-roasted. 
They threw their bones to the cats and leaned back away from the 
heat, satiated. Several of the group took to stargazing, a worthwhile 
pursuit way out here where the heavens were so full and visible 
despite the near-full phase of the moon. Yasser tracked orbital 
satellites as they fell across the span of stars, watching three pass 
over before working out what they actually were. Closer to the 
horizon, airplanes blinked their way along on unknown errands. Still 
the hush persisted. Laxman understood the meaning of their collective 
silence perfectly well--they had arrived, nothing more needed to be 
said for now. All of their discussion and preparation had come down 
to this camp fire in this little hollow; they were independent from 
Kuwait now, everything they did would be for themselves and on their 
own decision. The doing itself could wait, though. They had won--he 
had too, at least won his safety. Still, the quiet was starting to go 
on longer than necessary and honestly it was kind of boring. Maybe 
this was the point at which everyone wanted to talk, but nobody 
wanted to be the first. He decided to say something and get it over 
with.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Camp Grain

"You should go take a look at the tent, the Captain and I set 
everything up. It's more than just a shelter, in fact we incorporated 
several wow facets." That hadn't quite come out right; this talking 
thing was harder after a long break. It sounded like something Ali 
would say.

Ali raised an eyebrow. That phrasing must have worked a lot better in 
Hindi, he thought to himself. "Okay... I look forward to them. It." 
Were they allowed to talk now? Might as well dive right in, this was 
turning into some kind of absurd coolness contest. "Alright! Enough! 
I surrender. What is with all of the cats?"
Rashid grinned a wide grin of victory. "Funny you should ask. You 
already know who we have to thank for them, I trust, so I'll let him 
explain the concept."
Yasser rubbed his arm nervously, trying to remember how he was going 
to put it. "Well, you know what they say about people and societies. 
That people are at their best when broken up into small groups of 
between thirty-five and fifty, because that's how we've lived through 
most of our history. In the savannah and stuff, you know. That's what 
anthropologists say, thirty-five to fifty. I read an article about 
it, our brains and social instincts are all built for living in 
tribes that big. So I thought, you know, that if we're starting our 
own thing out here then our group was too small by a lot. So I filled 
in the difference with some of my cat friends."
In most situations the digestive silence would have lasted for 
minutes, but everyone was in a particularly accepting mood tonight, 
and besides, they'd had enough silence for one night already.
"Right. How many, exactly?" Ali asked.
"Well the mean value of thirty-five and fifty is forty-two, minus six 
of us equals thirty-six cats. I didn't know you were planning on 
bringing a friend as well, so I didn't account for him."
Katie gave her first input, sounding just a bit underappreciated. 
"What about Pink and Floyd... the pigs, I mean?
"I thought about that, but I don't think we count any of the pigs as 
part of our tribe when we're planning on, you know, killing them."
A matter of more practical relevance struck Ali. "How did you get 
them all out here?" As soon as he'd asked the question, he remembered 
the open-backed truck a few kilometers back along the unpaved desert 
track that Katie and he had commented on--it had been stuck firmly in 
a patch of deep sand. "Oh, never mind, we saw your transport. I guess 
we can pull it out in the daylight."
Yasser scratched his neck sheepishly. "Yeah thanks, I think it's 
stuck. Any more questions? You can learn all of their names later."
Katie had started to worry about something, so she spoke up. "Won't 
this many predators have a bad impact on the local environment?" The 
Ali laughed at her concern for the ecosystem. He raised the empty 
ammunition box Rashid had been using as a small table. "Local 
environment indeed. This isn't nature, it's a dump--a man-made 
wasteland. There may be a few bugs and lizards out there, but the 
cats aren't going to damage anything that the sheep and the United 
States Army haven't already destroyed, right Yasser?"
Yasser nodded. The fire burned lower.

Ali slapped his thob-covered knee, waking up the kitten curled in his 
lap. It yawned and fell back asleep. "So it's settled, this farm 
shall be a haven for cats and humans alike to live in harmony. The 
next order of business then is what we should call our little 
community."
"No," Laxman cut in, "the next order of business is who in Kali's 
name is this old man?" They all looked to the sullen stranger wrapped 
in his thin shawl; he continued to steadfastly ignore them in favor 
of the flickering light of the flames and his string of black prayer 
beads.
"Nobody really," Katie answered, "he just asked to come with us and 
we didn't have the heart to turn him down. A crazy old man won't be 
any more trouble to have around than a bunch of cats, especially if 
he's planning to sit on his tire and do nothing like this all the 
time."
"Alright, you can keep him, but don't expect us to look after him for 
you," replied Rashid mockingly.
Ali couldn't remember any more why they had decided to bring the man 
along, and he wasn't about to back Katie up on the decision. It was 
her idea in the first place. Right now he was more interested in 
giving this place a proper name.
"As I was saying, a naming. Does anyone present know of the title 
Grain?" he asked with gravity.
Yasser raised his hand. "Isn't that what Kuwait is called on the 
really old maps?"
"Yes, precisely. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century it 
was the common European spelling for Al-Qurain, the original name of 
Kuwait. Qurain means 'small hill', of course, and Kuwait is 'small 
fort'. So I was thinking, if we're symbolically starting over, we 
could call our farm by the old title. We do have a bit of a small 
hill here, two in fact." He gestured to the gravelly ridges that 
shielded their camp.
Rashid frowned. "Then why use the European version? What's wrong with 
Al-Qurain?"
Ali shrugged. That was the tricky part; to be honest he really just 
liked the way 'Grain' sounded. "That name has already been taken, 
both for the original city and more recently for the thoroughly 
nondescript new housing development in the south of town. It really 
made me wax exceedingly wroth when they announced that, I can tell 
you. Grain on the other hand was never the real title of anywhere, 
just a semi-mythical spot on some Dutch and English sea charts."
"I for one like it," said Laxman, "Camp Grain sounds very... 
fertile." He turned as if to survey the sandblown expanse of debris 
surrounding them. "Optimistic." He raised a hand which was followed 
by six other hands, including Rashid's (who saw the wisdom in Ali's 
point) and, surprisingly, the old man's bony fingers. He still didn't 
give any indication that he understood or was even paying attention 
to them; he was probably just raising it out of some confused reflex. 
Whatever the case, the name was decided.

Excepting the old man the circle stood and broke up, having covered 
the salient points of explanation and decision. Rashid and the 
Captain departed with flashlights to find more firewood to have in 
stock for the pre-dawn hours and the early morning meal. Katie fed 
the pigs from one of the sealed buckets of various grain meals and 
slightly over-ripe vegetables scavenged from the market that she had 
brought along in the back of her SUV. Ali went to the Bedouin tent to 
discover the nature of its 'wow facets'--which he did in fact find 
suitably impressive--while Laxman helpfully unloaded Katie's baggage 
and pig farming-related equipment. Yasser wandered around the 
outskirts of the hollow checking on the cats and making notes in his 
book. They looked to be settling in well to their new environment. 
This would normally be too high a concentration of cats in one spot 
to expect much peace, but under his aegis they were learning to get 
along. He was surprised that none of his human companions had made 
the obvious comment: Felis catus is not a very social species, at 
least not on the thirty-five-to-fifty scale of Homo sapiens. But this 
group were going to learn, if Yasser had anything to do with it.

The Abbess trotted alongside him, meowing softly; Green-Eyes, Maagi 
The Loquacious and Obsidian followed not far behind. He had brought 
to Camp Grain most of the cats he regularly kept up with in the city, 
but he hadn't put too big a dent in the overall population--there 
were arguably more cats than people in Kuwait. It really was their 
city; the people were just a resource they lived off of, as the 
humans themselves lived off the oil beneath the ground. That was one 
point he was always trying to make on the website. He felt a brief 
moment of regret for having to abandon the Kuwait Feline Chronicles, 
the page he habitually updated on a daily basis with pictures and 
stories from the real Kuwait, the city between the city. That was 
just a hobby anyway, that and the online cat-lovers' forums on which 
he spent so much time discussing matters feline with people who 
usually annoyingly insisted on thinking of cats as nothing more than 
house-pets. The University was an even less important hobby, one that 
he felt no such compunction for leaving behind; some of the biology 
he found interesting, but he'd rather be a pig farmer than work for 
the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research any day.

Maagi The Loquacious sped ahead of him towards some random spot in 
the night with a burst of speed. Yasser hoped the cats wouldn't cause 
any real problems for Camp Grain, or begin to create discord. They 
shouldn't trouble the pigs at all--this bunch were only used to 
hunting garbage scraps and the occasional lizard, they gave a wide 
berth to anything close to their own size that didn't smell quite 
right. There would be a bit of extra expense for food on the weekly 
city runs they were planning to schedule, but if that girl--he should 
have asked her real name now that she was a girl--was to be believed 
then they would be rolling in pork money before long. Maagi The 
Loquacious returned to his entourage proudly, a thin scaly whip of a 
tail swinging to and fro between her front teeth.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Firewood

The Captain wasn't going near anything metallic unless he could tell 
by looking at it exactly what it was. Take that sinister scrap 
glinting in the flashlight beam: it looked like a bent spoon, but how 
could he be sure? The Military shouldn't be getting rid of their land 
mines or cluster bombs or daisy-cutters out here, but you could never 
trust those Americans with anything, least of all your life. It would 
be just like them to leave some live warheads or vials of anthrax and 
smallpox lying around in the sand. Only a runaway camel might step on 
anything in this stretch of desert, that and a pig farmer searching 
for firewood in the middle of the night.

Rashid leaned over and picked up the metal scrap as he walked past, 
not exploding in a maelstrom of searing heat. He grinned darkly and 
held up the benign device.
"Just as I feared, the Americans have been training an elite corps of 
psychic warriors out at Camp Doha! They must be using their growing 
telekinetic powers to slowly take over Kuwait even as we speak!"
The Captain tried to ignore the smartass and get his heart rate back 
to normal. That kid was going to blow them both to pieces next time. 
So many potential disasters, so little wood; they would definitely 
have to start bringing it in with their weekly loads. No problem, the 
construction sites all over the city were full of leftover scraps. He 
walked around the side of a mammoth tire that lay in their path and 
shone his beam about hopefully. Nothing but those damned metal 
bullet-boxes and two suspiciously land-mine-like steel lumps. 
"Whatever you do, do not touch those things. I'm sure that's what a 
mine looks like." Wait, where was the smartass now? Rashid was 
running ahead, light beam fixed on the listing skeleton of some 
rickety structure just up ahead.

Rashid had guessed well; the old frame was built entirely of nailed-
together wooden beams and boards, dried and warped from the desert 
sun. It had once been a shelter or shed of some sort, probably older 
than the dump itself. They climbed inside, testing each board 
cautiously, stepping on the foundation beams where the floor had 
collapsed down to the sand beneath. Rashid pried at a piece, pleased 
with himself. "Oh yeah, that's a lot of wood! We can go for months on 
this! Excellent." The Captain liked wood as much as the next guy, but 
he didn't know if the find was worth such celebration. Rashid sounded 
like he'd just struck oil--although that expression was rarely heard 
around Kuwait, where even wood was scarcer than oil. He yanked a 
board off the two rusted nails that held it with a noisy crack. No 
sense in carrying more than was necessary for tonight; someone else 
could walk down tomorrow and haul back all they wished if they really 
wanted to stock up.

The two scavengers quickly piled up two small bundles of loose wood 
which they fastened with some cord they had brought along from camp. 
The Captain circled the outside of the structure, trying to guess 
what purpose it might once have served. Something shone in his light 
beneath the broken floorboards--definitely not an explosive device 
this time, but it was a weapon: a Military-type folding knife. Must 
be some special Military name for those, but he'd be damned if he 
knew what it was. He picked it up, messed around with it a bit, and 
stuck it in his pocket. It was good quality, not the least bit 
rusted. He climbed through the middle of the creaking structure and 
back to the front where the smartass was waiting for him.
"Ready to carry this back? Or does the wood look more woody on the 
other side?"
The Captain ignored the comment--he could take sarcasm, but it had to 
be at least remotely clever. A travesty like that just showed a lack 
of respect. He picked up the smaller of the two bundles and began 
tracing his steps back in the direction of Camp Grain.

Rashid hurried to catch up with him, jumping over a tire with his 
wood clacking together. He switched the strap to his right hand to 
keep the bundle from hitting the expensive mobile he still wore 
hooked on his belt. This guy was too much. The Captain pointed to the 
phone. 
"Please don't tell me you can use that thing out here."
"Nah, no coverage this far out. I just forget it's there most of the 
time."
"Thank God, I don't think I would have been able to handle it if you 
were to suddenly get a call while sitting by the fire. It would drive 
me to throw it into the flames right away."
Rashid gave a somewhat nervous giggle. "It's not that bad, some 
modern technology can be useful. Don't fight it and you may find that 
your life becomes a bit easier."
"Modern, eh. Don't forget that we're pig farmers now, and we may 
still be pig farmers after that city with all its mobile phones falls 
to pieces."
The smartass looked at him more seriously. "So you're one of the 
doomsayers. I know, the oil will run out sometime, sooner rather than 
later the way the government's giving it away. But these guys are 
smart--I should know, most of them are in my family. I find it hard 
to believe that Kuwait will just disappear. Not that I wouldn't like 
to see that happen sometimes."
The Captain looked to the heavens; he'd had this exact same 
discussion a hundred times, on a hundred sunny boat cruises, with a 
hundred arrogant Kuwaitis. Arrogant and blind. 
"No offense, but all your family's clever foreign investments aren't 
worth a damn. Do you know anything about desalination plants?"
"You mean the sea-water treatment places? What about them?" He had 
his attention now.
"Those plants are the only thing keeping that goddamned city alive. 
If they were shut down, Kuwait would be as abandoned as Failaka 
Island within a week. You can't run a city without water, and you 
can't run a desalination plant without a whole shitload of oil to 
power it. Don't try to argue on that, I have friends in the business. 
It takes a whole shitload."
"So that's it, when the oil goes the water will go with it?" Still 
sounded a bit skeptical.
"Hah, it wouldn't even take that. Desal plants are fragile beasts."
"What, now you're saying some sort of terrorists might blow them up? 
That is a bit hard to swallow, surely they could build more."
"Shut up and listen, kid. Desal plants get clogged up fast if the 
water's not clean and clear. Let's say there was an oil spill off the 
coast, maybe not such a stretch considering the number of tankers 
running in and out. That would do the trick for a good long while, 
make the place uninhabitable for years."
"Then?" Rashid had stopped walking and set his firewood on an ammo 
box.
"How I see it, the oil field villages would probably stay for as long 
as the pumping was good--maybe the pig farms too, hehe--but the city 
and all its crap would be done for good. The Kuwaitis would still 
have their investments and oil revenues but they'd be settled 
somewhere nice over in Europe and coming back to this shithole 
wouldn't sound so nice after a couple summers in Rome. There are 
bigger groups of refugees than that in the world, take it from a 
Hebron boy. And not filthy rich ones, either."
The astounded look on the Sabah kid's face vindicated his theory. 
This was a kid who knew the Kuwaiti mindset inside and out, and he 
knew the Captain was absolutely right.
"It would be so easy... everything would be gone. Kuwait sure is 
lucky that you're not a terrorist."

They hefted their loads again and continued following their 
footprints in reverse, the twin parallel hills of Camp Grain becoming 
obvious only once they drew very close. They would all have to be 
careful when straying from camp, it would be a cinch to get 
hopelessly lost out here.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Fur And Freedom Fighters

Ali stumbled out of the spacious Bedouin-style tent, dazzled by the 
ingenuity of its wow facets. How did the Indian come up with all that 
stuff? He couldn't imagine that the Captain had had much to do with 
it. That one facet with the... Wow, it boggled the mind. Blinking 
away the darkness, he could see Laxman and Katie taking inventory 
over by the cars; he gave them a thumbs-up and headed to the opposite 
end of camp, where he thought he could just make out Yasser looking 
after his precious cats. He felt like it was his duty to make the 
diffident 'reporter' feel more comfortable, maybe even get him to 
talk a bit more. He was definitely an interesting specimen.

"So Tail Must Die is the champion lizard hunter around Grain, eh? 
We'll see about that. I have a funny feeling the Thief may give him a 
run for his money. I've seen her catch rats half her size back on 
Mubarak Al-Kabeer Street." The guy was either chatting to himself, or 
to a brown-striped cat with a missing ear; Ali couldn't decide which 
would be stranger. He kicked an ammo box clumsily so as not to sneak 
up on him.  Yasser turned around to see who was approaching, as did 
the cat he seemed to be conversing with. "Oh, hi. Just checking on 
the tribe. This is the Dude. Haha, it's just a name from a movie I 
saw right before I met him, seemed to fit. Some of the names are kind 
of stupid, but I have to call them something."
That was the most he'd ever heard Yasser say at one time, excepting 
his famous 'thirty-five to fifty' speech. He seemed much more 
easygoing around the cats, a few degrees less of an introvert. Ali 
bent over with his hands on his knees and looked the Dude in the eye. 
The ugly cat blinked.
"The Dude, eh. I don't think I'll have any trouble remembering that 
face."
"Hah, true. I happen to know he had a nasty run-in with a garbage 
truck. It was his own fault for falling asleep in the dumpster like 
that. Not the smartest feline in Bnaid Al-Gar, but strong enough to 
take on anycat in a fight, and lazy enough not to."
Ali wondered how much of this he was making up. "How do you know 
about the garbage truck? Did you see it happen, or did the Dude... 
tell you?"
Yasser rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'm not crazy! Sure, I may talk to 
the cats every once in a while, but unfortunately I've never heard 
one talk back. I am a reporter though, and I know how to sniff out my 
story--In the Dude's case I knew his tendency for sleeping where he 
ate, so I interviewed the garbage men."

The black kitten with the big white ears hopped out from the hollow 
of a tire and rushed over, kicking sand behind it, flopping down in 
front of Ali with a demanding meow. He picked it up and scratched 
behind its voluminous ears, but it had other ideas--it climbed up his 
arm to his shoulder and then to the top of his checked gatra-covered 
head where it splayed out, feet dangling, scanning the distant inky 
horizon. Yasser chuckled at Ali's surprise. "Ears Of Destiny--she 
seems to be picking up a bit of human imprinting. I guess that's only 
to be expected in our new multi-species society of Camp Grain."
Ali looked up, seeing only a single paw hanging into his field of 
vision. "And here I thought she was just being a kitten."
"Oh no, a kitten who acted like that around every human who came 
along wouldn't last two minutes in the streets. She's acting like a 
pet kitten."
"You don't like the p-word, then. Funny for a guy with thirty-six of 
them." That had come out sounding a bit more confrontational than 
he'd meant it to. Yasser wrinkled his nose in distaste at the remark.
"I don't own any of them. You can't own a cat, even if you think you 
do. They would get on just as well without me. I just follow them 
around and look for their stories. You do the same thing with humans, 
does that make them your pets?"
Ooh, this guy was more perceptive than he looked. Ali clapped three 
times.
"Well said. I think the only difference between us it that you're 
actually succeeding in finding the stories--maybe it's time for me to 
switch species too."
Yasser walked a few meters to a lone cluster of upended tires and sat 
down. This discussion was about to get heavy.

"I gave up on the people in Kuwait a while ago. The way I see it, 
stories come out of facing adversity and even tragedy. Heaven is a 
place where nothing ever happens, as they say. When people find 
themselves in almost total control over their surroundings--as in 
Kuwait--they get comfortable, and they lose the spark of... 
whatever."
Ali had never thought of the problem in quite that way. He had 
thought about it in plenty of other ways, of course.
"And that's when mundanity vanquishes all of the heroes and villains 
alike in one cruelly indifferent sweep of its razor-sharp sword."
"I... guess you could say that. Our Al-Sabah friend may beg to differ 
on the 'villains' point though."
Ali kicked an ammo box over on its side. "Come on! Politics is 
something else entirely. I don't know about you, but I have no 
intentions of signing up for any utopian revolutions. That sort of 
thing is only good for high farce and tragicomedy, and only when 
someone else is doing it."
Yasser gestured to the upset green metal case. "So what about all 
that then? The glory of battle? Kuwait's seen a bit of it in past 
decades."
He hoped the reporter was just trying to provoke his thinking with a 
bit of friendly debate and didn't actually believe what he was 
saying.
"Glory... Maybe once, long ago. Even the Thousand and One hardly 
mention a single act of warfare, and there was more than enough going 
on in those days. When it's spoken of it is as a disaster of nature, 
something the story continues despite of. And that was long before 
the days of shock-and-awe, air strikes and computer-controlled 
drones, not to mention propaganda-by-deed."
"What's that last one? I read a lot of Iraq news on the 'net, but 
that's one strategy I haven't heard of."
"Nor would I have expected you to. It is the sole legacy of a 
forgotten group of 19th-century Russian anarchists, but the original 
name of the tactic has been largely lost to History. The Tsar's own 
propagandists coined another, much catchier term for it: terrorism."
Yasser stared for a short interlude at the ammunition box, which now 
had a cat sitting on it as if eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Okay, so war is just politics with a bigger blast radius. I 
definitely agree with that. But aren't there some stories that come 
out of it? What about the Kuwaiti freedom fighters who went 
underground in ninety-one, dying for their families against hopeless 
odds? I was young then and I was sent out of the country like most, 
but I remember the legendary image they had."
"That reminds me of the words Charles Mackay wrote about one of the 
later Crusades: that it was 'sung of only, but never spoken of'. No, 
sorry, that's far too harsh! Pardon me for not being able to pass up 
a good quotation. I'll have to concede this point--they did what they 
had to do, and gave their lives nobly. That's a story. It's just not 
the sort of story I prefer, and I find it hard to believe that 
warfare is the only way out of the mundane. Now let's change the 
subject before you try and ask me the same question about the Iraqi 
freedom fighters. What are you anyway, Rashid's recruitment 
officer?!"
Yasser stood. "No hard feelings, just making conversation. I can see 
the two of us think much alike--why do you think I like cats, with 
their lack of combat on all but the most personal scale? Speaking of 
cats, I have three more to track down now. You can come along if you 
want."

They spotted the three sets of glowing yellow eyes not far away. A 
dark brown cat with an unusually long-haired tail, a white one with 
almost no tail, and a yellow one with a perfectly normal tail. Yasser 
indicated each one in turn. "Sparrow, Mighty Paw and Flycatcher. 
Having a men's Diwaniya by the looks of it--usually wherever Sparrow 
is the Abbess is nearby." He wrote something to that effect in his 
notebook. The three tomcats got up off their haunches and circled 
them with quiet meows. After a few revolutions they stopped short, 
seeing someone else approaching. It was Rashid and the Captain 
returning from their firewood search--a very successful one, by the 
looks of the bundles they were carrying. The Captain was wearing what 
appeared to be a soldier's helmet.
"Hail, Grainites. I see you found some headgear out in the wastes, as 
well as an abundance of fuel."
The Captain squinted at him. "Yeah, your headgear is classy too, but 
I don't think it would protect you as well from shrapnel."
Ali looked upwards, noticing once more the paw dangling over the edge 
of his gatra.
"Oh my! I'd completely forgotten about Ears Of Destiny. Fast asleep, 
I imagine?"
Rashid squinted as well at the mention of the sleeping kitten's name. 
"Nice one Yasser. Now if you will excuse us, we were planning to take 
this rather heavy wood to the fire and get it going again."
The four walked back towards the light of the little camp together, 
Sparrow, Mighty Paw and Flycatcher following alongside. A fire would 
feel good right about now; the chill in the air was building.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
No Worries

They may have to make their first run into town sooner than they had 
planned. It was hard to believe the amount of stuff none of them had 
given the slightest thought to bring with them; now that they were 
out here, it all seemed so obvious. Laxman helped himself to another 
chocolate biscuit from the package between him and Katie--that was 
one thing they had managed to bring more than enough of, biscuits.
"Who brought all these things? There must be a dozen different boxes, 
and I know I'm not responsible for any of them."
Katie took one for herself, biting off half and talking with her 
mouth full. "Don't look at me. I can't believe we would remember choc 
biscuits and forget all about matches. We'd be living off the 
biscuits alone if Rashid hadn't had his lighter, though I still don't 
understand why he does have a lighter when he claims not to smoke."
They were lounging against one side of the tent, contemplating the 
wow-befaceted space in the dim glow of a single lantern. One of these 
days they would have to break down and buy a generator, but for now 
everyone in the group seemed happy enough to live more simply and 
primitively in exchange for a bit of peace and quiet.
"It's bloody wonderful out here though, isn't it?" Katie sighed, 
"we're on our own now, living the desert life, being what we want to 
be, taking things the way they come. It would be nice to have some 
alcohol though, I'm damned thirsty."
Laxman laughed. "Then brew some of your own right here in the Grain 
Brewery, I'm sure the Captain wouldn't complain. Isn't that what all 
you Westerners do?"
"Now you're thinking. I might have to bring some gear out and give it 
a try, even though my few attempts so far have been disasters on a 
monumental scale."She ate the rest of her biscuit. Laxman felt a lot 
more comfortable around her now that she was an admitted female, 
wearing jeans and a sweatshirt sporting the logo of some running club 
in Perth. It didn't seem so much like she was trying to hide 
something from them all the time. In fact, he was growing more 
attached to the whole group--he may not really be any closer to his 
goal in the lands of India, but he had definitely landed on his feet.
"So what do you think," he asked, "is Camp Grain it? Is all of this 
what we felt at the Towers two nights ago?"
She stared at the sliver of moonlight shining around the front flap 
of the tent for a long while. Perhaps he should have worked out a 
better segue from home-brewing to Destiny. He answered for her.
"I've been wondering about that since you and Yasser came up with the 
idea, and I definitely can't say I've felt the same feeling yet, but 
I am excited about this place. Maybe it's just because we've actually 
done something for real. Then again, it doesn't feel wrong at all--
one would think that if this really wasn't what the gods had in mind, 
they would make things very difficult for us."
Katie stood and brushed chocolate-flavored crumbs off of her 'Perth 
H3' sweatshirt. "No worries. Let's get off our bums and go see if the 
others need our help with anything. You'll have to tell me about your 
gods sometime, I know far too little about the Hindu religion."

They emerged from the tent and stood contemplating the glowing embers 
of the campfire.
"Hey," Katie exclaimed, "the weird old guy's finally moved from his 
tire. Wonder where he's gone off to." He followed her around the 
perimeter of the campsite, peering into the gloom. "Hey, old guy!" 
she shouted. "I don't even know what his name is. I'd feel horrid if 
he fell into a hole or something."
Eventually they circled around to the makeshift pigpen. The thick 
wooly blanket they had used to cover it from the wind was lying in a 
dusty heap to one side. They dashed up to the huge tire and peered 
inside; Floyd looked back at them glumly, snorting. The female was 
nowhere in the pen.
"So," Laxman said to the openmouthed Katie, "you were saying you 
wanted to learn something about my gods?"



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Karma

The four other remaining human inhabitants of Camp Grain dropped the 
bundles of wood they were carrying between them and came running when 
they heard Katie's shouted profanities of rage. They took one look 
into the pigpen and understood the implications of her state of fury 
at once.
"Did it escape?" Ali asked unhelpfully.
"No! That old bastard stole Pink! Son of a... "
"Settle down," Rashid intervened, "how far could he seriously have 
walked out here carrying a pig? He's like ninety."
Katie considered that point and took some comfort in it, quieting 
down. Then Ali ruined it for her.
"That depends on whether he's just confused or has some sort of plan 
in mind," he answered to Rashid's rhetorical question. "If he 
wandered off into the desert, he shouldn't have gotten too far. If he 
was thinking straight at all, though, he would have headed for 
Yasser's truck. You left the keys in it, right?"
Yasser closed his eyes painfully. "Yes, thank you for reminding me. I 
thought... I thought we would go right back to pull it out or 
something, but then I got into helping set up camp and... "
"That's right! It was stuck!" cried Katie, "one old man couldn't get 
it out!"
That was true, Laxman thought, it would be a challenge. Maybe not 
altogether impossible, though. "One of us should drive down and 
check--the rest can search around here, look for a trail or 
something. The old man's probably stumbling around just on the other 
side of the ridge somewhere."
"Good leadership skills, man," Rashid said and started walking to the 
two SUVs at the far end of the camp. "I'll be back in a minute."

Laxman walked with Yasser to the top of the steep ridge. Since nobody 
knew the elderly pig-napper's name anyway, they decided it was best 
to just be quiet and not scare him away; there was no way to be sure 
he really wanted to be found. Laxman had to admit that Yasser was a 
whole lot better at the whole stealth thing, moving up the loose 
scree of the hillside without a sound like, well, a cat. It was easy 
to see where he had learned his tricks. Laxman's foot in its cheap 
tennis shoe slipped and caused a small noisy avalanche of stones and 
sand. Indra curse these shoes! Yasser turned and shrugged silently.
"Don't worry too much about being stealthy, I'm just doing it out of 
habit. Our friend didn't look to me like someone who could hear us 
from very far away."
Laxman whispered back, "true, and even if he does I think we can 
manage to catch up with him somehow. Katie's over-reacting a bit, if 
you ask me."
"But you can't argue that if we lose that little pig, we're 
definitely screwed."
They reached the top of the hill and scanned the surrounding 
territory. It wasn't actually as good an idea as it had seemed on the 
spur of the moment--far too dark to see any detail very far away, 
despite the near-full moon. He thought he could make out the shape of 
Yasser's truck a little ways down the desert track, but maybe that 
was just wishful thinking. Those headlight beams were definitely 
Rashid's though, and those smaller flashes in the other direction 
were coming from the other searchers. Oh yes, that would have been a 
good idea.
"We forgot the flashlights, didn't we? I'll go back and get them, 
then we can search on the other side of the hill." Yasser grabbed his 
arm before he could turn to leave. He spoke in a thin, low voice.
"No... trust me on this, we're better off without them. Just open 
your eyes very wide like a cat, concentrate on making maximum use of 
the photons at your disposal. Try not to look directly at the moon or 
any other lights. Your eyes will adjust more than you think."
He wasn't sure this was the place or time for this ninja stuff, but 
his companion seemed to know what he was talking about now; in fact, 
he was looking downright self-confident all of a sudden. The darkness 
was obviously his element. He tried following the advice--what was 
it, don't look at the cats, try to be a photon and maximize the moon? 
No, something like that--but he still couldn't see a thing.
"Rashid's coming back now, and he's driving really fast!" Yasser 
hissed. True, the headlight beams were returning now, bouncing 
frantically.
"You call that fast? I can tell you've never ridden with him. On the 
Fifth Ring Road this afternoon he..."
The stealthy cat-man was already hopping and running down into camp; 
Laxman slid after him amongst a clatter of stones.

They were the first to reach the SUV, and the fact that Rashid was 
still sitting in the driver's seat with the engine running was not 
encouraging. He rolled down the electric window, showing the even 
less encouraging look of supreme annoyance on his face.
"Well the old shit did it, somehow. Please tell me Yasser, was there 
any water in that truck, or just cats?"
Yasser gave a perplexed frown. "Yes, there was one of those... big 
blue plastic things in the back that looked like it was probably full 
of water. It was there when my cousin let me borrow the truck. I 
tried to pull it out before I left home but, but it was too heavy for 
me."
Rashid was in a bad mood over this. "Well it doesn't appear to have 
been too heavy for our ninety-five-year-old friend. There's a patch 
of damp sand now where the truck should have been."
Yasser's eyes, already downcast with shame, widened a little. "So, so 
that's all it takes to get a truck out of loose sand, getting it wet? 
I... I could have had the truck out hours ago. I feel so stupid."
Laxman was skeptical, although he was far from an expert in these 
matters. He'd been stuck in the sand once or twice with his father in 
construction sites around town. "I've never heard of that solution. 
Where did you and the old man learn this?"
"Oh it's well enough known amongst desert drivers, but nobody ever 
mentions it because it requires loads of water to work. Pouring that 
much of your water supplies on the ground in the desert is usually 
dangerously stupid, and seems more than a little sacrilegious too." 
He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I've heard some call it 'the dead 
man's escape.'"
They nodded gravely. These desert drivers really took their safety 
precautions seriously.

Katie, Ali and the Captain all arrived at once, out of breath. Their 
faces fell as well when they saw the gloomy little group.
"So he's gone?"
"Definitely. Nothing but damp sand."
The Captain actually took a step backwards in shock. "You're not 
saying the bloody fool used... the dead man's escape?! He's a 
maniac!"
"I'm afraid so. Only a confused old man would take such a desperate 
step. Poor guy, got to feel sorry for the dotard."
There followed a spontaneous moment of silence, broken after a good 
thirty seconds by Katie. "Alright, what does that mean? You guys are 
scaring me!"
Laxman filled her and Ali in, minus the inflections of doom. "It 
means he poured some water on the sand so he could get unstuck. Now 
he's gone. And he doesn't have any water, I guess."
Katie stamped her foot five times in rage and uttered an 
unintelligible growl. "Any ideas where the asshole might have taken 
my Pink then?"
Rashid bit his lip, thinking. "You're the one who knows everything 
about him. Want to share with the group?"
"Well, we found him on the road up here. Ali was there too. He had 
been driving a big truck and he said he had run into another car..."
"Olive oil," Ali interjected.
"...That's right, his truck was leaking olive oil all over the road. 
He asked..."
"Olive oil!" the Captain exclaimed.
"...That's what I said, it was leaking..."
"Olive oil!" he repeated. "I buy that black-market stuff at Friday 
Market, the guys usually stock it on Saturday mornings and sell out 
within a few hours. It's the cheapest you can get."
"So what does that mean to us?" Rashid asked impatiently. The engine 
was still running.
"There's only one place a man smuggling olive oil would be coming 
from." He pointed in a precise direction that was meaningless to the 
others, who could not read their bearings in the stars. "Basrah."



CHAPTER NINETEEN
The North Road

Yasser didn't know much about SUVs, but he was fairly certain that 
they weren't designed to go quite this fast. They shot up the highway 
at a speed that was only viable because the road was perfectly 
straight for most of its length, stretching across the barren wastes 
to the Iraqi border. This was the continuation of the same highway he 
had driven up coming to Camp Grain earlier in the afternoon; he 
hadn't realized at that time where it eventually headed. The desert 
here looked blank and sparse after the littered expanse around their 
camp--there were a few small shrubs and grasses and the topsoil still 
held in places, but most of it had been turned to sand by years of 
overgrazing. Tendrils of this sand wafted across the road's surface 
in the night breeze, though hopefully not enough had built up yet to 
present a hazard to their rapidly-moving vehicle. Yasser sat in the 
backseat sandwiched between Ali and Laxman, the three of them 
clinging to the front seats for dear life. The Captain was in the 
front next to Rashid, and Katie bounced around in the rear trying to 
calm Floyd's nerves. She had insisted on bringing the male pig along-
-there was no way she was going to lose both halves of her precious 
breeding pair in one night. Yasser wondered for a moment whether he 
should have brought some of the cats, maybe Ears Of Destiny at least. 
No, they were street cats, they could handle themselves for a little 
while. He hoped it would only be a little while anyway.

"So what is our plan here? I mean, I doubt he'll get far before we 
catch up with him at this speed, but supposing he does make it across 
the border... will we follow him all the way?" The way Ali said it 
sounded almost wishful, as if the Basrah at the far end of this 
highway was the same magical city featured in his beloved Thousand 
and One. He would be in for a surprise.
"We'll see. I really doubt we could make it past the border guards 
even if we wanted to, they are Americans and carry very large guns." 
Rashid always had to ruin everyone's fun, didn't he. "We might not 
even get through the checkpoint near the turnoff for the Sulaibkhat 
Desal Plant, if we're really unlucky and it's manned tonight. Those 
guys can be real..."
"TAIL LIGHTS DEAD AHEAAAAAD!" called the Captain in his best nautical 
shout. They covered their ears--that was a tone of voice meant for 
the high seas, not the crowded interior of an SUV. But sure enough, 
there were the red lights of a small truck just winking out over the 
next rise. Rashid accelerated even more--impossible as it seemed--and 
bounced up and down in his seat with a fanged grin of victory. "We've 
got you now, oldster!"
The tail-lights of the truck reappeared and drew closer very rapidly 
until they were upon them.

They screeched to what, in relative terms, seemed like a complete 
halt. The soft, ambient white noise of sand blowing against the side 
of their vehicle could once more be heard over the rushing wind of 
their passage. This old guy wasn't much of a driver. They pulled into 
the opposing lane alongside him and Rashid rolled down his window; 
the man was sitting with two fingers on the wheel, leisurely smoking 
a thin cigarette. The radio was blaring an especially irritating 
mixture of Egyptian oldies and fluctuating static. He turned his 
wrinkled face and squinted at the car next to him.
"Can I help you kids?" He twisted the volume on the radio down a few 
notches.
"Right. Where's the pig?"
"Pig... I don't know anything about pigs. They are dirty creatures, 
unclean in the eyes of the Prophet, peace be upon him."
There was a sharp intake of breath from Katie in the back. "You don't 
suppose he..."
The man continued his prattling. "I've seen them up North, they look 
like giant rats. Those Kurds let them roam wherever they please. If 
we see one in Basrah, we know what to do with it."
Katie held Floyd up to the window. "Where is the other one?" she 
begged. He wouldn't be able to hear her from back here, and she 
hadn't even said it in Arabic, but she looked desperate. The old 
driver flicked his cigarette out the window and looked over his 
shoulder at the animal.
"Oh, you have one of those too! Nice, aren't they? I'm taking one 
home to give to my true love. I didn't know Kuwait had such pretty 
animals."
Rashid looked back at his passengers, nonplussed. "He's taking one 
home... to give to his true love. Whatever that means, I guess we 
know the pig's still alive. Can any of you see into the back of the 
truck?"
 Laxman rolled down his window and stood partially, craning his neck 
outside. "Yes! There's something there in the corner. Did anyone 
bring a flashlight?"
Ali handed him the one he had been carrying since their earlier 
search around Camp Grain. He flicked it on and shone it into the bed 
of the other vehicle. "It's her! Looking a tad frightened, but I 
think she's OK." He sat down again as Katie cheered quietly.
"Do you think we can get him to stop?"
"How about," suggested Ali coolly, "we explain to him that Pink is a 
pig? It's obvious that he doesn't recognize the breed, if he's 
presenting her to his sweetheart. Maybe he would give her back."
That sounded far too sensible for this particular elder, but it was 
worth a try.
"Excuse me sir," Rashid spoke loudly across the gap, "that animal you 
have in the back of your truck is a pig."
The senile old man shook his head and tsked. "Don't be silly. Pigs 
are dirty and black and bristly. This animal is smooth and beautiful, 
oh so beautiful! My true love will be so pleased!" He raised his bony 
hands in rapture, staring at the horizon for a few seconds, then 
grabbed the steering wheel again when his truck began to deviate from 
its course.
"He's a loony!" the Captain said, agape.
"I am not a loony!" he shouted back in English. They all stared. 
Apparently that was the one English phrase he knew.
"Alright, can I run him off the road now please? I promise I'll do it 
safely," Rashid pleaded. Yasser didn't have much faith in anyone's 
concept of 'safe' forced diversion, least of all Rashid's--and 
especially with a target this mercurial. It might be too late for 
that anyway. He spotted the flashing yellow lights spanning the road 
up ahead even before the Captain bellowed another deafening nautical 
cry. "CHECKPOINT, DEAD AHEAAAAAAAD!"
The old man frowned across at them disapprovingly and turned the 
static-laced music broadcast back up to full volume. "No need to 
shout, I'm trying to listen to some music here."



CHAPTER TWENTY
Red Tape

This wasn't a time of night one expected to see much traffic on the 
highway between Southern Iraq and Kuwait, but that was probably the 
very reason the Kuwaiti military had decided to operate the 
checkpoint now--nobody on any decent business would be driving the 
stretch at this hour. Three bored soldiers sat on plastic chairs 
outside the sandblasted concrete hut, playing Kuwaiti checkers on a 
cloth game mat, their rifles leaning against the wall. Thank God at 
least this checkpoint wasn't manned by the Americans, Yasser thought. 
Still, the fact that the Kuwait Army was regarded by most as little 
more than a punchline didn't mean they weren't still screwed. The 
soldiers got up from their game with great annoyance, a gust of wind 
blowing the checked mat off the table and scattering wooden pieces as 
they rose. It was evident in their reactions that this wasn't the 
first time it had happened. One of them delivered a vicious kick to 
the hapless piece of plastic furniture, sending it bouncing into the 
road. The three approached Yasser's truck.

The old man had pulled into the single lane of the checkpoint first, 
blowing the truck's horn long and loud. Yasser strained along with 
his friends to hear what was being said. Right now the guards just 
seemed to be trying to get the old man to turn off the radio.
"They're going to find Pink, aren't they?" Katie whispered.
Ali tapped Rashid on the shoulder. "Please tell me your wasta can get 
us out of this."
He shook his head morosely. "I'm afraid not, the military are just so 
damn self-important. Nothing impresses these guys unless it outranks 
them. I never bothered to make those sorts of connections, the whole 
organization is such a joke anyway. That's why they end up manning 
middle-of-nowhere checkpoints like this in the first place."
One of the soldiers, who was wearing a fur-lined jacket that didn't 
look military-issue at all, walked around to check the back of the 
truck.
Yasser tried to think up a plan, any plan. Heroics would seem to be 
in order now. "I bet I could sneak around the side and cause a 
distraction of some sort."
His companions didn't look too impressed with that one. He 
brainstormed some more. The soldier in front of them was shining his 
flashlight into the truck's bed now, gesturing at the other two to 
have a look.
Ali poked the Captain in the side sharply. "Take that helmet off at 
once! These blackguards are liable to shoot on sight if they see you 
wearing that thing!"
The Captain grudgingly pulled off the soldier's helmet he'd found in 
the junkyard and wedged it between his arm and the seat, shielding 
the spot where he'd been poked.
"Nobody has anything more useful they scavenged out there by any 
chance? A weapon or something?" Yasser grasped at a few straws.
"I do!" the Captain remembered. "I don't know how useful it will be, 
though." He drew an impressive folding knife out of his jacket and 
snapped it open, displaying the fearsome blade.
"Nice find. Maybe I can, I don't know, throw it or something. Then 
they'll think they're under attack," he suggested optimistically.
Rashid was sitting upright now. He opened his own jacket and pulled 
out a lumpy green hand grenade, like something straight off the set 
of an action movie.
"Maybe this will do a better job of convincing them."
The Captain dropped his knife.

The checkpoint guards had obviously decided that whatever the thing 
in the truck was, it was not on their list of permitted livestock. 
The soldier in the fur-lined jacket was trying to capture Pink, but 
they could tell she wasn't letting herself be taken easily. He dodged 
from one side of the truck bed to the other with comical jerky 
movements, grabbing and stumbling several times. He picked her up 
once, but the pig twisted free and gave him a nice kick on the way 
down. The old man had left his seat and was berating the troops 
audaciously from the side of the road.
"So grab the truck and drive when you hear the loud bang, right? You 
can pick me up a little further back," Yasser instructed.
Rashid gave a thumbs up. "No problem. It's a toss-up whether these 
suckers will run off to see what the noise is or just run inside to 
hide under the cot, but either way we should be able to split."
Yasser returned the thumbs up--it just struck him as the right thing 
to do in this situation--and climbed over the seat to join Katie in 
the back. She offered him her flashlight, but he held up his hand in 
refusal. This time he was definitely going to do things properly. He 
checked through the front windshield to see if the coast was clear 
and then opened the rear hatch just wide enough to slide through to 
the asphalt below. Katie pulled it shut with a click.

The five companions sat in tense silence, waiting for the sound of 
the blast. It looked like one of the soldiers was ready to give up on 
the animal in the truck, but his mates were feeling vindictive. One 
had dragged out an old wooden crate that they intended to get the pig 
into, having no better luck than before. He held it up expectantly 
shouting for the guard in the fur-lined jacket to throw the elusive 
prey inside while he scrambled clumsily in the truck bed. The old man 
was in a blind rage, yelling and stamping his feet at the tormentors 
of his 'beautiful animal'. Finally, the third soldier had had enough. 
To the horror of the companions in the car and the piteous wails of 
the old man, he grabbed one of the rifles leaning against the side of 
the hut and tossed it to his mate in the truck.

Yasser scampered over rocks and small emaciated shrubs, trying to 
judge the right distance from the checkpoint and angle to the road 
for his diversion. He crouched as low as he could while running, 
making hardly a sound, thankful for the all-consuming darkness. This 
job was a cinch for him in simple terms of stealth, but the stakes 
were quite a bit higher than the average. All for a pig, no less. He 
could feel the grenade bumping against his leg. Still hard to believe 
that was actually what it was--he'd find out soon enough, anyway.  He 
arced in the direction of what looked like a nice ninety degree angle 
from the checkpoint and tried to judge how far he could throw the 
explosive. That had never been one of his strong points. A round 
silhouette far ahead of him--not a bush after all--wandered a few 
feet to the right. It must be a sheep, strayed from the flock; this 
presented an interesting opportunity. Surely this area had been 
cleared of mines years ago, but nobody completely trusted that 
certification around here, and livestock stumbling on well-hidden 
munitions were not all that uncommon. Poor sheep, it wasn't hurting 
anyone out here, he kind of felt sorry for it. He stopped to consider 
whether this was really worth the sacrifice. To hell with it, these 
sheep were the ones screwing up the desert in the first place. 
"overgrazer," he muttered under his breath and pulled the grenade out 
of his pocket. A loud pop rang out from back at the road; it took him 
a second to realize it was a gunshot. He pulled the pin from the 
grenade and threw it towards the unsuspecting sheep with all the 
accuracy he could muster, running in the opposite direction on an 
intersection path with the road without looking back to see the 
result.

The blast was even louder than any of them had expected, not sounding 
the least bit like any explosion from a movie. The man who had just 
shot Pink tripped over the rear hatch of the truck in surprise and 
fell roughly onto the asphalt; he scrambled to his feet and rushed to 
join the other two soldiers who were already grabbing their own guns. 
They disappeared from view around the side of the concrete hut, 
shouting to each other in panicked voices. Swinging flashlight beams 
receded into the darkness. "Go!" hissed Rashid. The Captain jerked on 
his door handle, scrabbled at the lock, opened it at last and hit the 
road at a run. The old man was tottering back to his truck with a 
profoundly bewildered gawk. He swung open his door uncertainly, not 
sure whether it was time to get in or not. The Captain solved the 
dilemma for him by leaping inside and slamming it closed, twisting 
the ignition, and backing out into a U-turn. By the time the ancient 
smuggler noticed something was wrong once more, both vehicles were 
roaring off to the south.



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Waxing Exceedingly Wroth

Yasser jumped out onto the highway waving his arms. The Captain hit 
the brakes and stopped a few feet short of hitting him. He jumped in 
breathlessly and leaned back, heart pounding, as they screeched off 
again.
He took a few seconds to catch his breath.
"Who... who got shot?"
"The bastards killed Pink!" the driver informed him, pounding the 
seat with his fist.
"That's... bad. Katie's gonna be pissed."

Katie was indeed pissed. After they had put a few kilometers between 
themselves and the scene of the shooting, the endless stream of 
profanities she was uttering from the rear of the SUV finally slowed 
to a trickle.
"Shit." She climbed over the seat into Yasser's spot between Ali and 
Laxman. "Shower of gullwhackers, they're not even worth worrying 
about. I hold everything and everyone in this country responsible for 
that pig's death. Buncha wannabe soldiers." She climbed up to the 
front seat where the Captain had been sitting.
"So," mourned Ali, "our plans are effectively razed to the ground, 
right? Pink's entire nascent dynasty falls with her, and their 
beautiful kingdom of Grain as well."
Rashid laughed a bitter laugh. "Eloquent as ever, Ali. So now we go 
back, clean up camp, and head for home. Then what?"
"We raze Kuwait to the ground as well, if it were up to me." Laxman 
was sick and tired of being the sensible one. Katie and Ali looked at 
him with a little surprise, but Rashid just kept staring at the road.
"Funny you should mention that..."

The two in the truck entertained no hopes of catching up with the 
others as long as Rashid was driving, but they assumed the plan was 
to meet up back at Camp Grain. Or was it the ruins of Grain now? 
Yasser's usual wont in these situations was to start thinking about 
piecing things together and not worry too much about what had already 
happened, but right now all he could see was that silhouetted sheep. 
He'd blown it to pieces, and for what? It was a sacrifice for a lost 
cause--it and the piglet. They were victims of that greatest enemy of 
all: mundanity. They had not been snatched away by some evil villain, 
they had been pointlessly killed by circumstances involving a 
desperate and confused old man and a couple of incompetent border 
guards trying to fulfill the meaningless rules set by the bureaucracy 
of this country. How was either one a noble death? All the Grainites 
and their dreams of building their own life had been defeated by the 
mundanity that gripped all of Kuwait like a creature with a million 
claws.
"I could really do with some Jackson's pefume right now," the Captain 
commented and rubbed his eyes. The sun would be up soon, and it had 
been one hell of a long night.
A muffled ringing noise came from inside the Captain's jacket. He 
felt around in surprise and pulled out his dark blue mobile phone. 
Here on the main road they had some coverage, apparently; they hadn't 
thought about trying that. He tossed the phone to Yasser without even 
looking at the number.
"Here, I can't stand talking and driving at the same time. If it's 
not someone from the other car, please be very rude to them for me."

"Uh... hello?"
"Rashid here. So you made it alright, good."
"Sure."
"I guess you know what happened to the pig then."
"Yeah."
"We're kind of mad about that over here. Do me a favor, ask our 
friend the Captain what he thinks about a little revenge."
"Ok...ay..."
"Catch you later."

Five minutes later Rashid's mobile's polyphonic ringtone system began 
playing the first few bars of a popular hip-hop track. He picked it 
up off the dashboard.

"Well?"
"That sounds like a workable idea."
"Good, we'll plan it for the night after tomorrow. Ali here says he 
has another idea for tomorrow night, something about giving Kuwait 
one last chance to prove its worth."
"What?!"
"I know, that's what I said. I guess it's worth a shot. Stranger 
things have happened."

















ON THE FOURTH NIGHT

       *       *       *       *       *

   "O Prince of True Believers, my story is one which, were it graven 
with needle-gravers upon the eye corners, were a warner for whoso 
would be warned and an example for whoso can take profit from 
example."
   --The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night; translation of Sir 
Richard F. Burton

       *       *       *       *       *

















CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Six Last Chances

Katie drove Rashid, Laxman and the Captain down the Gulf Road, on the 
left the towers of downtown and on the right the facade of the Amir's 
Palace gleaming a radiant white in its magnificent festival regalia. 
Even the stately palm trees that lined its grand entrance were wound 
with strings of white lights. The legendary Amir's Diwaniya looked to 
be in full swing, priceless chandeliers and frescoed ceiling visible 
through the high windows of the annex. It all looked much different 
now that she knew of its imminent fate. Okay, it wasn't settled quite 
yet, there was still tonight to decide. But she had a good idea of 
exactly what Ali had planned for the trial, and she couldn't see much 
chance for a surprise judgment.

She thanked Ali silently for setting tonight's meeting time at eleven 
o'clock; they had all needed plenty of time to rest after last 
night's debacle. She had never slept for so long at one stretch, her 
shutters down and room pitch black until almost evening. Her three 
house-guests had managed the same sleeping on the couch and armchairs 
in the living room. Laxman and the Captain claimed it was far more 
comfortable than the back room at the coffee shop, but Rashid had 
made just a few of his usual sardonic comments. The wiseacre would 
have to handle it for a night or two, his family already thought that 
he was off to the UK to stay with some friends for an indefinite 
length of time. Now the four were cleaned up, fed and refreshed, and 
they had even had an hour or two to scan through some of Ali's 
'homework reading' in between giving out handfuls of candy to the 
gangs of children who had been incessantly ringing the doorbell all 
evening.

Tonight was the first and busiest night of Gurgian, the popular 
festival that marked the middle three nights of Ramadan. Ali claimed 
it had started out as a time for alms-giving, but now that begging 
was officially banned in Kuwait and there were few in serious enough 
poverty to need to resort to it anyway, the holiday had morphed into 
a children's festival roughly analogous with the American Halloween 
(minus pagan undertones.) Roaming packs of Kuwaiti children in fancy 
clothing swarmed the streets with their Asian caretakers, asking for 
sweets in return for another hearty refrain of the monotonous Gurgian 
carol. Katie still had that damn tune stuck in her head.

She did a U-turn and pulled up next to the huge mounted dhow that Ali 
had described, standing proudly with flags snapping in the wind 
across the tarmac from the point where the Gulf Road met its namesake 
with only a chain-link fence separating road and sea. The enormous 
complex looming behind the grounded ship looked like some grand 
project that had been abandoned long ago, or possibly never even 
completed.
"This is the National Museum?" Katie asked incredulously. Rashid 
opened his door and jumped out, eyeing the ruined edifice with its 
gaping windows open to the wind and sand.
"It was in nineteen-ninety. They never rebuilt it after the Invasion-
-now the building itself is the only exhibit. Kind of stupid if you 
ask me, but as propaganda it's brilliant."
He waved to someone. It took Katie a second to spot Ali and Yasser, 
waving from the top floor.

The inside of the imposing museum was unreal--Katie had heard a lot 
about Iraqis and looting, but these guys had really taken the process 
seriously. The beam of her torch showed nothing but dusty grey 
concrete and a few hanging electrical wires; absolutely everything 
else had been stripped off or unscrewed more than a decade ago. They 
walked up the wide staircase, crumbling bits of cement crunching 
underfoot.
"Huh, I wonder if any of the exhibits from here were looted again in 
Baghdad this year," mused Laxman, elbowing the Captain pointedly. The 
Sri Lankan runaway was dressed in a new kurta pajama he had hurriedly 
bought from a shop in Mishref as something of a disguise; he'd never 
worn such an outfit before, but seemed to be warming to the style. 
The Captain showed no such concerns about being recognized, even 
though he must know many more people in this part of town. Katie 
wasn't sure whether to believe his offhand remark that 'his friends 
weren't the type to rat him out.'

Ali waved again as they reached the top floor. From here the wide, 
glass-less windows looked out on three sides over the Gulf and the 
market area of downtown Kuwait. Nice location, Ali. "Peace be upon 
you!" he welcomed cheerfully, "Yasser and I were just standing here 
wondering if this place is what the rest of Kuwait will look like 
after we're done with it. What do you think?"
That comment seemed a bit harsh to Katie, but the Captain was 
definitely in the mood.
"I wager so, the greedy bastards are going to take all they can pry 
loose off to Europe with them. The guys I know in the shipping 
business are going to be livin' it up for a couple months, har har!"
"Could be," Yasser said calmly, "but that's not the attitude we're 
trying to take tonight. It's Gurgian, it's supposed to be a happy 
occasion. Did everyone read their Thousand and One?"
Laxman handed the four ring-bound printouts he was carrying back to 
Ali. "As many of them as we had time for. I liked the one about the 
donkey a lot. Some of the phrasing was highly entertaining."
Ali set his old leather briefcase on the windowsill and shuffled the 
four returned volumes along with the six already inside, trying to 
sort them back into the correct order without setting any down on the 
dusty surface.
"Now you see why I read Burton's translation. The newer ones may be 
more faithful to one version or another of the text, but only a 19th-
century British Orientalist could make it sound so good. The 
bookstore doesn't sell it, so I was glad to find it on the Project 
Gutenberg online library. Even if it weighs a ton printed out like 
this, at least I can print new copies when certain volumes wear out--
on the University's ink, of course. I've gone through four Volume 
Sevens so far, ha ha." He snapped the briefcase closed and turned 
around. "So you know what we'll be looking for now?"
Katie knew. She pointed at the briefcase, then to the view of city 
lights through the window. "That... out there?"
"Precisely. We're going on a little Gurgian walk, but we won't be 
asking for candy or alms. We'll be asking for stories."
"And we're going to hear something truly heartwarming that will 
redeem this city in our minds and stay our hands?" Rashid asked 
somewhat sarcastically.
"I'm not saying we will, but at least we can say we've given them a 
sporting chance. And given that invisible force which guides us a 
chance to reassert itself."
"So we're looking for a sign," Laxman stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes, I do believe you've got it. Call it social tasseography. But we 
won't go about it in any haphazard fashion, we're laying down the 
rules for ourselves and Destiny both."

Ali walked to the Eastern windows and indicated a nearby stretch of 
slightly narrower-than-usual streets, some covered with metal 
roofing, where many people were walking and surveying small shops. It 
was one end of the souq--Kuwait's old and still bustling marketplace, 
so expansive that it didn't even have a name beyond the word meaning 
'market'.
"If there are any stories still to be found in this city, they are in 
there tonight. The souq shall be the playing field for our little 
contest."
They all nodded agreement. A contest, eh? This might turn out fun.
"We enter the souq each on our own. You must find a person--unless 
they find you first--and ask for a story. You may search around all 
you wish for the best candidate, but you may only ask one individual, 
and if you are approached by a talkative stranger then consider them 
to have been sent by Destiny to be your target. As for the story, 
there are restrictions on that as well. First and foremost it must be 
true, and it must belong to your target him or herself. You know the 
calibre of tale you're looking for from the Thousand and One: 
something unique and amazing. Something you wouldn't expect to happen 
in modern Kuwait, in other words. I've spent ages searching for such 
tales here, and this is the absolute last time I'm going to do it 
before giving this city's soul up for dead. We will meet back here at 
one o'clock. Is that all clear?"
Rashid was the only one not nodding; he raised his hand instead.
"What's the prize?"
"If any one of us wins, Kuwait lives on. Is that not motivation 
enough?"
"No. If this is going to be a real contest we should have a prize."
The Captain let his rucksack slide off his shoulder carefully. "I 
agree with the smartass for once. If we want Destiny to take our game 
seriously we need to do it right--and I have just the thing in my 
bag."
He unclipped the canvas top and withdrew a bundle of plastic bags and 
cotton wrap. Stripping off the layers, he unveiled a small but 
perfectly preserved clay cuneiform tablet. Katie and Yasser merely 
gaped, while Ali just about fell out the window.
"Where... what... is that real?"
"Oh yeah, fresh from Iraq. A couple of refugees traded it to me for a 
boat lift to the city. Don't ask me what it says, but I think it will 
serve as a good enough trophy. I don't have a use for it anymore."
"Absolutely, I'll play for that." Ali was practically drooling, the 
seriousness of the contest he was coordinating forgotten momentarily 
at the sight of the cyphered relic. Katie should have guessed Ali 
would be the one with the cuneiform fetish; he must have a couple 
copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh in with all his other printouts 
somewhere.

Tearing his eyes away from the clay slab and recovering his sense of 
ceremony, the contest-master returned to the issue at hand. "We have 
a consensus on the Captain's tablet as the prize, then? Fine. Good 
luck and good story hunting to all."
After one last contemplative look over the city, the group left the 
cuneiform bounty wrapped up in the sandy corner of the room and 
walked down the wide stairs. They separated at the front gates of the 
shadow-painted museum courtyard and followed their own paths towards 
the souq, mentally preparing themselves for whatever sort of epiphany 
Destiny might choose to spring on them tonight. There was a chill in 
the sea breeze and the mid-Ramadan moon was perfectly full; it was as 
fit a night as any for that kind of thing.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Story Of The Egyptian Dates

Laxman walked for a long time through the busy streets of the market, 
keeping a casual lookout for any likely candidates. There were plenty 
of people around to choose from, that was for sure. It didn't take 
him long to become completely disoriented in the angled streets; he'd 
been here two or three times before when his father had come to buy 
something, but it had been a few years ago and always during the day. 
As a general unwritten rule, he was told, the daytime was for their 
kind and the night--when prices rose exponentially and many merchants 
changed their wares altogether--was for the Kuwaitis. That would seem 
to be the case now. Most of the actual shoppers he could see were 
Kuwaiti men in their immaculate dishdashas and women fully covered 
with their black 'abbayas, browsing the 'traditional' luxury goods 
and perfumes, fresh dates and somewhat-less-fresh vegetables. He 
couldn't help but think they would have had a better chance with this 
story-hunting contest during daylight hours, even in Ramadan.

He found himself at last in the fish market, water pooling on the 
floor from the ice melting on almost-empty marble slabs. Most of the 
merchants here had already sold out and gone home; the few who 
remained had only a few soggy fish left to dispose of from the 
morning's catch. There were no customers in this section at the 
moment. Laxman continued out a side exit, not feeling anything 
special about any of the fishermen. The exit he followed was 
obviously one used by the sellers themselves rather than shoppers--it 
led to an alleyway, the beaten trucks parked along it smelling of the 
same heady fish aroma as the market. The alley ended on one of the 
few wider main streets that ran through the outer regions of the 
souq. A young, small-statured Indian man in jeans and a red shirt was 
sitting on the curb of the street with a small plastic bag at his 
side, looking thoroughly dejected. Perfect.

Laxman crouched next to the miserable-looking man and considered for 
a moment the best thing to say and the best language to say it in. 
English was always a safe bet."Hello friend, are you waiting for 
something?"
The man picked his head up from his knees and regarded him through 
narrowed bleary eyes. "A bus. Who are you?"
"Nobody important. Just a random Tamil."
"Don't see many Tamils dressed in the Northern style." He gestured at 
Laxman's kurta pyjama disguise. Oops, he'd forgotten he was wearing 
that. He shrugged.
"I find it comfortable. In Sri Lanka we don't have much of a dress to 
call our own, at least not since the ancient days when our women went 
topless."
The man in the red shirt chuckled and brightened a bit, offering his 
hand. "Very interesting, Tamil. My name is Naz, I come from 
Bangladesh."
"Ah, Bangladesh! A beautiful country."
"No it's not. It's almost as bad as Kuwait, but it's only as dry and 
dead as Kuwait half the year--the other half the whole place floods. 
I can tell you've never been there."
Laxman sat down on the curb. "Pardon me for saying so, but you look 
like a man who's got a bit more on his mind than just a slow bus."
"You could be right. But that's a long story."
Laxman smiled to himself. Indra's Heaven, this was perfect. "Well? 
The bus doesn't look likely to show up anytime soon, and I happen to 
be a fan of long stories."

"Alright, if you say so. It started when I was at a party tonight, a 
long ways away from here at a guy's house in Surra. It was a great 
party, we were drinking a lot of homemade wine and there were plenty 
of chicks there. It had good music too, not the usual bullshit you 
get around here. This one American chick was following me around the 
whole time, talking about dates. She was crazy about dates. Someone 
had brought a bottle of vodka, I think he had carried it himself on 
the plane from Europe, it was the real thing. He was trying to figure 
out what to do with this stuff, he wanted to make it special since it 
was his only bottle but there was nothing good around to mix it with 
or anything. This chick says to me, 'I know the best recipe for date 
juice and vodka, it's the greatest drink.' She keeps talking about 
this drink--an 'oasis blaster' she calls it--until everyone at the 
party wants to try it. The chick says that there is only one variety 
of date that works well, something called hayani dates. She used to 
use them in Egypt to make the drink, she doesn't think any other 
dates would be juicy enough. Everyone agrees with her that only the 
best will do for this bottle of vodka. They all start chanting 
"hayani, hayani, hayani..." So my friends pull me over and say, 'if 
you want to impress this chick go get some of those dates.' She was 
really hot, so I thought it sounded like an easy enough thing to do. 
I announced that I would go and find some dates and everyone cheered 
me out the door.

"So I walked to the co-op supermarket there in Surra. I don't have a 
car because I'm just working here temporarily, but I didn't think I'd 
have very far to go. They had lots of dates at the co-op, but the 
woman there said 'ah, this hayani variety is only grown in Egypt.' I 
said, 'Egypt!?' She said, 'yes, and they send very few of them to 
other countries. They are so juicy, they spoil very easily.' I said, 
'where can I find them here?' She said, 'the only place you can look 
is at the big souq.' I didn't know how I was going to get all the way 
downtown without a car, so I had to walk back to the party to find a 
ride. I couldn't convince anybody to leave the party except for this 
one British guy I didn't know who was already pretty drunk. He had a 
motorcycle and he brought me on the back of it to the souq, we barely 
made it here because he was so drunk. He kept taking wrong turns and 
having to turn around in the middle of the road. So finally we found 
it and he said he was really hungry so I told him to wait for me at a 
shawarma shop, that one down the street with the lit-up blue 
signboard. Now I don't know the souq well at all so I had to walk 
around a lot before I found the date market. I don't know if you've 
been there but it's big, there are about eight guys with shops and 
they have millions of dates. I asked the man in the first shop, 'do 
you have hayani dates?' and he said, 'no, they grow those in Egypt 
only and nobody likes them here.' He pointed to a shop on the other 
side and said, 'maybe this guy has that type, he has some Egyptian 
customers.' So I went and asked him and he said, 'I have only a few, 
but they are very hard to find so I charge a lot of money for them. 
These are almost certainly the only hayani dates in Kuwait.' I 
thought about whether I really wanted these dates so badly, but I had 
already come so far and I really wanted to impress that chick at the 
party.  So I payed ten KD for a half-kilo of them and went back to 
find the British guy with the motorcycle. And of course, he wasn't 
there! I asked the guys at the shawarma shop, 'shit, where did my 
friend go?' and they said 'he just ate a shawarma and left.' Now I'm 
screwed because I only brought a ten KD note and some loose change, 
so after buying the dates I don't have enough cash for a taxi. I'm 
stuck waiting here for the bus back to Surra."

Laxman was feeling as down as the Bangladeshi now. That wasn't a 
story, he was just complaining. If anything, it was like a party 
animal's version of one of those inane fables from the Pachatantra. 
He had definitely lost the contest with this guy. Oh well, Naz wasn't 
going to get much farther in his plans for the night either.
"I hate to break the bad news, but there are definitely no buses 
running at this time of night, not even during Ramadan."
"Shit."



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Story Of Xeno The Stone Frog

Yasser made a beeline for the outdoor eating area of the markets, an 
open space bordered by everything from kebab restaurants to juice 
stands to Lebanese-style pizza shops. Plastic tables arranged in the 
area were packed with late-night diners, most of them already 
advanced to the stage of smoking sheeshas and conversing softly--with 
their dinner companions or their mobiles--over tiny, potent cups of 
Turkish coffee. A network of misting hoses bathed the space in a 
perpetual rain of cooling fog. Yasser had to admit he had come here 
with ulterior motives in mind--he was quite familiar with these juice 
shops. They all prepared a particular concoction that went by the 
rather mundane name of 'cocktail juice', which was in fact an 
ingenious and precise application of the immutable laws of density. 
He stepped up to the tall counter of one of his favorite juice joints 
and ordered a cocktail.  The juice-smith poured half of a very tall 
glass full of fresh mango juice (or was he just not pouring the other 
half?), then carefully filled a further thirty percent with boxed 
strawberry juice, and topped off the remainder with banana milk from 
a blender. The three colorful layers sat stacked like layers of a 
geologic formation, their differing densities keeping them perfectly 
separate.

Yasser carried the filled glass to the mess of tables, a drinking 
straw stuck behind his right ear. Connoisseurs knew that using a 
straw, there were more ways to drink the three component layers of a 
glass of cocktail juice than could possibly be imagined. Yasser 
didn't really have a favorite method; it depended on the mood he was 
in, and sometimes it was best just to be experimental. But tonight, 
this was the criterion he was going to use for the selection of his 
storytelling candidate. Cocktail/straw technique could tell you a lot 
about a person; in the days before he had abandoned the world of 
humanity in favor of the cats, he had made a great study out of the 
popular art form. He wandered through the artificial mist drifting 
between the tables, checking juice glasses. Most people seemed to be 
following the simplest method of sucking out the layers from the 
bottom up, or the slightly more challenging strawberry-first 
technique. A few chose to upset the harmonious balance of the juices 
and mix it with their straw into a grayish slurry before drinking it; 
he could never understand those types of people. Finally, near the 
edge, he spotted a glass in which the juice was finely marbled in 
psychedelic swirls of red and orange. This signified the seldom-seen 
wandering technique, which involved holding one's head and straw 
still while moving the glass in random patterns, producing a 
kaleidoscope of surprising tastes over which the drinker had no 
control. Nice. Yasser sat on the opposite side of the table with his 
own glass, determined to get his story before he got nervous. Only 
then did he look up to see who the drinker of the wandered juice 
actually was. A Westerner with a scraggly beard, probably not much 
older than Yasser himself, typing on a laptop thoughtfully. The man 
looked up from the screen and flashed a smile, then picked up his 
juice and wandered in it for a few seconds. Yasser wasn't really sure 
what to say, as usual. Finding someone to talk to was always a lot 
easier than the actual conversation. How did you ask a stranger for 
their amazing tale anyway?
"Do you have a story to tell?" he tried quickly, just to get it over 
with.
The man set down his juice and hit two keys, looking only slightly 
perplexed. "I guess you could say that. I'm writing a novel."
"Oh... so you're a novelist?" They must have interesting lives, 
surely. He'd never heard of one in Kuwait though.
"I am this month. It's sort of a contest, I have to write the whole 
thing--fifty thousand words at least--in November."
"That's... interesting. I'm in a sort-of-contest too, I'm supposed to 
find someone and ask for their story... something that happened to 
them in Kuwait."
"Oh, so you're kind of a reporter then?"
Yasser smiled. "I like to think so. Well... do you have a story?"
"I don't know, I haven't been here very long and I've been busy 
writing this novel most of the time. I was in Syria before that--some 
interesting stuff happened there."
"Sorry, wouldn't count." It looked like his attempt was bust through 
no fault of his own. The execution was fine, he'd just had bad luck. 
Blame Destiny as usual.
"I can tell you the story of my novel, but I don't imagine it would 
count either."
Yasser shrugged. Why not, he still had plenty of time to kill before 
one o'clock and he didn't want to go back completely empty-handed. 
"Sure, if you don't mind taking a break from writing."
"No problem, synopsizing it might help me think. I'm kind of stuck on 
this part I'm writing now anyway. Sex scenes aren't really my forte."

"The name of the novel is 'Tyromancy of the Frog.' It's sort of a 
metaphorical title, doesn't really make much sense until you read the 
whole book. It's about a frog named Xeno, living in the fire-bogs of 
a planet called Volinon. He is a sentient stone-frog, a member of a 
species that has evolved an extremely hard carapace to withstand the 
firestorms that regularly sweep through the volatile gases of the 
bogs. After he is separated from his nomadic tribe in one of these 
storms, he sees a vision of terrible doom striding through the 
conflagration like an enormous demonic duck. He tells his tribal 
elders about his vision, but they are enraged and exile him from the 
group as a liar and a charlatan. He wanders the hostile bogs for days 
until he reaches a sea of crystal clear water at its edge; the elders 
never spoke of such wonders, and he is amazed. He soon discovers--in 
a rather humorous scene, if I do say so myself--that his stone 
carapace makes it impossible for him to swim. He is following along 
the shore in resignation when a strange feathered creature in a boat 
appears, offering him a ride. This is Fleck, a kind sea parrot maiden 
who was orphaned at a young age by brigands and now sails the crystal 
sea alone with a devil-may-care attitude. As the two wanderers set 
out across the waters, she tells Xeno of the wonders she has seen on 
her voyages. He longs to visit the metropolis of Woongrad, where all 
races of the planet live in peace under the rule of the Praetors of 
Woon. They set sail for the city, but arrive to find it in a state of 
turmoil--mysterious attacks by giant, suicidal robots have been 
launched against the city in recent weeks, appearing from within the 
fire-bogs themselves! When the Woonites see Xeno, they try to lynch 
the stone-frog, but Fleck rescues him daringly and they escape 
through the crowded streets. The two friends hide out in an inn run 
by a kind-hearted old sea parrot who soon turns out to be Fleck's 
long-lost grandmother. She tells them that things have changed 
recently in Woongrad, and it's not just the robot attacks. The latest 
Praetor, Bulgur, has consolidated his power and is turning the city 
into a police state with help from the cybernetic creations of a 
brilliant scientist named Ffolger Trout. Soon afterwards Xeno and 
Fleck are captured by the cyber-police after an insectoid dinner 
companion betrays them out of bigotry. They are taken before Praetor 
Bulgur who declares Xeno a spy for the bog-dwellers. He tells his 
tale, including the monstrous apparition he saw in the firestorm and 
his theory that someone on the other side of the bogs is sending the 
robots through hidden inside artificial storms, but the evil Praetor 
sentences him to imprisonment in his ultra-security orbital prison. 
Fleck is imprisoned along with him after she refuses to let them take 
the stone-frog alone.

"The orbital prison is dark and forbidding, and their chances of 
escape seem to be zero, until a tiny flying robot appears in the 
vacuum of space outside their window one night and communicates with 
them by displaying messages on a video screen and reading Xeno's lips 
(Fleck not having lips, of course.) It teaches them how to remove a 
hatch in the ceiling without setting off any alarms and they climb 
through to the secret cyber-laboratory of the master scientist 
Ffolger Trout. He is also kept here against his will, forced to 
invent robots to carry out the Praetor's megalomaniacal schemes. With 
their help he eventually manages to hack into the orbital station's 
computer and the three escape together amidst the chaos he causes, 
speeding planetwards mere seconds before the prison self-destructs. 
The escape pod crashes into the fire-bogs and the three begin a 
frantic race to reach the shore of the crystal sea before the next 
firestorm hits. They make it in the nick of time, a few of Fleck's 
feathers getting singed in the process but no real damage done. As 
she declares, 'feathers ain't much use to a sea parrot anyway, I 
wonder sometimes why we even have them!' Ha ha. But anyway, they have 
gained a clue from the experience: just before the abrupt beginning 
of the storm, they see a huge robot emerge from underwater and create 
the fire around itself, disappearing towards the north. Xeno's theory 
is vindicated: someone is using the bogs for cover, and they are 
launching the robots from beneath the sea! With no time to lose 
before full-scale war breaks out between the forces of Woongrad and 
the rallying bog tribes, the three fugitives build a raft and sail to 
Trout's city of Rolard, the cheerful home of the industrious beaver-
squids. They build a submarine there under the master scientist's 
instruction, and use it to track the robots back to an undersea city 
inhabited by an ancient race of marine elephants, believed by most to 
be long extinct. After a bit of espionage they learn that the city's 
leader, Lady Bling Fist, is planning to start a war between all of 
the land races and have them wipe each other out so the marine 
elephants can rule from the seas.

"After that it's a simple matter of Xeno returning to the united bog 
tribes and presenting the war-elders with evidence of the elephantine 
plot. His people anoint him Supreme War-Master based on his 
experience of the outside world and he leads them in battle against 
Lady Bling Fist--with help from Trout's undersea battle fleet--and 
they defeat the marine elephant menace after many sacrifices are 
made, greatest of all by Ffolger Trout himself who crashes his sub 
into the elephant Lady's mega assault robot. The stone-frog army 
returns to the bogs in victory but find that they have been taken 
over in their absence by the Woonish cyber-forces. Trout is no longer 
around to aid them, but Xeno and Fleck help the beaver-squid 
scientists discover the secret of the Lady's firestorm generator and 
use the technology to crush the cybernetic horde of Praetor Bulgur in 
the bogs. Woongrad is freed and Fleck elected its new Praetor (as she 
is now known to be a citizen of the city through her grandmother). 
Since the war is over, Xeno steps down as Supreme War-Master of the 
now permanently united bog tribes and moves to Woongrad to live in 
peace with Fleck, his true love. That's all really."



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Not The Story Of The Brat's Mother

The Captain wasn't too sure where to look. He had heard plenty of 
tales of derring-do on the smuggling routes, but those weren't really 
in Kuwait, and most of the stories tended to sound a bit hokey 
anyway. He'd once heard an Egyptian tell about having his boat sucked 
into a giant whirlpool off Iran and resurfacing a hundred miles away 
with a scum-covered old sea chest full of gold coins on the deck. 
When his audience had asked to see the chest, he said he'd run into 
the coast guard and they had taken it off him. All the stories tended 
to end that way; by the sound of it you'd think those coast guard 
guys were actually worth a damn and didn't just hang out on the beach 
at Bubiyan Island all day.

As he wandered through the clothing market a hearty slap on the back 
took him by surprise. Speak of the devil, it was Dawood and the Druze 
Goat.
"Hey Captain! how's it?" the Goat rasped, showing the gaps in his 
teeth with a grin. "Or can I still call you that?"
"We heard all about your boat," said the impressed Dawood, "Everyone 
did--its picture made the front page of Al-Seyaasa right next to 
Mister Bush. You've got a lot of balls if you haven't left the 
country yet."
He waved the two off. "Eh, I know you scoundrels won't squeal. 
Anyway, I'll be splitting for good tomorrow."
"Well then you'd better come with us for a farewell drink. It may be 
your last chance to taste Jackson's perfume."
"God willing."

He sauntered out of the back room of the Druze Goat's tailoring shop 
some time later, dismissing his friends' protests. "Ah'm on last 
minute business tonight, y'll have to finish th' bottle yirselves. 
Fare ya well, bastards." Those two would keep him at it all night 
given half a chance, especially Dawood with his reports on running 
his damn mob ring in India. Now there was a story he could never 
quite believe. He hadn't realized how sick and tired of this whole 
scene he'd become--even Ali and the rest with their endless 
philosophizing were better company, at least they made big plans. Now 
what was it he'd come to the market for? He always managed to forget 
as soon as he got here. Jackson's? No, he wasn't drinking any more of 
that crap after tonight. Tonight, the last night of all for Kuwait! 
That was it, he was supposed to find a story.  He wove his way 
precariously through the cloth market and into the readymades, 
squinting at the shelves of each shop for a story. A few minutes 
later the street merged into the electronics area, where a few shady 
men sold VCDs of pirated American movies on folding tables in front 
of the larger showrooms. The Captain gazed through plate glass into 
the first of the brightly-lit stores, watching with curiosity as a 
man in a white mask was shot repeatedly on a large-screen, high 
definition TV. Not enough blood for that sort of injury, he thought. 
The stout, greying store manager switched the channel over to a 
nature show as he walked over with a fully veiled female customer. He 
gestured grandly at the image of some cute furry critter, magnified 
to a giant size on the screen, as he explained the unit's features. 
Another critter appeared and began mating with the first. He quickly 
changed the channel again in annoyance. The woman turned towards the 
window to look at something else and the Captain saw with 
astonishment that it was her. That's right, he'd almost forgotten he 
was in love.

The glass door gave a friendly electronic chime as he strode into the 
shop, a man on a mission. The young widow and the showroom manager 
turned away from the high-definition football match on the screen and 
watched him cross the bright marble floor, the widow's eyes growing 
wide with recognition.
"Tell me a story? Please?" the Captain asked before she could speak.
"What are you talking about?! I should call the police! Ishmael was 
lucky to survive your mad stunt without injury, thank God. He still 
doesn't want to go back to school."
Of course not. The brat wasn't stupid.
"Nah, he had a great time. 'Neway, I only did it b'cause I love you!"
The widow took a step back. Was that a good sign? He could never read 
women.
"You're insane! You crashed your boat with my son on board because 
you're in love with me?!"
He heard the door making that stupid chime again behind him, but 
whoever the customer was left right away.
"I only charged you half price..." he shrugged.
The showroom manager stepped between them, a full head shorter than 
the Captain. He looked up at him angrily through little square 
glasses. "Sir, can you please leave? Mrs. Reema is making an 
important decision on a home entertainment purchase."
"No, I don' think so. Not only am I in love wi' her, she still needs 
t' tell me a story."
"What is this nonsense, Mr. Tayseer? Throw him out at once, I will 
not be insulted in your shop!" The young widow looked furious, but 
you could never tell with women. Her eyes were even more beautiful 
when she was angry, that was all he could say for sure.
"Certainly, please step over here for a quick word while Mrs. Reema 
considers her choice of television system."

The little fool couldn't really throw him out, of course. He followed 
the Captain across the floor to a back corner and spoke in a low but 
still angry voice.
"You must leave this woman alone. We can both see she doesn't like 
you at all, much less love you. I really need you to go now, I'm 
willing to pay you money if you stay away from her for good.""Wha... 
money?"
The little shopkeeper took off his square glasses and polished them 
on his vest. "Yes, it is imperative that I make a good impression 
tonight. You may think you love my fair Reema, but I am truly in 
love, in a way an uncouth ruffian like yourself cannot possibly 
know."
The Captain laughed out loud in the man's upturned face, causing him 
to flinch at the perfume smell. "You! A fat little Egypshin wi' grey 
hair? In love wi' a young Kwayti widow? Har!"
"Please, not so loud. And I am from Iran, not Egypt. Now, do you 
understand? Will you leave me to pursue my courtship?"
He thought about it for a second.
"I'll fight ya."
Mister Tayseer raised an eyebrow and placed his glasses back on his 
nose.
"I don't think you really want to do that. I am a skilled boxer, I 
have knocked out larger men than yourself with one punch."
This guy was too much. "Ha' many years ago was that, gramps?"
"Okay, fine, if you're too intimidated we won't fight. I'm not going 
to hit a man who's scared, and I don't want to get blood on the DVD 
players. Now are you going to leave my shop?"
"You rilly think she's gonna go f'r a guy like you? You muss be 
drunk!"
The man looked much less angry for a moment, and he actually winked. 
"Well, you know how it goes with these young widows in the old 
stories."
Huh, he had a point there--the Captain had read enough of Ali's 
damned Thousand and One to learn how the rich young widows of those 
times spent their nights--picking up the ugliest, poorest bastards 
off the streets of Baghdad for their freaky sexual escapades. Maybe 
Ali was right about things only having gone downhill from there.
"You reckon is' still like that?"
"I have a theory."
"You muss be drunk!"
The widow tired of pushing buttons on the television set and glided 
across the polished floor towards them. Mister Tayseer winked a few 
more times and whispered, "Now you know how it is, you must give a 
man a sporting chance. If I don't succeed, you can fall in love with 
her or whatever as much as you want next month."
He smiled to the widow while handing the Captain a bundle of notes 
behind his back. The Captain shrugged and walked out the chiming 
glass door. Crazy old coot.

He began meandering back up towards the clothing market, his uneven 
steps quickening when he remembered that he was supposed to meet with 
everyone back at that creepy museum place. Oops, he'd left the widow 
behind without getting her story. He was going to lose the contest. 
She probably didn't have one anyway, unless Mister Tayseer was right 
about these women, but then she would never tell him that kind of 
story. Unless he himself... no, that showroom guy was just crazy, and 
his 'theory' too. Never mind, At least he'd got a bit of folding 
money out of the whole thing. He held the bills up to the light to 
check out his haul. The face of Saddam Hussein smiled back at him. 
Shit, the little rat had passed him worthless old money! He ripped up 
the bills as many times as he could and threw the pink and orange 
flakes into the air, walking through the cloud of spinning shreds. 
God willing, the young widow would give the lying mole a good hard 
slap.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Story Of The Gurgian Pouch

There must be a logical way of doing this, Katie told herself. It was 
always the last place you thought to look. Yeah, yeah, she knew the 
joke. "Because after that you stop looking."
"Eh?"
"Oh, nothing. Sorry." She hurried away from the confused mutton 
vendor and towards the lights at the end of the covered market. These 
meat shops were just depressing--they only served to remind her of 
her own failed attempt at the meat trade. She exited the hall of 
hanging carrion and found herself in one corner of the misty outdoor 
dining area. Following along its perimeter, she tried to focus on the 
task at hand. Who was the most likely sort of person around here to 
have a good story to tell? Definitely not these fat Kuwaiti 
businessmen smoking and drinking coffee--she'd talked to more than 
enough of them at those horrible Diwaniyas to know that they never, 
ever had anything interesting to say. It was hard to believe she had 
tried so hard to get into that culture; she was much happier now that 
she had made up her mind to destroy it instead. Rashid may be a crazy 
revolutionary, but he was right: this was a corrupt, decadent society 
and there was nothing beautiful about it. She didn't think so, 
anyway. This was her chance to find out, but she still didn't know 
where to look. Okay, think. If she herself were in a story, who would 
be the one to give her the revelation? Someone very unlikely, a 
beggar--nope, none of those here--or... a child! That was it! A child 
telling the story that saves the city; it was straight out of the 
Thousand and One itself. The kids were the future, the ones who had a 
chance to turn this place around with a renewed sense of wonder. Plus 
tonight was their special holiday. The idea was such a perfect one 
that Katie steadfastly ignored her nagging memories of teaching maths 
classes to the miserable spoiled children at her school. They 
wouldn't be like that this time. There! A small playground stood on 
the side of the food court, colorful plastic slides and painted metal 
bars keeping kids busy while their parents enjoyed a quiet meal. 
Katie approached casually, surveying the fenced area for a likely 
mark. She counted eleven children of various ages, clambering over 
the shiny equipment in a Gurgian candy-induced fervor. This was a 
perfect idea; they looked so much more alive than the adults. She 
cast a wary eye on the two Filipino maids who sat at the other corner 
of the playground watching over their wards, and stepped over the 
fence into the sand. Taking her place on an empty bench, she waited 
for one of the children to come to her. They always did. She drew 
them to her like a kid-magnet, which was one reason why she had 
wanted to teach in the beginning, before the disillusionment had set 
in.

Ten minutes later, an unhappy-looking little girl of eight or nine 
years in age walked over and lifted herself onto the bench beside 
Katie. Like most of the kids here tonight, she was dressed in her 
special sequined Gurgian costume, purple with gold trim, minus the 
miniature head-scarf. She sat in silence with her head hung low.
"Hello, what is your name?" Katie ventured rather unimaginatively.
"Maysaa" she answered softly, looking up at her seat-mate. Katie 
smiled her best teacher's smile.
"You don't look very happy. Did something happen that made you sad?"
Maysaa nodded vigorously.
"I can be your friend and you can tell me about it, if you want," 
Katie said, still smiling, trying to think of what the counselors at 
her school would say in a situation like this. Shit, she hoped the 
girl's problem didn't turn out to be anything too heavy-duty. She 
needed a heartwarming story, not a therapy session or a court 
testimony.
"Welllll..." Maysaa smiled weakly and pulled at her long black bangs. 
"Okay. It started when we were going out to sing songs and get candy 
for Gurgian." The little girl launched right into her story and 
didn't stop talking until she was done.

"My mom bought me a purple Gurgian pouch to go with my dress. The 
tailor made both of them out of the same cloth, so they would match. 
It had gold around the top like this on my sleeve, with the triangle 
pattern. It was pretty. Me and my brothers and sisters went out to 
get candy with the Omars from next door and our maid Carla and their 
maid too. We went to all the houses on our street and people gave us 
candy, even though we kept forgetting the words to the Gurgian song. 
Then we kept going to other streets because we wanted lots of candy. 
Our maids didn't want us to go too far but we kept going anyway, even 
across the big road. Some of the younger kids got scared because it 
was dark, but I didn't. I remembered seeing it before in the car but 
I never saw it before from outside. Then my brother Walid bumped into 
me and I dropped my purple pouch and some of my candy fell on the 
ground. I picked it up but then everyone had gone and I didn't see 
where they went. I was pretty sure which way it was to the big road 
and to my house though so I just started walking home. My pouch was 
full of candy already so I didn't care if I didn't go with the 
others. They went too far anyway, the maid got in big trouble when 
they came home. We're going to get a new one soon, my mom says Carla 
is not dependable enough. But when I started walking home I went down 
a small walking road between two houses to get to the big road and it 
was kind of dark. Then I saw an Indian boy walking the other way and 
he was carrying a white bag like at the grocery store but it wasn't 
Gurgian candy it was something else like vegetables. He stopped and 
made a friendly face and pointed to my purple pouch. I think since he 
could only speak Indian he couldn't get his own candy because he 
wouldn't be able to sing the Gurgian song. I didn't want to give him 
any of mine because I didn't want him to touch my purple pouch with 
his germs and I knew he would just take the chocolate and the best 
candy anyway. I picked out some nuts and gave them to him because 
some people mix nuts with the candy and they are yucky. The Shiraz 
family on our street usually only gives out nuts so we never go 
there, it's so stupid. So I gave him some nuts but he didn't want 
them, he just wanted candy. So I gave him some of the boring candy 
that I got from some Westerners like you who always give boring cheap 
candy, but he didn't want it either. I told him he was stupid but I 
don't know how to say it in Indian. He kept pointing at the bag and 
saying stuff so I just started to walk away in case he tried to take 
it off me. I could hear him walking behind me and I started running a 
little and then I tripped over some trash that was in the road 
between the houses and I fell and scratched my hand right here. I got 
up and ran the rest of the way, but when I got out onto the side of 
the big road my purple Gurgian pouch was empty because there was a 
hole in the bottom and all the candy had dropped out. I don't know if 
it got torn when I fell down or if the Indian boy had done it. I 
didn't want to go back in the dark street between the houses so I 
just walked home. I told my mom what happened and she gave me all of 
our own candy that was left but it wasn't as good because there was 
almost no chocolates. And she didn't fix my purple pouch either, she 
said I didn't need it now and she would get me a new one next time 
it's Gurgian and it can be any color I want. But I'm still mad 
because my brothers and sisters and the Omars laughed at me for 
getting my candy stolen by an Indian."

Maysaa sniffed. Huh, that had almost started to get a little 
heartwarming, Katie thought, but... no. Still, maybe there was some 
hope yet. Time to get all school-counselor.
"Do you feel mad at the little Indian boy, Maysaa? Or do you think 
maybe it's kind of nice that he got to have some candy too for 
Gurgian?"
The girl hit the bench with her fists. "I want to call the police so 
they can put him in jail. And I want to go back to my cousins' house 
in England where they don't have stealing Indians everywhere."
Katie winked and stood up in the sand, still smiling like a teacher.
"It was nice to talk to you, Maysaa. I have a feeling you might be 
going to visit your cousins again very soon."
She stepped over the fence and began circling around the diners 
again, thinking about getting a cup of tea. That had been a really 
lame idea in hindsight, she thought. Children are the future, hah. 
Anyone who said that in an optimistic way had obviously never been 
one themselves.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Story Of The Doomed Slovenian Forest

This was so silly, but whatever. Rashid would humor the others in 
their game, even though he knew well enough that none of them could 
possibly find anything worth saving in this place. The wastamancer 
knew every corner of the city and the forces that ran through it, 
visible or invisible, and none of that was 'precious' or 'beautiful' 
in the slightest. Ali was even more of a wild-eyed romantic than he'd 
given him credit for, dreaming up such an idea! He gave the leisurely 
automatic sliding door of the air-conditioned gold market a helping 
kick and walked through, glowering at the decadent window displays 
glittering under spotlights. Let Ali and the others figure it out for 
themselves; he would have trashed the place years ago if he'd known 
how easy it was. All this time he had convinced himself that he was 
hungry for power, but that wasn't it at all. He couldn't bear the 
thought of actually running the country. It was only the more 
destructive implications of revolution that had ever interested him, 
along with a vague idea that whatever came next would have to be 
better than this insanity. Now, with the Captain's bold idea, there 
wouldn't be a 'next'. That, too, would be an improvement.

Rashid recognized most of the handful of late-night shoppers in the 
gold souq, and he wondered briefly whether he should try to stay out 
of sight. He was supposed to be in the UK right now, after all. Nah, 
even if someone did mention seeing him to his father, what would come 
of it? Not that his father wouldn't be a little confused at the 
inconsistency. He just wouldn't care enough to let it worry him. It 
had been a short conversation when Rashid had told him he was leaving 
for a while; the old fool hadn't even asked what city or what 
university he was going to. He wondered if the reaction really would 
have been any stronger if he'd said, "Bye dad, I'm off to destroy the 
city with some friends. Don't wait up for me when you're evacuating." 
No, he probably still would have answered, "May God watch over you!" 
and sent him away as if he'd been a minor business contact.

Rashid passed an open shop and checked who was inside through a 
window displaying a ludicrously expensive wedding set. Oh wonderful, 
if it wasn't good old Omar Al-Maysarah, buying gold jewelry for the 
wives. What an ostentate! Rashid wasn't the least bit sorry he'd 
missed his Diwaniya the other night. The old man was fidgeting with 
his prayer beads, looking highly bored with what must be a long 
shopping process. He noticed Rashid at the window and, seeing a 
chance for escape, grinned and stood up. He motioned for his four 
veiled wives to stay and exited the shop. The salesman hurried out 
with a pair of plastic stools which he set in front of the window and 
returned to his sale. Omar sat with a long sigh, twirling his prayer 
beads thoughtfully.
"So, my good friend Rashid! I hope you are having a generous Ramadan. 
How are your mother and father?"
Rashid perched himself on the other stool. Might as well humor him, 
maybe he'd have a story to tell for the contest. Hah!
"Very well, thanks to God. The wives out shopping for some new Eid 
jewelry, I see?"
"Yes," he laughed, "they never have enough. I wouldn't mind if it 
didn't take them half the night to pick something out, and the other 
half to bargain on the price. Does your family have big plans for Eid 
too?"
"I'm sure they do, but I'm not going to be around then. I'm off 
tomorrow to the UK for my studies."
"Really, that's good. We go to London every year for the shopping, my 
wives think it's the greatest city on Earth but I can't stand the 
weather. And the people are so unfriendly, it really is a closed 
society. Still, I'm sure a young man like you could have a great time 
in such a city."
"I hope so."
The gold merchant brought out another stool and set out a tray with 
two cups of tea, hurrying back to his counter. Apparently the sale 
inside was going to take a while longer yet.
"By the way," Rashid asked, "how was your Diwaniya this week? I tried 
to come but I got stuck in that traffic jam on the Gulf Road where 
the boat crashed."
"Oh yes. That was quite a sight, my nephew Saad's car was one of 
those damaged beyond repair. I heard the driver who did it may have 
been an Iraqi, and it may not have been an accident," Omar said 
confidentially.
"Really?" Could the Captain be hiding something from them?
"Well, that's what someone at the stock market told me. He said it 
was being covered up by the Americans, but the real story was on the 
internet. Then he said that the kid they found on board was actually 
a genetically engineered biological weapon sent by Saddam Hussein to 
assassinate the Amir. I find it very frightening if it's true. That 
man will stop at nothing."
"Riiight. So... everything going well with your business then?"
Business was not really the word for it. All these old retired fools 
spent their days playing the world markets, but they sure as hell 
didn't need the money. It was the national sport more than anything 
else. He was really asking for it--get one of these guys on the 
subject and he would never shut up.
"Funny you should ask, I happen to have some very interesting deals 
going on. I'll tell you about it, but don't go spreading this 
around..." Omar glanced around the hallway warily. "It's for your 
education only."
Sure. Whatever.

"I took a trip last month to a little country in Europe called 
Slovenia. I doubt you've heard of it, it's small and there's not 
really anything there. The countryside is popular with tourists but 
the people are very backwards. They even eat horses! I was just 
looking for investment opportunities, of course, and the country's 
drawing a lot of interest from the Far East because they're going to 
be joining the European Union soon. I was the first from Kuwait to 
look into it and I found definite opportunities there--because they 
want to get into the EU they've been loosening restrictions and 
deregulating all across the board. What I found most interesting was 
their forests. I heard that they have barely touched them in the 
past, and there's a fortune in lumber to be made there. I found a new 
startup company in Ljubljana called N.E. Razumem and bought about 
fifty thousand KD of penny stock in it. See, when the government 
removes restrictions on logging in a few months--which they're going 
to have to, everyone told me so--the company's going to be worth 
millions. When I returned I spread the word so that others could get 
in on the remaining stock and raise its stature, giving it a better 
chance on contracts when the forests open up. Even your family has 
been buying it, and I promise they're going to be very happy they 
did. But here's where it gets good: the best timber in the country is 
in the Triglav National Forest, and it's definitely going out the 
window. I know these men who run this N.E. Razumem company and they 
are scoundrels; when they get in there they won't leave even a single 
little bush standing. This is where the second part of my plan comes 
in. There is another company, it's a much more successful one right 
now, called Razglednica--or something, their language is impossible 
to pronounce. It operates hotels and restaurants, tourist stuff, 
especially in this Triglav forest and other nature areas. Everyone's 
investing in the tourist companies now because of the EU thing. They 
think the tourists are about to start pouring in. But these 
Easterners never look at the bigger picture. When the forest is all 
cut down, the tourists go too. There was a Japanese man staying at my 
hotel who had come to invest in tourism, a real Eastern fool. I told 
him that I didn't like the Razglednica company's prospects, but I 
didn't say anything about the logging. He kept arguing with me about 
it, but I just said that I thought the owners were lazy. Finally on 
my last night at the hotel he challenged me to purchase a five-year 
naked put option in the company from him. He set the strike price at 
more than six times the current value of the stock. What an idiot, I 
couldn't believe my luck. I purchased as much as I could goad him 
into writing and that was that. Now when N.E. Razumem clears out the 
forest and Razglednica tanks in the next few years, I'll have double 
the winnings. Is that not a beautiful thing?"

Omar drained his tea in one long sip as he eyed Rashid expectantly 
over the glass.
"Sure, that's... brilliant! You're really going to clean up."
Rashid hadn't the slightest idea what a 'naked put option' was, much 
less whether it really was as brilliant as the old Maysarah seemed to 
think. The master trader had reminded him very effectively of 
everything he most hated about this place; the money, the wheeling 
and dealing, the politicking, the wasta peddling. His only regret now 
was that these jargon-spouting wankers were almost definitely going 
to ride out the fall of Kuwait, to carry on with their tricks 
somewhere greener. Probably make a killing off it, too.



CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Story Of The Bright Jinniyah

It didn't take Ali long to remember that he hadn't broken his fast 
tonight; in fact, he'd neglected to eat at all since their meal 
around the campfire last night. Those sorts of minor things were so 
easy to overlook in times like these, when great plans were afoot. 
After having to stop and sit for a minute by the museum gate while he 
let his head return to its proper place on his shoulders, he decided 
that his first order of business must definitely be to partake of 
some suitable victuals. He eschewed the crowded food court full of 
mobile phone chatter and pushed deep within the souq itself in search 
of a nice quiet cook-house of the traditional variety. The streets 
were oddly quiet tonight, but he was too hungry to give the 
observation much thought. He walked on, trying to remember where his 
favorite spots were located. Most of the restaurants, found on the 
second stories above the shops and reached by narrow, ill-lit 
staircases, catered to the South Asian community, but there were a 
few scattered in between that offered Arabian, Yemeni and Levantine 
cuisines. Keeping his eyes upturned, Ali beheld the glowing sign of a 
place he'd never eaten at before: Jameel Restaurant, Arabian by the 
looks of it. This must be a new place.

If it was new, they sure did a commendable job of disguising the 
fact, Ali thought to himself as he entered from the narrow stairway. 
It looked positively ancient, dimly lit and strewn with musty old 
carpets. It was a marked improvement in Ali's mind over the well-
scrubbed tile floors and harsh fluorescent lighting of most other 
places around here. He may have just found a wonderful new dinner 
spot; it was a shame that it would have to go along with everything 
else, if their plans for tonight failed. That reminded him--this also 
looked like the perfect place to find a good story. There were a few 
other diners clustered in the dark corners, and they gave him the 
impression of some salty sea-dogs or caravan masters swapping wild 
tales in their khan. Wow, it was hard to believe this place was 
really in Kuwait! Before he could wonder further, a veiled woman 
appeared from the back room and gestured for him to take a seat.
"A generous Ramadan to you," she greeted him in a soft voice. His 
table and chair in the corner were of heavy wood, a far cry from the 
plastic furniture of other restaurants in the souq. He no longer had 
any idea what manner of food this place might have to offer, so he 
just asked the veiled woman for a meal of whatever was best tonight. 
She nodded and glided away over the carpets without a sound.

He was still trying to figure out how he had missed this place in the 
past--had they only recently purchased a new sign for outside?--when 
the serving-lady returned, carrying in one hand a tray bearing 
fragrant dishes of rice and meat. She set the mouth-watering food out 
before him and he set to work on it at once. It was every bit as 
delectable as Ali had expected, not too fancy but thoroughly 
delicious. Forget about the story, this restaurant was almost enough 
to redeem Kuwait on its own.
"Did you enjoy your meal?"
The serving-woman cleared the plates away and set the tray aside on a 
neighboring table, again using only her left hand.
"Indeed, very much so. This is an exquisite little place you have 
here. Has it been around for long?"
The woman sat down in the chair opposite Ali.
"Oh yes, a long time indeed. But that is an equally long tale to 
tell."
Was this truly happening? There could be no mistake that Destiny had 
finally stepped in once more; he had only partially believed that it 
could happen tonight when he had come up with the contest idea, but 
here it was.
"Fine, tell your tale, let it take as long as it will."
She stood again, moving silently as ever.
"This is not the place. Follow me."

He followed after the black apparition in a daze, through the back 
hallway and the warm, aromatic kitchens--he was surprised to see no 
cooks there--to a wooden door beside the oven. The woman opened it 
with a large key and they passed through into a carpet-covered 
apartment that looked closer to a cave than a room. A single light-
bulb illuminated the small space and the carpet-draped ledge built 
into the semi-circular wall. The woman took a seat on one side of the 
ledge, Ali on the other. To his surprise, she removed the veil from 
her face. She was ridiculously beautiful, pulchritudinous even, he 
thought, if perhaps not to the point where couplets of poetry would 
begin to spontaneously pass through his head as always happened in 
the Thousand and One. She still did not speak, just stared into his 
eyes with her ravishing gaze. He became far more surprised as it 
dawned on him that the woman's skin was glowing softly. No, it wasn't 
just a trick of the light, it was becoming brighter to the point 
where her face shone like a flame, outshining the light-bulb with a 
pure white light that made her features difficult to distinguish. Ali 
wasn't going to question why any longer; this was just the sort of 
thing he'd been waiting to see happen for a long time. The shining 
woman spoke with a mysterious, magical voice.

"Know, stranger, that I am an immortal jinniyah. I have lived in this 
town since before humans began to settle here, when there were 
nothing more than a few fishing boats to disturb the peace and 
loneliness of the desert. In those days I took the form of a falcon 
so that I might survey my domain in peace. But when the desert tribes 
came here to build a town over three hundred years ago, one of their 
trappers captured me and brought me before his Sheikh. He, the first 
of the Sabah leaders of Al-Qurain, had never beheld such a splendid 
falcon as myself and he vowed to keep me and train me for hunting. 
Although I was already an ancient and powerful jinniyah, I had never 
been so near to man and I became intrigued by their odd ways. I did 
not make my escape, though I could have with minimal effort. Instead 
I obeyed the Sheikh for my first few days of training, until he 
became exceedingly fond of me and could not bear for me to leave his 
side.  One night he kept me on a perch beside his bed in his palace 
as he slept. I decided then to give up my wings and enter the world 
of man. I transformed myself into the shape of a woman and woke the 
sheikh. He was amazed and delighted when I revealed that I was his 
beloved falcon transformed into human form, and he took me as his 
wife with all haste.

"We lived in the greatest happiness for  years, but I soon discovered 
one fact about man that I had not known before: that like other 
animals, they are mortal. At this I began to wax more and more 
fearful with dread that my husband too would die. As the town and the 
tribe of Bani Utub grew, the intrigue among the lower Sheikhs grew as 
well, until I became convinced that my husband's life would soon be 
plotted against. As much as I disliked leaving behind the world of 
man that I had grown fond of, I begged my husband to pass the 
leadership of the town on to another member of the family, with 
instructions to pass it to our eldest son once he came of age, and 
steal away with me to a secret place of which I knew. I transported 
him that night to a group of caves beneath the desert and told him 
that this would be our new home. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "But it is so 
dark! I cannot see a thing!" I made myself bright to illuminate the 
space and pledged to him, "As long as I am in these caves and you do 
not wish to sleep, I shall illuminate my body thus. If you stay near 
to me at all times, you shall be able to see without difficulty." 
Thus we lived for many more years, furnishing the caves with 
beautiful treasures from all parts of the world.

"But alas, no matter how hard I tried to keep my love safe, God must 
take all men in the end. He died finally of that sickness for which 
there is no cure, old age, and I wept most bitterly. I built a 
splendid tomb for him in the largest of the caves and left one of my 
hands there, keeping the cave forever bright for him as I had 
promised. Afterwards I became very lonely and longed to return to the 
town of men, Al-Qurain. I magically transported one small corner of 
our underground palace with me that I might never leave it far 
behind, and around it I built a cook-shop. The greatest skill I had 
cultivated during my years with the Sheikh was in cooking, and I put 
this to use so that I may meet all people of the town and hear their 
stories. Through the centuries, as the town grew and changed until it 
was a city, I moved my restaurant from one place to another, keeping 
the section of cave always at its heart. In this room I still live, 
honoring my vow to brighten myself whenever I enter it. I know that 
you may not believe it to be so, but there are still those people in 
this city with stories to tell, and they all find their way to my 
restaurant sooner or later. Thus my study of the ways of humanity in 
this city continues, until such a time as I may be reunited with my 
love."



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Prize

It was five to one in the morning. Katie and Yasser picked their way 
through the darkness at the edge of the market towards the square 
frame of the museum that blocked out the stars ahead. It hadn't been 
nearly this dark before, Katie wondered, had there been street lights 
on or something? Why turn them off halfway through the night? The 
evening had still been in full swing back in the market, where she'd 
run into Yasser and that creepy writer guy. He had offered to tell 
her all about the novel he was working on, but Yasser had dragged her 
away with a quick apology that they were in a hurry to meet up with 
some people.

A hollow clattering of metal and a meow  told her that a cat had 
joined them--no surprise there. She looked around and couldn't see it 
or hear it anymore, but it was most likely still there, drawn by 
Yasser's mysterious cat-powers.
"Where are all those cats anyway, the ones from last night?" She 
wanted to make some conversation to fill the silence out here. Yasser 
probably wasn't the best companion for such a task.
"You mean the Tribe of Thirty-Six? They're all kind of camped out 
near my flat for the night."
"Wait, you just pronounced 'tribe' and 'thirty-six' with capital 
letters, didn't you?"
"Umm... maybe."
"Hah, nice. I like the sound of it. Will the Tribe be accompanying us 
on our cruise tomorrow?"
"I think so. If there's room for all of them."
Katie tripped over a piece of metal post in the dark, but recovered 
quite nicely. 
"Oh well," she said, "it's a pretty big ship. Besides, anyway, the 
more the merrier."

At least there was a pool of light at the gates of the museum. And 
there in the middle of the pool, sitting with his back to the wall, 
legs and long white garment sprawled out in front of him, was Ali. 
Katie kneeled and shook him until his eyes opened. He looked around, 
confused, then straight up at the light that illuminated him. He 
frowned a bewildered frown.
"You forgot to break your fast, didn't you?"
He bit his lip. "No... I had a huge, delicious feast... so 
delicious..."
"Before or after you sat down against this wall?"
"Oh. Yeah, I got a bit dizzy."
"I'll bet you didn't sleep much yesterday either, right?"
He hung his head in dejection. "No, not much."
"A potent combination. Great, you passed out and slept through the 
contest. Don't worry about it, you didn't miss much."
"But the jinniyah... she told me a story! the kind of story..."
"The kind of story you really wanted to hear? The kind you dream of 
hearing?" She rolled her eyes. Ali rose unsteadily and blinked back 
the remaining tendrils of sleep.
"Okay, you're right." He sighed mournfully. "It really was beautiful. 
I don't suppose a story I heard in a dream can count as our sign?"
Katie and Yasser both grabbed his arms to keep him upright.
"No dice, not with your imagination at least. The contest rules don't 
clearly exclude stories told by low-blood-sugar hallucinations, but 
it's sort of implied."
"Feel free to dream about not destroying Kuwait though." That was a 
surprisingly witty comment for our Yasser, thought Katie. They both 
laughed.
"Alright, are you planning to stand there mocking me until I pass out 
again, or does anyone have some food with which I can fortify 
myself?"
Katie pondered. "I brought a snack in the car, but I don't think 
you'll be interested. It's a pork sandwich."
Both men looked at her, faces stamped with horror. "You didn't!"
She shrugged innocently. This was fun. "Don't look at me like that, 
it wasn't much but it was good, tender meat. No sense in wasting it."
"That's barbaric!" Yasser exclaimed.
"Hey, I'm not the one who shot her. I didn't bomb any sheep either 
for that matter." That shut him up.
"Whatever," Ali sighed. "Anyone have anything to eat that I didn't 
know personally?"
"Okay, beyond the Pink sandwich it'll just have to be a couple 
chocolates and some mango juice, and you can hope for real food after 
the others get here. I'll just be a sec, go ahead on up." She handed 
Yasser her torch and went to seek out her SUV around the better-lit 
Gulf Road side of the museum.

She was pleased to see Rashid and Laxman approaching with their own 
torch as she returned to the gate with the food; she wouldn't have to 
walk up the railing-less stairs in the dark now. Laxman waved.
"What have you got there, visual aids for your story? Not fair!"
She laughed and held up the snacks. "No, just some food. Ali missed 
Iftar tonight, and came out the worse for it."
"He did, did he? Well, I've got something for him too." The Sri 
Lankan lifted a small plastic bag. "I'm not a big fan of dates 
myself, no matter what the variety. He's welcome to them."
Rashid held the torch for the three of them as they entered the 
ruined museum and climbed the sandy stairs once more. The other two 
were sitting on the windowsill in their previous meeting spot.
"Uh, Ali... is that really the best place to be sitting when you're 
feeling faint? Better 'fortify yourself' sooner rather than later."
She handed him the bag of leftover Gurgian chocolates and one-liter 
plastic jug of mango juice. Laxman offered him the dates as well. He 
peered into the bag, eyes widening, wobbling precariously on the 
windowsill.
"Well well, hayanis! Are we celebrating something, Laxman?"
The Sri Lankan fidgeted. "No, someone gave them to me. I would rather 
he had given me a good story though."
"No luck then? And it appears that Yasser and I both came away with 
only fictional stories, although his sounded considerably more 
thrilling than mine. The prize is still up for grabs. Anyone 
else?"Ali popped one of the hayani dates in his mouth thoughtfully, 
tossing the stone out the window behind him.
"Afraid not," Rashid answered, "same old thing. Naked puts and 
deforestation."
Katie frowned likewise. "I got a spoiled rich kid who lost her candy. 
There may have been a little poetic justice involved, but nothing too 
stellar. The cockles of my heart didn't feel a thing. Sorry Ali."
He sucked the stone out of another date and threw it out the window 
morosely. A faint "gah!" of protest drifted up from below, followed 
by a few random curses. Ali turned and looked down, thankfully 
holding tight to the side of the window.
"Looks like Kuwait's last shining hope has arrived. Someone go bring 
him up."

They could tell by the Captain's heavily perfumed smell, if nothing 
else, that prospects were not good. He leaned on Laxman with bleary 
eyes, but at least he seemed sober enough to remember what this was 
all about.
"Bullshit," he proclaimed, confirming their suspicions. "You?"
All five shook their heads in resignation. So that was it then, the 
contest was a bust. So was Kuwait. If the Universe didn't actually 
want them to go forward with their plans for demolition, it must have 
simply given up caring strongly enough one way or the other  to be 
bothered to do anything about it. Lazy freaking Universe, that's what 
it was. The Captain left Laxman's shoulder behind and staggered over 
to the darkest corner of the room, retrieving his cuneiform tablet 
and stripping off the layers of wrapping noisily. He took his place 
at the gaping Northern window next to Ali and stared out over the 
black band of the Arabian Gulf. Stretching the last layer of 
transparent plastic enclosing the tablet until it tore open, he held 
the rough, ancient slab of baked mud in his hands. He stared at the 
deeply stamped letters on its face as if he could now, finally, 
divine their meaning. Katie could tell that this was killing Ali, but 
he knew what had to be. A trio of late-night drivers zipped past on 
the Gulf Road as the Captain launched the relic in an arc over the 
tarmac and chain-link fence with a mighty swing. Three consecutive 
waves of Doppler-warped engine noise covered the sound of the splash.


















ON THE FIFTH NIGHT

       *       *       *       *       *

   "My lord, King of the Universe, the fig harvest in the ninth year 
of your glorious reign has been most exceptional. Thus I send this 
bullock-cart laden with the finest figs harvested from my 
principality, that they may be given in thanks to the god Shamas in 
the great temple which you have built for him. May the seasons of 
figly bounty continue for eternity under his shining blessings! Take 
care to ensure that the sacrifice is made in all promptness, and 
leave it not under guard even for one night lest the soldiers be 
tempted to partake of that fruit which is meant for Shamas. Your 
faithful servant, Zug-Polaan."
   --The Captain's Tablet

       *       *       *       *       *

















CHAPTER THIRTY
The Last Diwaniya

The six companions lounged around the cushioned circle of Katie's 
dining room set with laden plates, open foil dishes of fragrantly-
spiced mutton, vegetables and rice spread out on the coffee table 
between them. It had seemed like a good idea to go for the entire 
Ramadan feast tonight. This was a special occasion, and it would have 
either been this or pizza. The apocalyptic feeling in the air tonight 
pervaded every action; the companions tossed their bones carelessly 
on the Oriental carpet, where Floyd rooted through them in oblivious 
joy. The pig was just living in the house now. Everything was so much 
different when the home you were in was about to be abandoned, not to 
mention the whole city. That was the energy that kept them wide awake 
and alert tonight, despite the fact that they hadn't slept more than 
an hour or two with all the preparations to be made. Laxman couldn't 
quite come up with a name for the emotion; it lay somewhere midway 
between excited elation and brooding, dark melancholy. No, that 
didn't make sense even to him. He had more reason to be in high 
spirits than most--he was about to depart for the land he had always 
known to be his eventual destination. He had easily convinced the 
group that after performing their deed, the distant coast they would 
aim for should be India. They and their boat could disappear so 
easily there, into the crowd of a billion, and start their real 
lives. It would be a true reincarnation into a place where he 
belonged. So why did his mind still hold such contradictory humors?
"Does anyone else fell a little... dark?" he asked the room, pushing 
an eggplant chunk around his plate. "Not regretful, just a bit sad."
Ali held up a finger sticky with rice grains--he claimed he hadn't 
used silverware in years. "A wise man once told me that every 
beginning is also the end of something else. He said that the break 
of dawn may be the start of a fresh new day, but it can also be the 
end of a truly groovy party."
Rashid laughed, choking on a mouthful of mutton. "What kind of wise 
man was that?"
Ali seriously lifted his old pocket watch out of his thob with his 
unsticky left hand. "The man who sold me this, at the Friday Market 
last year. I guess when you're a watch repairman you spend a lot of 
your day thinking about the mysterious ways of time. I hear it's a 
profession highly prone to suicide."

Katie reached for a plate of another, whiter meat on the end table at 
her side. They all lost just a little bit of their appetites.
"One might likewise say that the end of a little pig is also the 
beginning of a delicious roast," she said in a mock British accent.
"I still can't believe you're eating Pink. Is that the last of her?" 
Ali inquired queasily. Katie just smiled and held a small piece of 
the meat out at arms' length over the carpet.
"If you keep complaining I'll give Floyd a taste too."
The pig trotted across to her and looked up at the morsel longingly. 
They all cringed in revulsion, except for Rashid, who flashed a 
wicked grin. Katie sat undecided for a moment, arm extended, then 
shrugged and popped the piece of pork in her mouth.
"Nah, that's just wrong. Floyd's too young and innocent, look at him. 
I can't do it."

They all ate what they could, leaving the remainder out on the floor 
for the pig to rummage through. Katie and the Captain both spread out 
flat on their respective couches and sighed.
"So what else needs doing before we head out?" the Captain asked to 
nobody in particular. "Both boats are set to go, with all the 
supplies I listed for you?"
Rashid looked to the heavens. It had been a battle to convince the 
fugitive to stay at home rather than coming with them on their 
repeated trips to the docks today.
"Yes, I told you, we found everything and it's all on board. Food for 
humans and cats, bedding, more than enough fuel to get us across the 
Indian Ocean..." He pulled the crumpled list from his pocket and 
looked over the scrawled handwriting. "Fishing tackle, a shitload of 
padlocks, a couple monkey wrenches... Oh, no Jackson's perfume. I 
refuse to have any of that stuff around. I got you a box of whiskey 
instead."
The Captain's look of dismay turned to a crooked smile. "Ah well, I 
think I can manage. How about rope?"
"Yeah, enough to hang a dozen elephants. I still don't see what we're 
going to do with it all though."
The Captain waved a finger from his reclined position. "You can never 
have enough rope. We'll need it, just wait and see. Maybe not as much 
as we would if we were sailing a dhow, but still..." He chuckled 
heartily. He was never going to let Ali live down that suggestion. 
"And the other boat?"
"Just the jetski strapped down in the back," Rashid answered. "I hope 
it will be heavy enough, it was the largest boat I could manage to 
borrow on such short notice."
Yasser had stayed with the Captain through the morning, helping him 
search through the vast resources of the internet for relevant 
information. He spoke up.
"It won't take much, as long as it's moving fast enough. I'm sure our 
Captain won't have any problem with that."
"You got that right. Let me drink enough of that whiskey beforehand 
and I'll make the boat come out the other side!"

Ali stood up. "So we're all ready to proceed then? Or are there any 
more computer tutorials we are required to sit through?"
Yasser frowned--he'd spent most of his afternoon putting together the 
instructional slide shows for the others, complete with sounds and 
animated text. Ali wasn't being fair; if it wasn't for Yasser they 
would never be able to understand all that maritime jargon. At least 
he had been given an easy job, Laxman thought. Padlocks were easy 
enough to wrap one's head around. He stood along with the others. It 
was definitely time to get moving. He asked silently for kindness 
from the gods and help, as always, from the Remover of Obstacles. If 
they ever actually reached India, he was going to have to remember to 
go on a long pilgrimage or two to make up for all the aid he had been 
taking these last few nights. They pulled on their various jackets 
and sweatshirts--it wasn't as warm tonight as it had been, and out on 
the water it would be downright chilly. "No worries," said Katie, and 
opened the front door to a horde of staring yellow eyes. A few of the 
cats came in to pick through the remains of the meal, but most stayed 
out in the front garden as if ready to go. They also seemed to have 
picked up the sense of expectation in the air.



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Flying Carpet

The Flying Carpet cut through the smooth black surface of the sea, 
leaving behind a narrow but foaming wake, heading northeast at a 
forty degree angle to the coastline of Southern Kuwait. The city 
lights glowed in the distance up ahead invitingly, but they wouldn't 
be getting much closer than this. The Captain sat in the big, 
cushioned leather seat at the wheel. The top deck was glassed in and 
climate controlled like most of the enormous yacht. For now, however, 
the air conditioning was switched off and as many windows and doors 
as could be opened were, allowing free rein to felines and sea 
breezes alike. A dozen or so cats milled around on this deck, vying 
for a place next to the three humans who stood to the port side 
windows, looking ahead to the city lights in something like a silent 
farewell. Something like it, but with a hint of malevolence. Katie 
was sitting cross-legged on a stack of heavy blankets piled against 
the starboard corner, monkey wrench thrust in her belt, wearing an 
eye-patch. Floyd the pig sprawled out casually next to the blankets, 
sporting an eye-patch of his own. They couldn't get the Australian to 
stop talking like a pirate.
"Yaargh, this be a fine sturdy vessel for a long voyage and a bit o' 
plunderin'! Where be its master?"
The Captain shook his head and tapped the backlit color display on 
the global positioning unit screwed onto the dashboard. Rashid had 
programmed it earlier with a waypoint using the icon of a green tree. 
He hadn't explained why he had deemed that particular symbol 
appropriate for their rendezvous spot.
"He's still a ways ahead. This is a useful gadget for some things, I 
guess. I see now why the smugglers all have 'em these days. I never 
needed one myself just to find the islands and the city docks. This 
whole boat is a bit over the top actually. I can't imagine the Sabah 
kid piloting this monster. I don't even know what half of these 
controls do."
He flipped a lever experimentally; no detectable change resulted from 
it. He tried turning a little tiny wheel, and again there didn't seem 
to be any effect.
"I swear it's all there just to make the pilot feel important."
"Does Rashid actually drive it very often?" Laxman asked. "It sort of 
belongs to his family, right? As he's going to be driving it tonight 
I hope he knows what he's doing. This thing is the size of a house!"
Ali laughed suddenly. "I think we will all be worse off if he is used 
to piloting it. I'll bet he drives a boat like he drives a car!"
Everyone groaned. It was a frightening thought.

There was a scattering of other large private boats here closer to 
town, brightly lit and more often than not with music pumping. Most 
of them were just drifting in place while their passengers feasted 
and danced in floating Ramadan parties. The most happening vessels 
rocked slightly in the water. The Flying Carpet gave them all a wide 
berth, the Captain trying to stay inconspicuous. It had been smart of 
Rashid to have them depart with the boat from his family's beach 
house slightly south of town where nobody was around to see them 
loading up their supplies or casting off. Rashid himself had been 
fine to set off with their other, borrowed vessel from the Ras Al-Ard 
harbor in Salmiya; in that boat's case the intention was to be seen.

"Shiver me timbers! I don't like the looks of those other seascum out 
there on the..." Katie paused and looked around. "Which side be the 
starboard?"
Laxman tried to fill her in. "It's the opposite of..." he turned to 
the Captain. "What's the left side called again?"
"Port."
"Yeah, it's the opposite of the port side."
"Aharrr jim-lad, I says I don't like the looks of 'em."
Ali was digging into one of the many bags of snacks they had brought 
along in the cargo hold. The cargo hold was actually a spare cabin 
below decks, but one of them--Katie, most likely--had taped a piece 
of paper to the door with 'Cargo Hold' written on it with a black 
marker, so that's what it was now. It was a nice thought, but so far 
nothing on this ship was showing any inclination to stay where it 
belonged. Ali pulled out an apple from the bag and bit into it with a 
crunch. Katie stood up from her stack of blankets and crossed the 
deck with a grimace, brandishing the monkey wrench over her shoulder. 
A few of the weaker-nerved cats scrambled to get out of her path.
"Alright me bucko, hand over the loot right quick an' everythin' will 
be shipshape." She reached into the bag and pulled out some 'loot'; 
Ali showed no sign of resistance. "Aaahhrr. You made the right 
choice, I'd 'ave 'ad yer guts for garters if you'd held out on me."
"Belay that kind of talk!" he retorted. "I would never be so foolish 
as to stand between a fearsome sea rover and her cat food. Now why 
don't you sail out on deck and stand sentry duty or something, keep 
all the seascum at bay."
Katie dropped the bag of cat food with a final "Aaahhrr!" and exited 
the cabin, minus loot.
"What is happening with her tonight?" Yasser asked, somewhat vexed. 
"Doesn't she think any of this is serious?"
Ali shrugged and took another bite out of his apple. "No worries, as 
they say. Some people just react to stress or fear like that."
"By turning into pirates? Weird."
"Hey, you can't blame Katie for being an Australian. She can't help 
it."
The object of their concern came rushing back into the cabin a moment 
later.
"Rashid's boat ahead! I mean, ahoy! Forr'ard bow! Is that right?" She 
looked to the Captain.
"Yeah, perfect. I saw him already."

They pulled up alongside the other boat, only slightly smaller than 
the Flying Carpet, and their resident pirate did the honors of 
throwing a rope over. Rashid picked up the soaking wet end after her 
fifth attempt and tied it off. As their own lights illuminated the 
bow of Rashid's borrowed boat, the Captain saw with deep amusement 
that it was named the George Bush and sported bold American stars and 
stripes along its sides. Damn, that was so perfect it made him want 
to cry. The name was probably that of the Senior, the 'Great 
Liberator' of popular myth, the Abu-Abdullah. He couldn't be sure, 
though. The boat looked disturbingly new.
"Ready to swap?" Rashid strode into the cabin, eager as ever. "I can 
take care of the pirate crew around here."
The Captain stood up from the wheel and rushed for the door. "Thank 
God. Send them all to bed, why don't you? It'll be another hour or so 
from here to Kubbar."
Rashid hopped into the well-cushioned bucket seat and took the helm, 
flipping switches and turning knobs until he was satisfied. Damned if 
he knew what any of it was for, but a little adjustment never seemed 
to hurt. He watched through the window as Katie and the Captain 
untied the two boats, then he pulled away into a wide semi-circle 
with a wave. Once underway, he reset the GPS to guide him to the 
waypoint for Kubbar Island. He turned his head over his shoulder and 
nodded to Ali, Yasser and Laxman, who were still standing against the 
windowsill surrounded by sleeping cats.
"What kind of snacks you got in there? You heard the Captain, we've 
got a long ways to go still. I'm hungry."
"Cat food and apples in this bag. Don't ask me who packed it." Laxman 
tossed an apple to the helmsman, which missed completely and bounced 
off an important-looking row of buttons. Floyd ambled across the 
cabin, tracked down the fruit into the corner where it had rolled, 
and crunched away at it noisily. Yasser tried a shot, with much 
better results. Rashid snatched the apple out of the air and started 
eating.
"Wellll, I think our esteemed Captain's parting words were wise 
indeed," Laxman yawned. "An hour of napping is just what I need if 
I'm going to be much help with the sabotage." He left the cabin, 
climbing the stairs down, the other two going behind him. All but a 
few of the cats awoke and followed the group out as well. At the 
helm, Rashid rubbed his eyes, took another bite out of the apple, and 
flipped a switch back and forth. The wind was getting cold out here, 
but he didn't want to shut the windows--he needed it to keep him 
awake. Maybe what he really needed was some tea from downstairs. He 
should have asked before everyone deserted him. The adrenaline would 
kick in once they reached their target, but until then the starry sky 
and invisible horizon weren't going to be too exciting. The pig 
Floyd, still wearing his ridiculous eye-patch, lay down on Rashid's 
feet with a prolonged grumble and went to sleep.



CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sinking The Bucephalus

Kubbar Island was a desert island in the finest cartoonist tradition, 
a speck of sand atop a tiny outcrop of coral off the coast of Kuwait. 
All it was missing was the single coconut palm, instead sporting a 
man-made substitute in the form of a mobile phone service relay 
tower. During the day--in other months of the year, at least--there 
were usually several boats anchored around the islet, day trippers 
picnicking on its miniature beach. It was too far out to be popular 
for an evening excursion, though, even during the greatly-extended 
evenings of Ramadan, so the shallow water over the little reef was 
now deserted except for the Flying Carpet and the George Bush, both 
floating side by side with all of their lights switched off. The city 
of Kuwait could still be seen this far out as a glow on the horizon, 
but there were also other, nearer lights visible. Closer in to the 
nearest stretch of coast lay one of the major oil loading terminals, 
where the ceaseless procession of tankers took on their loads of 
crude straight from the wells at Ahmadi and Burgan. Several tankers 
both filled and empty usually sat in the vicinity of the terminal at 
any one time. On this particular night there was only one ship 
anchored in the area, to the east of the terminal near Kubbar. It was 
called the Bucephalus, and they had seen a mention or two of it on 
the Kuwait shipping news websites. Apparently after being pumped full 
of oil there had been some questions regarding its seaworthiness, and 
as all official matters slowed to a halt during the Holy Month, it 
was being forced to wait for its clearance papers until after Eid. 
Its enormous oil-laden bulk sat low in the water like another much 
larger island to the west of Kubbar, dark and silent, edges marked 
out only by a few safety lights.

The six conspirators stood on the deck of the Flying Carpet, putting 
together their equipment. The cats crowded around for a view. Laxman 
was taking heavy padlocks out of a cardboard box one at a time, 
unlocking them, tossing the keys over the railing into the sea, and 
trying to hook as many as possible into his belt in such a way that 
they would not knock together when he moved. Rashid and Ali carried 
monkey wrenches in their otherwise empty backpacks, and Katie 
brandished the Captain's found military knife in swashbuckling style. 
Yasser himself also wore a backpack and held a wrench; he pointed to 
the massive shadow in the distance with the latter.
"It's true that most of the crew will be on shore now, but I still 
think there are sure to be one or two left behind to keep an eye on 
things. I can't imagine they would really just leave it empty like 
that. So remember to use real stealth. Don't get too casual."
Funny, they actually listened to him in matters like these. He'd 
somehow gained a bit of a reputation as the group saboteur and expert 
in covert tactics. He hadn't realized he was so exciting.
"Whew, I'm glad I don't have to do any of that stuff," the Captain 
replied, "I'm not very good at being quiet. The stunt driving suits 
me just fine."
"Did you check the jetski?" Laxman asked.
"Yeah," Rashid answered, "before we loaded it on. Anyway it doesn't 
really matter, even if it doesn't start all the Captain has to do is 
float there. So, we're ready? Let's untie ourselves and push off."
The Captain climbed onto the railing and jumped to the deck of the 
George Bush, causing it to rock and bump against its neighbor. He 
lifted a bag of snacks over to his side, glass clinking together 
within.
"See you at one o'clock, again. I'll try to be on time tonight."

       *       *       *       *       *
 
Yasser climbed up the emergency ladder at the rear of the tanker, 
slipping into his stealthy, cat-like frame of mind. He reached the 
top and craned his neck out at deck level. Seeing no signs of life, 
he hopped onto the deck and reached behind him into his backpack for 
his wrench. There were plenty of nuts and bolts around to choose 
from. He tried out the tool on one of the large nuts holding the end 
of a pipe to a wall. A hiss of escaping air accompanied the removal. 
Oh well, whatever that meant it couldn't be too bad for them. He 
turned back to the railing and dropped the nut over, not hearing the 
splash from up here. He lit up the face of his watch: a little over 
an hour to go. Fine. A lot of damage could be done in an hour if one 
had a nice big wrench.

He was hiding out of sight on top of the still-hissing pipe when the 
others reached the deck. They all jumped when he dropped from his 
perch.
"Woah, watch it cat-boy," whispered Rashid, "I almost went back over 
the side there. Let's get at it."
"Just don't get too into the wanton destruction," Laxman added, 
"remember to be back on the Carpet by ten to one, or you'll be stuck 
begging the crew for a spot on the lifeboat."
The five monkeywrenchers split up in the general directions of where 
they imagined their targets to be, moving as silently as each could 
manage. Rashid made a beeline for the main engineering room, in 
search of the fuel pumps. Ali followed behind him, looking for 
anything labeled "emergency pumping and drainage" and laying waste to 
it with his wrench. Katie wandered the decks looking for water 
removal hoses--or any hoses in general--and sawing them to shreds 
with the Captain's knife. Laxman padlocked hatches leading below 
deck, avoiding crew compartments and any passages marked with single 
chalk lines--meaning one of the others was inside. Yasser climbed 
into the bowels of the ship to seek out points of watertight 
integrity that he could breach and saltwater interchange valves to 
mess around with. It all could have been a lot better planned out, 
but since they were just trying to do as much damage as possible 
there wasn't really anything to screw up. Most of their efforts were 
just aimed at thwarting damage control anyway, the Captain would do 
the rest. Rashid's task was the most important: shifting fuel to the 
port side of the Bucephalus, giving her a bit of a list and pushing 
the weight of the oil filling the tanker to that side. According to 
the Captain and backed up by all of their research, after the George 
Bush impacted their chosen spot on the port side of the ship, it 
would be down on the bottom gushing oil before anyone could possibly 
do anything about it. Still, it was good to lock a few hatches and 
bust a few pumps just to be sure. If nothing else it made the whole 
endeavor seem so much more hands-on.

Rashid didn't see a single sign that anyone was around on the ship. 
Surely they were all in the city now, trying to figure out where to 
buy alcohol. There might not even be anyone around to notice the ship 
sinking until it had already disappeared beneath the waves. Hah, that 
would be priceless! 'Wait, wasn't there a ship there last night?!' 
Rashid paused to pull a panel off the wall and rip up a few wires, 
screwing the square of steel back into place crookedly. Funny, he'd 
never thought he would end up dismantling Kuwaiti society in quite so 
literal a way. He continued down the passage, following the signs for 
the pump room. It was too bad really, for a while they had thought 
they could made the whole thing look like an accident, but without 
shifting the fuel and cargo and breaching a few watertight 
compartments it was all too iffy. And they didn't want to be half-
hearted about sinking this thing. If it really did go down before 
anyone was able to have a close look, they may still think for a 
while that the crash was accidental, but they would likely find the 
signs of sabotage eventually. Even then they would probably conclude 
that it had been a suicide on his part. Too bad that, unless the 
evacuation was really fast, his own family would sooner or later 
notice that their boat was missing too. The hope was that he would be 
well hidden with the others in India by that time, the Flying Carpet 
also resting on the bottom of the ocean somewhere. He hoped India 
would be as nice as Laxman made it sound, and not as dirty as some 
described it.

He found the pump controls in the engineering room at last, 
recognizing the machines from the pictures Yasser had showed him in 
his computer slide show. Pushing the levers to one side, he fastened 
them with the two padlocks he had brought in his backpack. Click, 
click. There was no undoing that; the keys to the locks were lying 
around in the coral off Kubbar now. He started suddenly at the 
thought, then calmed down. Yes, he'd got it right, port side was 
left. No worries. Picking up his bag, he started back towards the 
entrance to the engineering room where he had come in. Upon reaching 
the doorway he heard voices and footsteps echoing from up the 
passage. Not his friends. He stood frozen, trying to remember what 
the plan was for this situation. All he remembered was that he hadn't 
actually made one. He scrambled into the shadows behind a large 
vertical pipe. At least the voices didn't sound excited or panicked--
in fact one of them seemed to be singing--and the footsteps weren't 
moving too quickly, so whoever it was hadn't discovered any signs of 
the ongoing sabotage yet. Just some of the crew taking a walk. They 
didn't sound particularly alert--or even sober--so they probably 
wouldn't even notice the padlocked pump controls in the ill-lit 
engineering room. He'd better hide here until they passed, then run 
back to warn the others. They could head to a safe distance on the 
Flying Carpet and wait for the Captain a little early now that the 
pumping had begun. Through the crack between pipe and compartment 
wall he watched the two crewmen in overalls mosey into the room, 
singing lustily.



CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Enemy

The Captain opened his second bottle of whiskey, even though he 
hadn't finished the first. It was damn kind of the Sabah kid to buy 
him this stuff. Not cheap even for a rich Kuwaiti like him. Sure, 
four bottles wouldn't be enough to get him all the way to India, but 
he wasn't actually planning on taking that trip anyway. He had only 
signed up to sink the ship, not to go on any exotic journeys. He'd 
been fleeing from one thing or another for a long, long time. He 
couldn't handle becoming much more of a refugee than he already was. 
Besides, he hated spicy food. To top it all off he didn't even have 
the slightest idea how to use a jetski. They expected him to push it 
off the back of the boat at full throttle and jump after it or 
something? What kind of action star did they take him for? No, the 
Captain would go down with his George Bush.

He just wished he didn't have to sit around waiting for so long. The 
longer he leaned on the railing here on the moonlit red-white-and-
blue bow of the yacht, the more whiskey he had to drink, and the 
harder it became to keep his head together. He could still remember 
what time he was supposed to leave--one o'clock, it was always one 
o'clock--but he wished they had worked out some kind of signal. 
Yasser hadn't wanted to take the risk, not even with a flashlight or 
something. They had guessed it might be light enough out here to see 
other boat pulling away from where it was moored against the tanker's 
side, but he couldn't see shit that far off. The whiskey wasn't 
helping in that either. If only he could know what was going on in 
there--he sure as hell didn't want to waste his one shot at this by 
attacking too early. He picked up a packet of zaatar-flavored chips 
off the deck at his feet and fished out the last four, folding the 
empty foil bag flat and sticking it in his back pocket. "No excuse 
for littering," he mumbled to himself. He was lifting up the whiskey 
bottle to wash down the chips when he remembered something: Of 
course, he could find out how everything was going with the others! 
Rashid had done it before in the middle of the desert, surely he 
could do it here. In fact, if he wasn't mistaken... He turned to look 
at the single mast erected at the center of flat little Kubbar 
Island. That was a mobile phone tower right? He pulled his mobile out 
of his jacket and searched for Rashid's number. Arty, Dari, Ceej, 
Joanna, Shagga... what the hell, where'd he get those numbers from? 
Never mind, here was Rashid's, right where one of the others had 
programmed it in for him on that first night when he'd been even more 
drunk. He hit the call button. The bastard had better pick up.

       *       *       *       *       *

The two crewmen had just passed out of sight through the door at the 
far end of the engineering room when Rashid's mobile started up its 
polyphonic hip-hop tune. The shock alone blasted him out of his spot 
in the shadows. He barely touched the ground before he was at the 
wall next to the exit. Too late, they were coming back. He ripped the 
phone off his belt and mashed at the buttons frantically. It fell 
silent. He looked up at the two large overalled men approaching him 
with unsure looks stamped on their faces. His heart was racing, but 
his mind was even faster; as always in tricky situations like this, 
it slipped into wasta overdrive. It would take an insanely powerful 
act of wastamancy to get him out of this, but that was his best 
chance. It would have to be a swift and decisive blow.
"What is all that noise?" he almost shouted. "Are you two drunk? In 
the engineering rooms?" He held up the mobile. They were right where 
he wanted them, in confused silence. "I was just calling up Mr. _____ 
at the KOC to give him my report on this rust-bucket's seaworthiness. 
Do you want to be included in it?"
The pair mumbled something about 'doing their rounds' and stumbled 
for the door, bumping against each other. Wow. It had worked. He 
thought he might have been a little too aggressive at first, but 
these guys were drunk and alcohol made everyone weak-willed, force 
was just what was needed. They may not even have known the name he 
used if they were with the shipping line and not the oil company. He 
started breathing again and switched off his mobile before anyone 
tried to call again; stupid of him not to do that in the first place. 
Oh well, he'd beat them once again. He really was a wastamancer. It 
was kind of too bad that they were about to make the discipline 
obsolete.

Halfway up the passage to the deck, footsteps echoed from ahead once 
more. Too far up to hide anywhere this time. All he could do was hope 
it was one of the same guys and that they would scare just as easily 
the second time around. He continued walking boldly forward until he 
met up with the tall man. At first he thought it was Ali--he was 
wearing the same style of old-fashioned thob--but he was larger, 
taller and more mature, with a well-shaped mustache, and the garment 
was of blue fabric. This was definitely no crew member either. He 
regarded the interloper with the wary, wily look of a government 
minister. Rashid lashed out with his wasta, using a different 
technique.
"Ah hello, did Mr. _____ send you as well? He told me there might be 
someone else from the Company coming along. Mind helping me check the 
seals down there for the report?"
The tall man didn't move. He just smiled.
"No, I'm afraid he didn't. My name is Fadi Bin Fahad."
Rashid didn't know the name, but the force of powerful wasta stood 
behind it, solid and unmistakable.
"A generous Ramadan to you, Fadi Bin Fahad. And may I ask who you 
were sent by?"
The wasta-steeled words pierced Rashid like six daggers and drained 
him of his will to resist. "Abdul-Muiz Ibn Husaam Al-Sabah."
Who? He didn't know of anyone with that name in his family! If it 
weren't for the more-than-tangible power in the name, he would have 
thought it an amateurish attempt at wasta forgery.
"I... don't know who..." he faltered, almost physically stunned by 
the assault.
"I didn't think so. You are not familiar with the Shadow Assembly or 
its Prime Minister. Come with me please."
Rashid followed the man out to the deck, completely cowed and broken. 
He'd been beaten by a master.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ali, Laxman and Katie sat on a single bunk in a cramped square room 
that looked somewhere between a cabin and a closet. The hatch was a 
lot heavier than one would have expected for that sort of thing, 
though. It was unlocked noisily from the outside and Rashid entered 
with the man in the blue thob shillahat. Their friend walked over and 
stood next to them avoiding their coded glances. He was right; you 
just didn't try that sort of thing with a guy like this. Ali hadn't 
the slightest notion what was going on. He had been busy causing 
grevious harm to a particularly complicated pumping system, just 
noticing that the deck was starting to list a bit to one side, when 
this guy had come up behind him. He'd brought him here to this... 
'lockbox', the man had called it, where his two friends were already 
being held captive. And now Rashid. Ali smiled inwardly; the noisome 
snake wouldn't have such an easy time catching Yasser, that was for 
sure.
"Yes, the brave saboteurs are reunited. Did you have a good time?"
Rashid looked helpless, so Katie took the rebellious role for him. 
"You bet. Feel how the deck's leaning? This tub's going down. Not bad 
for amateur work."
"Oh yes, I'm sure you made a nice mess, but it's just not that easy. 
Even children like you should know better. This ship is going to have 
a terrible time getting its certification now, but the repair crew 
will come to fix it all up tomorrow. The police will also be here 
then to escort the would-be terrorists away. Don't waste time 
thinking about an early departure, your boat has been cut loose." He 
turned away and grabbed the hatch handle. "Amateur work is right. I'm 
a bit disappointed, in fact." He slammed the lockbox shut behind him 
as he exited.

Rashid sat heavily on the floor. "What the hell is the 'Shadow 
Assembly?"
So that's what they called themselves, eh?
"It's not anything official, that's for sure, or he would have had 
the police with him instead of promising to send them round in the 
morning," Ali conjectured. "Sounds like some manner of secret 
society. Unfortunately for us, they would seem to have Kuwait's best 
interests in mind vis-a-vis oil spills."
Laxman looked askance at him. "You seem very composed and talkative 
considering we're in a... lockbox."
Ali gave his finest shrug. "I've just encountered something I've 
never seen before in this country. A real, live, honest-to-God 
villain."
"Yeah, and he's turning us over to the authorities."
"And how! Locked us in a room, left us to our own devices for hours, 
after exposing far too much secret information about his group. It's 
perfect!"
They could see what he was getting at now, and they looked too worn 
out to argue.
"Can you imagine," he continued in growing excitement, "Secret 
societies, a Shadow Assembly, strange mustachioed men in antique 
dress. In Kuwait! They must be ancient, maybe a splinter of the 
Assassins. Or the hidden descendants of one of Sheikh Mubarak the 
Great's two murdered brothers! They could be jinni for all we know!"
"Wait..." Rashid sat up a bit straighter. "What you said about 
Mubarak. He did mention the name of a Sabah I've never heard of...  
Abdul-Muiz Ibn Husaam, I think..."
"Abdul-Muiz Ibn Husaam! Son of the sword! See? He is perfect. He is 
our nemesis. We have a nemesis!"
"So," Laxman asked, "you're saying we should escape and fight back 
somehow? I'm sure they are long gone by now, and he said they cut the 
Flying Carpet loose."
He considered the thought for a moment. It certainly didn't look like 
it was going to be very easy getting out of this cramped prison. 
"Maybe, if that's how the story goes. Don't forget that Yasser's 
still out there, they had no chance of finding him. They don't even 
know about him. Maybe he'll set us free, or maybe he'll be the one to 
fight back for us, but I'm not so sure. I think I've already worked 
out how this story ends. No worries, we win."
"How?" all three of his companions looked at him, finally caught up 
in his excitement.
He pulled his old Russian pocket watch from inside his thob and held 
it up dramatically. A dull, pounding thud resonated through the walls 
of their prison, right on cue.


















EPILOGUE

       *       *       *       *       *

The wavelets lapped cheerfully against the sides of the boat, as they 
had done for many days. The Abbess basked in the warmth of yet 
another sunny afternoon. Not a cloud in the sky. She stretched and 
wiggled her ears around, yawning wide. White fur was a wonderful 
thing. She could lie out here all day and not overheat. Lucky, since 
there wasn't a whole lot else to do out here. She could see her 
darker-coated mate Sparrow sitting over there in the shade, taking a 
break from the sun with Mighty Paw and the others. The young kitten 
Ears Of Destiny made a bid to join them, but Fleece batted him away; 
whatever they were discussing was obviously too important for the 
disruptions of a young one. There had been much discussion since the 
humans had disappeared, taking the Uniter with them, on their first 
night on the boat. Some deemed it an act of treachery, painting the 
humans as malevolent demons in their tales, but the Abbess had her 
own ideas; Perhaps they didn't need the Uniter any longer. Perhaps He 
had left them of His own will, judging the Tribe of the Thirty-Six 
finally capable of continuing without His guidance. His job was 
merely to unite them, to gather them from their lonely, oblivious 
existences and illuminate them with the spark of thought, bringing 
them together into a Tribe which was greater than any one cat had 
ever been. They had not understood at first. They had been as 
kittens, opening their eyes for the first time. But even kittens knew 
to watch and learn.

The Hairless One ran past, squealing, chased by Ears Of Destiny. Just 
having a bit of fun, but she must have a word with the kitten about 
not harassing the poor animal. It was not alive as they, yet some of 
the Tribe believed that it had simply not found its own Uniter and 
must be treated as an equal. Anyway, it had proved an invaluable ally 
in breaching the entrance to the great Cargo Hold. If it had not been 
for the bounty within, praise the Uniter, they would have all run 
short on food many days ago. As it was they were going to have to 
start rationing before long. The Abbess stretched again and closed 
her eyes. None of that was worth worrying about right now. What was 
she anyway, the Queen of the Tribe? No, of course not, they were an 
anarcho-syndicalist commune. She wasn't even the executive officer 
for the week. That was Maagi, poor thing.

Her sun-soaked reverie was cut short by a shudder that ran through 
the body of the boat. Uh oh, could be trouble. She was on her feet 
instantly, sprinting to the front tip of the deck ahead of the 
others. Wet sand stretched out before them, smooth and white; tall, 
impossibly green trees rose beyond. It smelled unlike anything the 
Abbess had ever smelled before.












*End of Etext of Shahrazad Perceived the Dawn, by Paul Cox*