There is a blurred image in the glow of the desert. A picture is lost in the glare of the heat and crushing sun. There is a house that seems made of the sand around him and a lot of ink-soaked cloth, hanging from ropes. There is a canopy of color and seething robes amid the laughter of the women and the cries of vendors. There are places, dates, screaming. Smoking hookahs, traders fervent, a wedding procession through the crowd. In a side alley. A strange Moorish arch separates the patio and the passenger market. An alley that has seen Saracens and Egyptians, Carthaginians and Romans. It's dark and almost cool. An oasis in the desert shades of light. There are paving stones on the floor and steps reverberate against the walls. In the background, if you hear it, distinguishes the voice of a woman. Sing as tunics drained water from a ditch.
I go. Came to her through the dark hall. I stop right in front of a clay vessel and look in the water. I see my skin and my hair dark black. The cloth of the turban on his shoulders. I look at the arms and I see the coat and dirty hands of sand, large nails, long, tanned fingers, palms full of lines that intersect. The scrubbing stops listening clothes and empty place around the outside. I look at this woman who is beautiful. She looks at me and smiles. It takes me by the hand and leads me to the nearest house. Inside there are pillows, a rug that covers almost the whole place, fabrics separated by spaces, some vessels, images of gods who do not know, carved wood, painted on canvas. She turns incense in a container, said things I did not hear. He stands with his back to me and drops his robe. He turns and looks at me. Says the first thing I fail to understand:
ad Dib Salim ... Salim wolf.
Take a container and kneels behind me. I removed the robe from her shoulders and begins to pass the scented oil pan on my back in a slow massage. I wonder who he is, his name. I do not answer. I ask because I am in a time that is not my time and a body that is not mine. There is no such time, he says. There is no such body. Salim
sell rugs on the market, his father sold rugs and his uncle owns a caravan. Salim asks questions and brings them, he says.
I ask who I am then, why am I here, what was the meaning of all time spent.
No you never were. You're not.
And why are you talking about me then ask. Because
talk to Salim.
You are not only there.
You do not exist.
You are a dream ad Dib Salim.
Photo: Violet as captain for "Friday's Girls"
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