Ibrahim al-Koni - The Scarecrow

Owners of gold took the new legal code as good news, despite the alarms of weak-kneed folks and the exaggerations of anxious individuals who were terrified by the tax increase. Gold’s supporters circulated happily among the people, repeating a prophecy that said it was only right for the governor to raise taxes, because he knew better than anyone else that releasing the demonic afreet from captivity would bring people profits that would offset any losses the tax hike caused.

4

In the period following Aggulli’s assassination, skeptics became convinced of the ability of the spiritual lands to influence the desert lands once they saw how the age mocked the betrayed leader’s aides. Tayetti, for example, the leader of the attack against the calamitous metal, knocked persistently on the doors of the noblemen to ask for help — to no avail. They also saw that when Abanaban, the chief vassal, succumbed to a serious illness, not even his closest relative stopped by his house. They observed the wretched condition of Asen’fru, the miserable tax administrator, who wandered about alone after all his companions in evil and playmates in fraud renounced him, once circumstances changed and time frowned on him.

Now that the stars had shifted, the spheres had settled in inauspicious mansions, and the Spirit World had decided to turn the system upside down and to return the order of things to its ancient mansion, people who were in denial discovered that an age had passed and that another was asking permission to come. Then they saw that those individuals who had risen above the heads of creatures by some degree and had adopted the arrogance of peacocks had begun to bend and to bow their heads. Meanwhile those who had once been abased and considered weak were stretching out treacherous hands to attack their former master deceitfully and now found themselves aides, lords, and generals in the era of the new leader.

It was said that the new lords surrounded their master the day the herald toured the alleys and plazas repeating the cryptic call that spoke of souls being destroyed by what they desired. Then the chief vassal, Abanaban, said to his master, “It perplexes me, master, that the Spirit World should have destroyed upright lords and spared Ah’llum, whom Aggulli trusted more than anyone else, even though he was the first to strike the leader treacherously on that fateful day.”

It was said that the mysterious emissary was silent for a long time that day and then rolled up his sleeves to reveal his dark arms — something he always enjoyed doing — and began to pursue with his eyes the early-afternoon mirage that was rushing through the open countryside. Finally he replied in a way that people thought opaque: “If we had been granted knowledge of the natural characteristics of the Spirit World, we would have the right to make rules for things. We have frequently thought that we have been afflicted by an evil only to learn quickly that the act was good for us. We have frequently seen a matter we reckoned good turn bad. So what proof do we have that those we think have gone to death and damnation have not been chosen for another destiny that we find no path in our world to attain, namely happiness? What leads you to believe that the Spirit World only keeps a person alive to inflict suffering on him?”

The group was still for a long time, and a gloomy silence prevailed. They discerned a mournful look in the master’s eyes and prepared to leave. The emissary of the Spirit World, however, stopped the chief vassal, to whom he remarked, “Here’s some advice for you from me. I wouldn’t confide this to you if you weren’t going to be my right-hand man. Don’t hold a grudge for any evil. Don’t gloat over the suffering of someone who harmed you one day. Remember, as well, that this is not merely a condition imposed by someone the Spirit World has chosen to rule the people, but that you must learn that the source of happiness is hidden here. So beware!”

1

Suns do not rise or set, days do not come and go, stars do not vanish because they do not appear, and the stars do not appear because the skies have fled from the heavens, and the desert has disappeared because there is no existence for a desert in a homeland in which the sky has no existence. Nights also do not fall, because night has swallowed everything and nothing exists except the night.

For the first time an earthquake struck the two immortal companions and produced the obscure fissure separating time from space, its bosom friend. Then spaces vanished from every space and swam in the dark recesses’ void, where time also was stifled. Since anyone who does not find a space for himself in space does not live, anyone who ceases to exist in a space is also abandoned by time. Then he traverses the sacred Barzakh isthmus to gaze at an eternity that exists only in those tenebrous depths that blindness creates. No one knows why past generations have feared blindness so much that the forefathers considered it the ultimate punishment for malefactors, gouging out the eyes of criminals to deprive them of the enjoyment of looking at their beloved desert. They continued this tradition for long ages until an enlightened generation viewed this punishment as so cruel that it was suitable only for barbaric tribes. Then they debated with the people and discussed the matter with soothsayers, sorcerers, and leaders. So, nations enacted new laws that replaced blinding with the expulsion of criminals from the encampments and their forcible exile.

During the first period he enjoyed his exile and thought about time — which only dies in the tenebrous depths — and asked himself repeatedly about the secret of blindness, about the ability of this alleged ghoul to transform the pattern of life, about how it becomes something that people always consider worse than anything else. Yet it infuses the body with other fresh breaths and prolongs a transitory lifespan into flourishing lifetimes that the wilderness does not muddle, futile days do not sully, and visions do not confuse. Instead they evolve into a different journey that slithers forward with the elasticity of serpents, flows like the tongues of torrents down valley bottoms, and stretches to extend to an indeterminate end time. Perhaps peace of mind plays a role in this upheaval. Perhaps the key factor in this miracle is tranquility. Perhaps the reign of the dark recesses is a nodal point in space, and perhaps the disappearance of space eliminates its companion — time — from the desert. Then peace settles in the heart and confers delight in the Spirit World.

But what type of delight is achieved in the Spirit World? When was the life of the Spirit World a comrade for the life of the desert? Does someone who has lost the desert truly live when he no longer finds a space for himself in space?

2

In another time, or perhaps beyond another time — perhaps far from all times — he discovered that what he had thought was an existence beyond the desert and beyond space and time, and what he had believed to be bliss in the realm of the Spirit World, was merely the abyss of the dark recesses and the most hideous visage of blindness, and that the tribes of the first peoples had not erred when they blinded evildoers, making that their ultimate, harshest punishment. He discovered that life in the tenebrous depths is not a blessing, as he had once thought, that it is not bliss in the realms of the spiritual worlds, as he had always consoled himself, that it is not tranquility in the shade of retem trees or acacias, that it is not a life in life, because it is outside of life and man cannot be satisfied with a life outside of life — even in a paradise in the kingdom of the dead, even if he were installed as a god over life in a realm in which life did not exist. He discovered that his discounted realm did not become the neighbor of eternity simply through its liberation from the dominion of the desert lands. He discovered that his kingdom was more wretched than he had originally suspected, because its magic came from his — the hero’s — liberation from the fetters of the futility with which men had always manacled him. When time afflicted him and folks pitied him for his calamity, they dropped him and shunned him. Then the only companions he found were solitude, loneliness, and the tenebrous depths of blindness. So he relaxed, reposed, and for the first time savored peace.