Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

ibrahim al-koni

the way desert people honor travelers, till morning drew nigh and light threatened to assail the wasteland just as drowsiness was assailing their hosts. Then the guests slipped away andmelted into the open countryside, leaving their descendants some treasures stuffed into a knapsack. In the tenebrous depths’ void, other night creatures mater ial ized, but they deliberately chose their former bodies to terrorize their relatives. They emerged to frighten and harm their former enemies. In these dark recesses Wantahet awoke to devise the project of the eternal ruse. He, however, unlike all the dark recesses’ other denizens, waited till day to accost the tribes—the better to deceive them.

In the desert gloom, creatures were generated in people’s souls—creatures those people did not recognize. Then with all the impetuousness of ecstatics, they liberated themselves from their souls, which they pawned to other people in order to gull them of their souls and to downplay their own disgrace, referring to this sacrificial offering as “passion.” In the gloom of the barren continent, inanimate objects exchanged roles and beings migrated to the bodies of other creatures. Then the desert itself migrated from the desert’s patch of ground. On nights when no moon was visible and lights were slow to appear, cunning strategists were cautious at crossroads, because they knew from experience that talking to strangers after dusk is a

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