Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

A case of genuine celestial evidence, the baking priest had added. Makes you think, doesn't it. And since then the man who told me all this has learned the name of the giant good genie in question. Strongbow is his name. And so that heavenly body up there that explains the inexplicable and lets us know that important events are happening in important lives, said celestial evidence has to be known of course as Strongbow's Comet.

Celestial evidence? Nubar didn't like that at all. Who were these people and what did they think they were doing over there in Jerusalem, in Araby, inventing this nonsense? His grandfather had discovered the original Bible and now it was rightfully his, the philosopher's stone belonged to him. It was as simple as that. Decisive action was needed.

SPEEDIEST FLASH. ARE YOU MAD? GENIES DON'T EXIST AND THEREFORE I ABSOLUTELY FORBID A COMET BEING OWNED BY ONE. MAKE THIS EPIC TELL THE

TRUTH OR FACE SEVERE REPRISALS. PRODUCE OR GET OUT. THIS IS MY FINAL

WARNING, YOU DEAD SEA FARTS, AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME JUST TRY ME.

NUBAR

THE TOP

The top, yes, but he had to be careful all the same. Treachery was everywhere. Betrayal was everywhere. And of course he knew exactly what they were trying to do with their comets and genies and maniacally dancing priests. It was a savage onslaught by the barbarians again with their primitive ideas and their instincts out of control, their profoundly ignorant belief in the superstitions of the heavens and giants to be met in the desert and swaying shamans seen illuminated in a cave, the shadowy figure of primitive brains trying to assault a rational mind. But they wouldn't get away with it, and if they continued to try to delude him they would soon see where it led.

A page from the report in his lap floated loose and rose slowly in the air. Up up and away. Nubar watched it disappear somewhere up there in the gloom.

Drafts. Icy drafts. It was cold in the cellar and getting colder. He needed more light to be able to see in this damp cave beneath the Grand Canal. He needed some heat.

The pit dug by the footman was at his feet. Despite their savagery even the barbarians had known what to do at the end of the day. A fire surely. A blazing roaring fire to warm the fierce horsemen and cheer them after another day of relentless butchery on the way to Europe. There were thousands of UIA reports here, more than he could ever use. Burn some, why not. Nubar pushed a pile of them into the pit and tossed in a match.

Light, heat, the flames shot up. This was much better. He pushed in more reports and settled back comfortably beside the crackling pit, able to see more clearly now, able to think more clearly because he didn't have to worry about the icy drafts.

Mulberry raki, strong and nourishing. He took a second gulp and thoughtfully chewed some of the wooden canteen.

A Macedonian Extra, just right. They thought they could wear him down with their lunatic antics but never had a gang of madmen been more mistaken. The barbarians believed in their primitive magic but Nubar knew better. He could handle it all and he was prepared to do just that.

He smiled shrewdly, not concealing his contempt, and picked up another page.

And now, sang the baking priest, having seen our genie in the last century, we'll be on with this epic tale and skip right up into our century, to just before the Great War. Once again your man the elderly item is off on his annual haj, resolutely making his way through Araby, through the wilderness and wastes and wearing his rusty Crusader's helmet as he does at all times against contingencies, steadfastly trudging through the desert to reach his Mecca, his faded threadbare yellow cloak flaring into a sail now and then to give him a push, a tug, the nudges he so badly needs if he's going to continue to make headway against the vicissitudes.

The baking priest pulled open the oven door and peered in. The blast of hot air struck the pilgrim on the floor and flattened him out a little more, if that was still possible. The oven door clanged shut.

Right we are, all's well. Now where were we? Oh yes, down in Araby of course and your man has just finished walking all night, and just before dawn, being tired naturally enough, he ducks under a rock to catch a nap, to catch forty nods as they say, his spindly legs protruding out from under the rock and looking like nothing so much as two ancient and exhausted lizards intent on dying. When all at once he hears a noise, a most unusual noise for way out there, a kind of whooshing sound as if something big were moving in the air, and he pokes out his head from under the rock. What might that be? he wonders.

The baking priest began to spin in front of his oven. Cassock twirling, sandals flapping, around and around he whirled.

What might that be? Well I'll tell you what that might be. That just might be the happiest moment of his very long life. It just might be ecstasy for him, that's what. Because who's coming down in that place that any other man would call Godforsaken? Any man except him, that is, with his centuries and centuries of faithful service. Who's descending right there on top of this tattered and battered soul, this starving and exhausted and tottering elderly item? Who's just dropping in for a look in that remote corner of the desert formerly and normally forsaken?

Himself, that's Who, do you follow me? Our Lord God and Creator.

The baking priest had stopped spinning when he said that. He stopped and crossed himself solemnly and gazed down at the pilgrim naked on the floor.

And his face was grave as was only to be expected, and the tone of his voice most reverent. Yet the pilgrim saw a twinkle in the priest's eye even then, even then when he was referring to his Maker. Caused by seven decades in front of an oven in Jerusalem, no doubt, enough to bake anybody's brains.

The pilgrim didn't move. He couldn't move. He lay speechless, naked on the floor.

Are you still with me? sang the baking priest as he scooped a load of hot loaves out of the oven and went dancing across the room.

At this point in his account, wrote the informer, the naked pilgrim on the bakery floor had finally succumbed to heat prostration and begun hallucinating.

It was impossible to make any sense out of what the pilgrim later that afternoon, between glasses of pomegranate juice at the informer's fruit juice stand, claimed the baking priest had said after that. Or rather, sung after that. The larger part was incomprehensible gibberish, the remainder incoherent hearsay.

Nevertheless, for purposes of completeness in UIA reporting, a summary of the rest of the epic was being included.

Summarized, the subsequent events in the baking priest's epic tale were these.

Page 17 of 407 pages, a report relating to the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle.

A. Conclusion of the foregoing.

B. The narrative form is hereby temporarily suspended, for purposes of clarity, in favor of itemized notes.

1. The man the baking priest has been referring to throughout as that elderly item or article, obviously Haj Harun, prostrated himself in the desert at dawn the moment he poked his head out from under the rock and saw God above him.

2. God was riding in a balloon.

3. The balloon descended and came to rest beside the rock where Haj Harun, as still as a lizard, had been about to catch forty nods after walking all night. Needless to say, Haj Harun was now alert and not thinking about forty nods, having waited three thousand years for this moment.

4. God stepped out of His balloon and saw that Haj Harun was terrified as well as ecstatic. God immediately offered Haj Harun food and water from a supply He was carrying in His balloon.

5. Haj Harun refused in the humblest of whispers.