Through the pastel grays and glistening whites he staggered, his mind racing like some great engine that roars and trembles impotently, a key component broken. He had no recollection as to how he came here, where he was, where he was going. There was no immediate past before him, nothing beyond the past few minutes, though his body was weary as if he had been wandering for days. It was this lack of knowledge that scared him, he who had always been chief in surety and minister of wisdom.
A storm was coming. Its harsh tones could be heard above the mist, as if it were gathering its forces, marshaling its phalanxes of gales, sharpening the edges of its lightning strikes like the Grim Reaper might run a whetstone down the length of his scythe. The air crackled with electricity, the fog restive because of it. Shelter, thought the Sheikh desperately, Maslow’s pyramid of needs, security of body.
A cliff face reared before him, manifesting like a wall of serried shadow through the undulating waves of mist. Hands outstretched he hurried forward, and found that the base of the cliff was pocked with cave entrances.
“In here,” called a voice, sounding like the passage of a river through chthonic rivers, and the Sheikh turned as a man blind and guided and ran toward its source. A man stood within a cave whose entrance was low and wide like the mouth of a toad. “In here,” said the man, and stepped into the deeper shadows and disappeared.
“Who are you?” cried the Sheikh, faltering to a stop. Outside the cave the winds were beginning to shriek, tearing the mist into jagged streaks. “Where am I?”
“Follow,” bade the voice, “Follow me.”
The Sheikh stood panting. Where in past hours he might have felt the flash of outrage, indignation over his questions being ignored, now he simply lowered his head and struggled forward. Voices were in the depths of the cave, a soft susurrus of whispers and laughter, though all was still dark. The clink of objects being weighed on a scale, of coins being dropped into a bag.
Onward the Sheikh stumbled, reaching up with both hands to straighten his kafiyah. Shapes were resolving themselves from the darkness, the outlines of people wandering between market stalls which were arrayed against the cave walls. Shadow people buying goods the could not be seen
“You have strayed far from your path,” said the throaty voice, and the Sheikh turned to look at his guide. Though the cave was without light, his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and he saw a face ashen and noble, generous of bone and with broad eyes.
“I have, yes,” agreed the Sheikh. “Last I remember I was within my home. Now, all is strange and distant. Where am I? Who are you?”
The man took him by the elbow and guided him forward as one might an elder bereft of his wits. Never had the Sheikh been so handled, but again his customary anger remained quiescent. “Come,” said his guide. There is not much time.”
A few steps and they were before a stall, canvas awning hanging low over the table of goods. Bric-a-brac, trash and broken toys. The guide reached out with one hand and stirred the relics of childhoods past, looking up at the Sheikh with bright eyes. “Does anything seem of interest to you?”
“No, of course not,” said the Sheikh, and then paused. A long second, and then he reached out tentatively and took up a broken wooden sword, its upper third snapped off and long gone. Turning it, he saw the painted mark across the hilt, the curlicue of black ink that he had drawn himself over sixty years ago. “This…” he said, voice soft in wonder. “I had not thought to see this again.
The guide said nothing.
Memories of arid summers chasing friends down alleys, leaping over the chasms that separated one roof from the next. Enacting legends, composing new ones. Friends and battles, screams and laughter. Everything washed out by time, but there, the firmament to his sense of self
“Lost,” he said. “This was lost.”
“No,” said the guide, taking it from him, pulling it from his hands. “Stolen. By your brother, that morning.”
“My brother,” said the Sheikh, eyes growing blind. “Mustafa?” His younger brother. Precocious and fierce, lonely and long dead. Found broken and still in a street, bloodied where he had fallen five stories from an ill considered leap.
“Found by his side, broken and bathed in his blood,” said the guide. “Lethal emulation.”
“No,” said the Sheikh. “It was a senseless accident.
“No,” said the guide, and tossed the wooden blade back onto the pile of trash. “Come.”
On they walked, cross to another stall. A long beam of wood crossed above them, and from it hung bodies by the neck, spinning slowly as if caught in a cross breeze. The Sheikh threw up his hands, would have fallen back had not his guide caught him by the shoulder and directed his gaze to the third body to the left.
A young woman, olive skinned, face bloated, eyes bulging. Beautiful once, she had been, and her voice, her voice could have stilled a riot, silenced guns, stolen hearts. It had stolen his. Slowly she spun, hung from the neck, eyes trained on his face.
“
“She hung herself, after,” said the guide, leaning in close as if in deference to the dead who hung over the stall and watched them. “Hung herself but three months after you were done.
The Sheikh remembered her demure protestations, her half hearted struggle against his tender attentions. How she had cried after, overwhelmed by the experience. He had not seen her after that night, not wishing to mislead her in thinking he was interested in a relationship.
“Not for love, did she hang herself,” whispered his guide. “But for shame and horror.”
The Sheikh could bear her eyes no longer, the cold malice that gleamed in their depths, and turning he ran further into the cave, passing through the crowds of shadows. He ran until he could breath no more, and stopped, leaning over to plant his hands on his knees, great belly hanging over his belt and surging in violent heaves.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” said his guide in what sounded like Teutonic accents.
“What manner of place is this? I am bedeviled!” cried the Sheikh, falling back from his guide.
“Why, tis but an innocent cave into which you have stumbled while seeking refuge from the storm,” said his guide, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“But these things that have been revealed up and onto me!” cried the Sheikh. “How is this possible?”
“Not all that glitters is gold,” said his guide slyly, running a finger up and down the length of his nose as if he wished to saw it off.
“What?” asked the Sheikh.
“Nevermind. Come on, more to see, don’t dilly dally.” The guide grabbed him roughly by the arm and jerked him to the next stall. Half terrified, the Sheikh sought to avert his eyes, and saw instead that the bare board contained a mere pile of coins.
“What’s this?” asked the Sheikh. “Money for sale?”
“Well, no,” admitted the guide. “Do you see how much money is before you?”
The Sheikh leaned forward and counted quickly with a practiced and beady eye. Money always brought out the hawk in him. “About… five hundred rupees.”
“A paltry sum, no?” asked the guide, leaning back on his heels and tapping his chin.
“Sure,” said the Sheikh. “I own much, much, much more money than that.”
“Five hundred rupees. The cost of a life?”
“Alas!” cried the Sheikh, comprehension dawning on him like a falling pile of bricks.
"Yes, quite,” said his guide severely. “I can’t believed you paid so little to have Sheikh Ahmed killed. Honestly. You could have shown largesse if only in your most disgusting deeds. But even there did you seek redemption through generosity.”
“But nobody was to know! What is this place?” The Sheikh, enraged and terrified, grabbed hold of his guide’s shirt and began to shake him violently. So violently did he shake him that the man fell to pieces, his head rolling off and onto the floor, his body rattling apart within his clothing. His capacity for being shocked not yet exhausted, the Sheikh released the guide’s clothing and watched with wide eyes as it all collapsed into a pile. Leaning down, he took up the man’s head. It had become a skull.
Screaming, he lobbed it underarm away from himself, and began to run again, running toward the cave entrance, away from this horrid bazaar and the dark secrets it revealed. He passed endless shadow figures, eyes riveted on the white blur without, until finally he emerged into the fog and storm.
The Sheikh managed but a few steps, and then the wind that razored the mist apart did likewise to him. Even as he dissolved, he finally recalled his last memory: his lying on his bed, surrounded by friends and relatives… waiting to die!
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