This winter will bring good things – I’m sure of it. Winter had always been kind to him. He stood outside to welcome the familiar winds that marked the arrival of the messenger who always bore gifts. Every intoxicating breath he drew was served chilled with memories of glorious winters past. His heart dared with great excitement ponder the possibilities of this particular winter. Wondrously, hopelessly, desperately urging it to once again entertain his incredulous superstition that great things only happened to him in winter’s presence. And it would succeed marvellously.

The promise of life’s interruptions is dangerously fantastic. It is an idea that intrudes our existence with magnificent aching for an elusive unknown. The fabric of inspiration is not in the experience of beauty, but in the imagination of it. Winter’s promise was that, once a year, every year, it would remind him that the world was not as lonely as it pretended to be.

****

He was lost, but not afraid. Mesmerised by the vastness of the universe reflected in the desert sands, he felt compelled to explore. He wandered the desert for an eternity before beginning to realize, that his wandering had some kind of purpose; he was following a star, visible at the very edge of the horizon. As ridiculous as it seemed, he felt drawn to it. It was not a star of any significance, as far as his secondary education provided. He didn’t seem to mind following it though – he did not intend on going anywhere in particular.

Two or three hours later, it became apparent to him that the star he was following, was not a star at all, but a large fire. Closer inspection revealed a tent, constructed twenty feet away from the large fire he had confused for a star. Nomads have been known to take part in such traditions, to signal travellers in need of shelter from an unforgiving desert. He approached the tent with a strong curiosity. As he did, a deep, resounding voice from behind him declared,

“Wanderer!”

He turned to greet a man bathed in white robes, standing atop a dune. His beard was long and grey, and darkened in the centre, like a storm cloud. With the moon shining proudly behind him, he seemed almost surreal.

“Come. Tea is ready”, he said.

Almost without question, he joined the man in his humble tent, and sat down, on the second cushion placed across from the first, the brass teapot resting in the sand between them. He couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling that his arrival was somehow expected, which only grew with the conversation.

“Welcome, wanderer”, said the nomad. “Some food? It is going to be a long walk”, he added, offering him bread.

He raised his hand to gesture that he was not hungry.

“I suppose you want to know where you’re walking to. Forgive me, sometimes I forget that wanderers don’t yet understand their purpose.”

He sat in patient amusement of the nomad before speaking.

“Purpose, implies that there is an objective to fulfil, nomad.”

“And, you don’t think you have a predestined purpose?” asked the nomad.

“No” he replied, offering a friendly smile so as not to offend him.

“You lack imagination, wanderer. Don’t worry, the desert has a way of changing that”, he said, as he picked up a handful of sand and watched it with strange melancholy, as he allowed it to flow out of the palm of his hand.

“Everything has purpose, wanderer, even the smallest things. Consider bacteria, it lived on the Earth for three billion years before more complex organisms were formed.”

The nomad paused momentarily to enjoy the tea.

“Later on, when algae formed from that bacteria, would you not say that its purpose was to enrich the atmosphere with oxygen, so that more complex organisms would eventually profit from it? But algae didn’t know that more advanced organisms would need oxygen. From its point of view, it just evolved in response to environmental conditions. From your point of view, you are just lost, wandering the desert.”

“And what is your purpose, nomad?” he asked.

“Right now? To enjoy this tea”, he replied, smiling, just before standing up. “Walk with me. It’s time.”

He followed him outside the tent and they walked past the crest of the dune, until both the fire and tent were no longer visible. The nomad stood beside him, and pointed towards the sky, specifically, towards the three stars that form Orion’s belt.

“Four stars, one for every demon. Follow them.”

“Orion’s belt? Demons? I think you’ve been in the desert far too long, old man.”

“You have a hopeless lack of imagination, wanderer” the nomad calmly responded.

“Besides, there are only three stars. Where am I supposed to find this fourth ‘demon’?” he asked, turning to the nomad, who had somehow, disappeared.

Brushing aside thoughts of the supernatural from his mind, he decided instead, to return to the tent and the fire. Half-expecting them both to have disappeared along with the nomad, when he found that they were indeed still there, he felt reassured that the nomad was simply insane.

The nomad was still nowhere to be found, but he did not give much thought to his absence. Instead, he entered the tent and poured himself a cup of tea to enjoy with the bread that the nomad had left behind. He looked down at the soft sand beneath him, and thought about his conversation with the nomad. He then lay down, and, using one of the cushions as a pillow, fell asleep.

When he awoke, he stepped outside of the tent only to be greeted by the peculiar sight of an unmoved night sky. He was sure that he had gotten plenty of sleep, but it was still, clearly, the middle of the night. He looked up at the night sky and his eyes fell onto Orion’s belt. “Follow them”, he recalled.

He rationalized to an imaginary mental audience that he would only follow them, because he had nowhere else to go.

It seemed like he had walked for days. Time had lost all value since the sun stopped rising. In addition, the desert had the strange quality of making him feel like he was not moving forward, nor making any progress at all. He knew that he could walk for at least two hours before needing to stop and rest. So, using a small stone he had acquired, he placed upon it a single mark, to represent every time he had stopped to rest. He had marked six since he had begun his venture, and was beginning to despair. He questioned the sanity behind following a star that an old and questionable nomad had told him to follow.

“Hello, Demon!” he screamed to an empty desert, just before falling to his knees, and laughing in ridicule, at his current circumstance.

He felt a distinct, and dark chill run down his spine, as the notes of a voice penetrated the air far too close to the back of his neck.

“Hello, wanderer”, announced the voice, in an eerily soft tone.

His body jolted forwards involuntarily and he lost balance, stumbling onto the sand.

He turned around to face the voice, which had terrified him a moment ago, only to greet the familiar face of the nomad from the tent.

“Have you been following me this entire time?!” he demanded, outraged at the surprise.

“Well”, said the nomad. “Have you met her yet?”

“Met who”, he replied somewhat less angrily, brushing off the sand from his arms.

“The girl, obviously. The name-giver.”

“I’ve met no such person. Only a crazy old man claiming to be of supernatural origin.”

It had not occurred to him until now that he had no name. Seeing as he had never needed one, he hadn’t paid much attention to the matter. However, now that he found himself, in fact, lacking a name of his own, he was overcome with a surprisingly urgent desire to have one.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“I lost my name a long time ago” the nomad responded, in a tone which could easily have been interpreted as being devoid of emotion, had it not been for the slight, but unmistakable hint of defeated sadness in the old man’s dark, wrinkled eyes. This was an expression that he had not seen the nomad wear before, but oddly, it seemed to suit him well. It was almost as if, he had worn it all his life.

He allowed his mind to wander for a moment. He would have asked the nomad about how he had lost his name, had it not been for his newfound and burning greed for a name of his own. So instead, he wondered what his own name might be, before moving his attention to the stone that he was still carrying, which he had used to mark the passing of time.

“The sun never rises. What is this place?” he demanded.

“This, wanderer, is your Place” the nomad replied. “Everyone gets a Place. It’s different every time. Some get a sandy beach; some get entire cities as their Place. But there are always stars. Always. This Place, is yours” he added.

“This desert. This…nothing” he replied.

“Far from nothing. The desert is a fine Place. The sole reason for your discontent is your own lack of a destination. You think there’s nowhere to go - that in all directions exists nothing but more of the same. It’s not all the same, you just have to pay attention when it does eventually decide to be different”

“And where exactly is that?”

“Whom, wanderer. Not where”

“Fine. The name-giver. Where am I supposed to find her?”

“Have you not been listening, wanderer? You’re already here. You really ought to start paying attention”, replied the nomad, pointing.

He turned around and saw that, indeed not too far from where he was standing, was a rather beautiful lake that he had somehow entirely failed to notice. On the opposite side of which could be seen, the curious figure of a young woman, lounging on the sand and gazing up at the stars in a splendidly carefree manner. He wondered how he could have missed something so obvious – something that so abruptly and unapologetically interrupted the tediously monotonous familiarity of the desert.

“How did you do that?” he turned to ask the nomad, whose unsurprising absence he now considered customary.

He approached the woman with the dark auburn hair, who, rather than react to his presence, instead lazily gestured for him to lie down beside her, and so he did, which made him realize how tired he had been from walking for so long.

“I want a name”, he stated demandingly.

“Such a curious one you are.” she said, gazing up at the sky. “The stars, aren’t they beautiful”

“I thought all Places had stars.”

“And aren’t they marvellous, strange one! In every Place, it always seems like I’m seeing them for the first time”

“You’ve been to many Places?”

“Too many”

“I want a name”, he repeated.

“Why? Why do you want one? Take mine”, she said. “Take it and give it to someone else who could make better use of it. People spend their whole lives trying to become their names, obligated to something they never even chose.”

She then turned her head to face him for the first time, and his burning desire for a name was, for a moment, suddenly and violently extinguished by how mesmerizingly beautiful he found her to be. Her eyes, which captured every wonderful shade of autumn, seemed to suffocate all of his desires into submission. But, the unconquerable need for a name, persevered.

“I still want a name”, he said, yawning.

I must not fall asleep, he thought. Not now. I must have a name.

She lightly touched his arm, and he felt the warmth of her fingers, which he found profoundly soothing, and he allowed it to distract his mind for a moment.

“Be patient, wanderer. Everything holds purpose. Such a strange one you are. Such a strange Place you live in. I wish I could stay to experience this strange Place. I wish I could stay to experience the strange you.”

It may have been her soft voice, or perhaps he was simply overcome with exhaustion. Nevertheless, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and surrendered his soul to the comfortable blanket of sleep.

“Wake up. Tea is ready”, he heard the all-too familiar voice of the nomad say.

“Where…where did she go?” he said, in a panic-stricken voice.

“Where did who go, wanderer?”

“The name-giver, she was here! The lake…”

It had taken him a moment to realize that he was now inside the tent where he had initially met the nomad. He scampered outside, trying not to lose his balance on the soft, impressionable sand.

“Where have you taken me, demon!” he demanded.

The nomad followed him outside of the tent and in a slightly worried and confused tone asked, “what are you talking about, wanderer?”

Could it possibly have all been a dream, he thought. No, it was still night-time, the sun had not risen, and he still had no name.

“Do not toy with my mind, nomad”, he said. “The sun has not risen and if you are truthful then tell me, what is my name?”

“Yes, you slept all through the day dear friend, and I did not wish to wake you. As for your name, well…you never told it to me.”

“No, she was here, I saw her…I…”

He paused to attend to the embarrassment that he now felt, as he had conceded now that he had probably simply had a strange and vivid dream.

“I apologize”, he said.

“No need. Shall we go inside and enjoy the tea?”

“Yes”, he replied, and followed the nomad back into the tent.

They were both silent as they drank their tea, the old man staring at him, displaying concern. He could clearly see that the old man was assessing the sanity of his guest. Although he had now accepted that the events that had occurred were a fabrication of his mind, one thing still troubled him – he still did not know his own name. Still in a state of questioning, it suddenly occurred to him – the nomad had not revealed his own name, and had told him something about losing it.

“What is your name?” he asked as politely and as calmly as he could manage, to mask both his anxiety and excitement.

The nomad sat upright, took a deep breath and smiled. “You may call me Bu-Esma”, he said. Father of Esma.

The nomad seemed very pleased with himself, as if, by saying his daughter’s name, he had just revealed his life’s greatest achievement. He could see in the nomad’s eyes that he was a man who profoundly loved his daughter.

“In the morning”, the nomad said. “I shall return to my village, and you are welcome to come with me, wanderer. You shall be my guest”, the nomad paused for a moment and added, “but no more talk of demons. The desert is a strange and powerful place, and talk of its strangeness is not particularly encouraged among the people of the desert.”

In the morning, he thought. He almost wanted to warn the nomad that the sun would not rise. But, just then, the sun cracked the surface of the horizon and the first slivers of morning had seeped into the tent. He was now convinced, and there would be no more talk of his strange experience.

They ate bread and cheese and drank water, and then put out the fire and dismantled the tent. He offered to carry it as he was grateful to the nomad for his generosity and his patience, and the nomad allowed him to. As they walked, he was still thinking deeply about the events of the night before, or at least, the events that he thought had occurred to him on the night before.

They were in the beginning weeks of winter, and by noon, although the air was cool around them, and carried a pleasant breeze, the relentless desert sun was strong, and was now beating down on them. Every bead of sweat that trickled down his face was a heavy reminder of the sun’s presence, and the insanity of what he thought he had witnessed.

It was just after noon now, and the nomad’s village was coming into sight. There were a dozen or so mud houses scattered more or less evenly across a flat plain. There were palm trees in between the houses, and they concentrated along the eastern edge, which caressed a body of water that was not unlike that of his dream.

He followed the nomad into the village, and he led him to the house that was closest to the edge of the water. Outside the house was a small mud fence that housed several goats and sheep.

“You can give me those now”, said the nomad, relieving him of the items he was carrying.

“Esma should be back later with milk and bread. In the meantime, you may help me prepare the food.”

The nomad took one of his goats and slaughtered it, and the wanderer tried as best as he could, with the instruction of the nomad, to help. He felt guilty that the nomad had slaughtered one of his goats for him, and he knew that he had done it only because there was a guest present. But, his hunger prevailed and he did not protest.

The sun was setting now and the moon was visible as well as a few stars. They had completed the task of butchering the animal and moved to the rear of the house, where there was a straw shade. Under the shade was a crimson-coloured carpet, surrounded by wool cushions of the same colour, which were the same as the two from the tent. The cushions were arranged in such a way that whoever sat on them would be facing the water. They dug a shallow hole in the sand ahead of the shade, and in it they started a fire to cook the meat. By this time, night had fallen, and he and the nomad retired to the cushions to wait for the meat to cook.

They heard the sound of the door open at the front of the house, and the nomad stood up.

“That’ll be Esma”, he said, with a proud parental smile, and walked to the front of the house to greet his daughter.

He was now alone, and wanted to use the time to think about his dream, but he was quickly interrupted by the voices of the nomad and his daughter, which were now becoming louder. First, the nomad appeared, laughing and seeming relaxed.

“Come, Esma. Meet our guest. He is indeed a little strange but a good companion, nonetheless”, he said.

Then, she appeared. From behind the corner emerged the bare-footed Bedouin girl that left him both stunned and speechless. She was wearing an Arabian dress that was green and gold, which complemented well with her long, dark, auburn hair. She was especially beautiful now with the moonlight reflected in her autumn-coloured eyes. There was no mistaking it, before him stood the woman he had encountered in his dream.

They all sat together and ate, the nomad and his daughter spoke casually and laughed, and the wanderer did his best not to stare at the nomad’s daughter. Sometimes she would catch his eye and she would smile, which would make him embarrassed, and he would forget about the strangeness he was feeling towards his predicament.

When they had finished eating, the nomad stood up and placed a kettle onto the fire, but excused himself to go inside to sleep before the tea was ready, leaving the wanderer alone in the company of the nomad’s daughter. There was a brief silence between them that was quickly interrupted by her saying, “Ah, tea is ready.” He smiled as he noted to himself the remarkable similarity between the girl and her father, in the modulation of their tones as they spoke. She poured the tea, and they talked together and laughed for a long time. She was intelligent, and humorous, and the wanderer found himself becoming very fond of the barefooted Bedouin girl. Eventually, they found themselves lying on the sand, beside the water, looking up at the stars.

“Aren’t they beautiful”, she said. “I find it odd that you have yet to tell me your name.”

He wanted to tell her about the experience he had the night before, but decided instead to refrain. “I don’t have a name”, he said.

“Well that’s just silly”, she replied. “Everyone has to have a name”, she looked up, pointed at the sky, specifically towards the central star of the three that form Orion’s belt and said, “Alnilam. That shall be your name.”

He now had a name.

The following morning, he found her sitting outside, by the water, washing clothes in a large copper bowl.

“Esma”, he called.

“Oh hello! Good morning”, she said, looking towards him, and appearing to be pleasantly surprised by the interruption. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes”, he answered. He had initially not been able to sleep at all, fearing that perhaps his current reality was simply yet another strange and vivid fabrication, and that when he would awake, he would instead find himself in some entirely different circumstance. However, when he did eventually sleep, it was deep and peaceful, and he woke up in a pleasant mood, excited and looking forward to seeing Esma. He had already decided that he would reveal to her what he had seen in his dream.

“There’s something I feel you must know”, he said, and proceeded, to recite to her the events that he had witnessed, in as much detail as he could remember. Her reaction, when he had finished, was that of deep fascination, rather than the startled and concerned expression he was expecting. Instead, her eyes widened and she gasped and smiled as she came to a realization that pleased her.

“And then I gave you a name!” she said, and thrust both of her hands into the sky, which caused the series of gold bracelets on her wrist to clatter and ring, as they fell higher onto her arm. She smiled, and added, “So I am the name-giver! What a great and noble responsibility”. She gripped the sides of the bowl she was washing the clothes in. “I name this the great bowl of tedious chores!” she cried, as a humorous smile found its way across the corners of her lips.

He looked away as he realized she was not taking him seriously.

“Oh come on, Alnilam!” she said, attempting to relieve him of his obvious mental burden. “Look, the desert has a way of awakening one’s imagination. Your mind had probably just convinced itself that the woman you encountered in your dream, was me.”

She smiled again, and her voice returned to its regular, cheerful intensity.

“Anyway, there is no place for concerned contemplation today. Tonight, there is a feast! And there is only joy on the night of a feast!”

He wanted to debate the topic further, but she had already returned her attention to the washing, so instead, he sat beside her and helped her finish.

The nomad had divided all of the remaining meat of the goat from the day before, and distributed it among the inhabitants of the village. Because of this, a feast was scheduled to occur in the centre of the village, at sundown. By the time they had finished with all of the necessary daily chores, then sun was setting.

A large fire had been set up and he took his place around the fire, beside Esma and her father, and was immediately offered a plate of food by a little girl from the village. News of the strange traveller’s arrival had spread quickly among the village people, and they were keen to glimpse the nomad’s guest, as outsiders to the village were rare.

As the night progressed, he was becoming increasingly enchanted with the village people. The majority of their population consisted of children. The elders of the village stood up frequently throughout the night and told stories – wild and colourful fables about people from faraway lands. When someone would stand to tell a story, the audience became ghost-quiet, and the only sounds to be heard were the crackling of the fire and the details of adventure.

The children had approached him several times to ask if he had any stories to share, and it became apparent to him that although the children genuinely enjoyed the tales that their elders told, they had in fact, heard them before, and that, to them, the wanderer resembled the strange and exciting characters from faraway lands that existed in the stories they heard. When he apologized to the children for not knowing any stories to tell (he would have been more than happy to have simply remembered any mundane detail of his own past), they scurried off and suspected that perhaps, they had somehow offended the strange foreigner.

A moment later, one of them returned – a pretty little girl with light-brown hair and honey-coloured eyes, dressed in a plain white dress that covered her arms. She stuck out her clenched fist towards him, and unravelled it one finger at a time, to reveal a single date in the palm of her hand. She offered it to him as a gesture of the children’s apology – a gesture, which he found truly endearing.

When the last story of the night was told, and the pleased laughter of the audience had died down, and everyone had finished eating, one man produced an Arabian instrument known as the Oud, and began to play and sing a beautiful love song. Alnilam turned to face Esma, who looked back at him and smiled. Beside her was her father, whom Alnilam noticed was staring into the fire, and wearing the same deep, sad, melancholic expression that he was wearing when he had encountered him in his dream – when he had explained to him that he was a demon who had lost his own name. The nomad stood up and, without even saying so much as a goodbye, or even looking at anyone, parted from the crowd and disappeared in the direction of his house. Alnilam returned his attention to Esma.

“You know, there’s still the problem of me not having any memory of where I’ve come from, nor any recollection of any part of my past, for that matter” he said.

The fire’s reflection danced rapidly in her eyes. She paused for a moment before answering him.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“In this very moment, is your heart at ease? Do you feel calm, and content with the world?”

“I suppose…”

“Then don’t question it. Happiness in life is much too rare and infrequent to be questioned. Too much of life is spent in mourning over the past, it is a blessing to have no memory of it, to be forced entirely into the present, to be liberated from the dark prison of what once was, and instead, to be content with what is, and fall with marvel at what could be.”

The pretty little girl who had earlier acted as the children’s ambassador returned, alongside her mother, who was carefully bearing a large metallic plate, with small, glass cups of tea. Esma removed two glass cups from the plate and smiled at the little girl, before returning her attention to Alnilam and offering him one of the cups, which he accepted.

She took a sip, rested the cup in the sand and spoke softly, “You are a wealthy man, Alnilam. There will always be worries and grievances in life, but we need to recognize our own wealth, and be grateful for it. You are at peace, you have enough to eat, are in good company, and in good health. That is all we really need in life – that is true wealth.”

He could see a profound sympathy in her eyes, but it took him a moment to realize, that her sympathy was not intended for him.

“Don’t be like him. Don’t sentence yourself to a poor man’s life” she said, looking in the direction of the nomad’s house.

The nomad, he learned, had loved twice in his life; the second was when he had first laid eyes on the smiling face of his daughter; the former, was when his eyes had met those of her mother’s, Lyla.

The nomad had woken up one day to discover that a camel had escaped from the village. The old man who owned the camel, recruited the nomad, who was then young and capable, to retrieve it. The nomad was determined, and set out with resolve, confident in his ability to reunite the owner with his beast. He quickly gathered his things and began his journey by noon, travelling east, in the direction that the footprints of the camel led. He moved quickly, the desert was his home, and he knew that a sandstorm was coming. He knew that if he did not locate the camel before then, finding it would become improbable.

Lyla, then known as Lady Lyla Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, was an Englishwoman whose family usually spent several months of the year at their estate, on the outskirts of Cairo – a thirty-two-acre apricot orchard. The blonde, blue-eyed, rebellious young woman had always despised the aristocracy, and resented her title. Since inheriting it from her father, she had moved permanently to her Cairo estate. She had a particular taste for adventure, and acquired a fascination for the Arabian Peninsula (then, a mystery to the world). Lyla was determined that she, equipped with her favourite riding mare, would become the first Englishwoman to accomplish the incredible task of crossing the Empty Quarter of Arabia.

The sandstorm had caused the nomad to abandon his search for the lost camel, and he set up his tent to wait for the wind to calm, which, by the time it eventually did, night had already fallen. So, the nomad decided it would be best to wait – that he might still be able to find the camel the next day in the light.

Of course, as fate would have it, the nomad never did find his camel, and Lyla never crossed the Empty Quarter. It seemed their destiny was instead, to find each other. Tempted by the light of the nomad’s fire in the black, star-lit desert, Lyla approached the tent.

They fell in love and married, becoming the parents of Esma, and when Esma was five, Lyla had fallen ill and passed. Since then, the nomad, every year, on the anniversary of the day that his heart had first betrayed him, and without his permission, sought another; he would seek the place he first met his wife, and spend the night, gaze up at the stars, and recite silently to them, the greatest love story he had ever known.

One year, he was interrupted when his trained, Bedouin ears heard the sound of someone’s footsteps approaching.

I’d better get the tea ready, he thought.

He found Esma sitting by the water again, staring into space. She was clutching something tightly in one hand, close to her chest; the other, she placed behind her back, on the sand, to balance herself. He approached her.

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” he said.

“Oh, hello Alnilam” she replied, smiling softly.

He sat beside her, and could now see what she was sheltering so dearly close to her – it was a leather-bound book with a dull, metal buckle on its side. She placed it delicately in the sand between them. Still lost in thoughts unknown to him, she placed both hands in the sand, and sighed.

“Property of Lyla…Grosvenor”, he read aloud.

The words were embossed into the leather on the front of the book, but it had taken him a moment to read, because someone had attempted to scratch out the word ‘Grosvenor’, and replaced it, crudely, with the words, ‘just Lyla’.

Similarly, it had also taken Esma a moment for it to occur to her, that what she had so desperately wanted for a large part of her life, was sitting right beside her.

“You can read!” she cried, and her eyes widened.

“Yes… I suppose I can.”

“Alnilam!” she exclaimed, and embraced him in her arms. He felt his soul move an inch. He felt, in the warm place in-between her arms – there was no other description for it – he felt, home. For a brief, fleeting, instant, he had found the place where he belonged in the world.

“You must read to me! You must!” she said excitedly, and pushed the book, with some force, into his arms.

“Alright, alright. Calm down” he retorted.

He took the book in his hands, carefully unbuckled the leather strap on the side, and turned to the first page. It read:

The promise of life’s interruptions is dangerously fantastic

He looked at Esma. Her eyes widened once again with fascination. She repeated the phrase to herself aloud, and then lay down. With all the innocence of a child, she curled herself beside Alnilam, and the hairs of her head caressed his knee.

“Go on”, she pleaded.

He turned the page. This handwriting was different, he noticed. It was definitely produced by the same author, there was no question, but it seemed rushed; the way one rushes when the emotion is too explosive to contain, and the words race urgently to escape from the heart, and onto the page:

Oh I do hate them. I wish somebody would take my name and give it to someone else who could make better use of it. It’s brought me nothing but misery. People spend their whole lives trying to become their names, obligated to something they never even chose. Ever since father died, everyone changed. Aunt Miriam, she’s by far the worst. Four years she locked me in that lifeless home of hers, the place where even flowers don’t dare to grow! Four years! “You will learn to honour your title, and more importantly, our family name. You will learn to obey”, she’d say. Ha! Hypocrites – evil, twisted, little hypocrites, the lot of them. It’s a good thing I managed to get away - a really good thing. It’s nice to be back in Cairo again – lots of wonderful memories here. Oh, I never want to go back there, or even remember that god-awful place and those awful people. They wouldn’t even let me write in there. All I have, to remember those lost years by, are the scars. Perhaps it’s best to forget.

Alnilam stopped reading, and looked at Esma. She raised her head just high enough that he could see the small specks of sadness form in her eyes. The mother’s pain is certainly the most difficult to absorb - perhaps that is why they hide it so well.

“Shall I go on?” he asked, tenderly.

“Please”, she nodded.

He turned the page, and continued reading to her, the story of her mother’s life. Lyla had described how she had divided her time between riding, and exploring her father’s library, and how she particularly loved the stories of adventure in the mysterious place that is the Arabian Peninsula. It went on to detail how she had become determined to see it for herself and how, just before winter, she began to venture to that very cause. Alnilam turned the page.

“I’ve met the most wonderful person - a nomad of the desert”, he read aloud.

Esma shot up and beamed with absolute glee, at the mention of her father.

I’ve met the most wonderful person – a nomad of the desert. He is very strange. A poet, a philosopher – I’m not sure how to describe him. I found him in his tent, in the middle of nowhere; he said he was out looking for a camel. Somehow, we ended up in a philosophical exchange about ‘purpose’.

He’s a big fan of tea. He kept offering me more of it, and I kept accepting. Then, he began reciting poetry, of which he had composed volumes that would have put Byron to shame. Such an intelligent man – looking for a camel, of all things!

He took me to his village the next morning -- such a cute little place. Everyone is so lovely. I wish I could stay to experience this strange place. I wish I could stay, to experience the strange you, nomad.

Perhaps I will.

Esma sighed joyfully, as she had listened closely to the subtle sounds of the birth of love.

“Oh”, said Alnilam.

“Oh?” she repeated, concerned.

“It seems I’ve missed a page”, he said.

It’s been a month and a half into my journey. It’s exhausting, and a great deal more challenging than I had expected – not that I had expected this to be easy. I must admit though, it is rather romantic, sleeping under the stars.

The other night, I had the strangest dream. There was a girl, a little girl, so very beautiful. She was about five years old, I think; with dark auburn hair, and eyes that remind me of the apricot trees at home, in autumn.

If only I could remember her name…

Esma. Yes, that was her name. (If ever I shall have a daughter, I shall name her Esma -- such a lovely name for a girl).

She was looking for something, I recall. She came to me and said, “Have you seen him?” and pointed up at the stars, curiously enough. Towards the central star of Orion’s belt - I shall have to find out what the name of it is.

“He feels very lonely without me”, she said. “He needs help finding his Place. If you see him, please give him this”.

All she gave me was a stone, which somebody had placed six marks on.

I wonder what it all means.

They sat in silent, awkward amusement of one another, as if each of them were hoping the other would suddenly burst into some explanation of what they had just read. She knew very well the name of the central star of Orion’s belt, she had after all, named him after it.

“Alnilam”, she said, her voice trembling. “What does it all mean?”

“I don’t know”, he replied. “There is something in the dreams of the desert.”

Winter in the desert had brought along with it, the soft, fat, clumps of white cloud that now sailed lazily through its sky.

“Where is the nomad?” he asked.

“Oh”, she said. “He’s waiting for Thalam.”

“Thalam?”

“Our remaining family member”, she replied, pointing at the sky. “He always comes in the winter, when the clouds are here”.

Then, a stark black dot was visible on the splotches of white cloud. It moved swiftly and gracefully, and Esma followed it closely with her eyes.

“Thalam”, she said, pointing at it. “He leaves us in the summer, when it gets too hot for him, but he always comes back in the winter. He likes to show off. He’ll be wanting to make his usual, grand entrance”.

The peregrine falcon soared high and circled twice, before making a steep dive downward, and disappearing somewhere behind a dune, south of the village. Esma stood up.

“We should go to them. Father will want you with him on the first hunt. We can ask him about the journal together, when the three of you return. He always knows what to say.”

She moved to the back of the house and appeared a moment later, carrying firewood bundled in a rope, and a flask filled with water, and handed them to him.

“Promise me”, she said. “Promise you won’t talk to him about it before you come back. I want to be there”.

Alnilam nodded, took the items from her, and they began to walk in the direction of where the falcon had disappeared.

He thought about what he had read to Esma while he walked. They were outside the village now, and they could see the nomad in the distance, who appeared overjoyed. The falcon rested on his arm, occasionally spreading its wings to balance itself. The nomad was stroking the back of its head and laughing.

He saw them now. “Come!” he shouted invitingly.

“Thalam!” cried Esma, and hastened towards the nomad. The falcon spread its wings again, as if it wanted to give Esma a hug, and then closed them again.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you!” she said.

“You brought firewood. Excellent!” said the nomad. “Come, wanderer. Thalam is keen for a hunt, you can see it in his eyes”.

“Be safe, father” said Esma, and embraced the nomad, who kissed his daughter’s forehead in return. “And take care of Alnilam. I’m afraid I’ve begun to rather enjoy his company”, she added, shyly.

“Goodbye!” she exclaimed, and began hastily towards the village.

The nomad sighed as he watched his daughter return home. Alnilam, in the meantime examined the falcon, which was resting on the nomad’s arm. He could now see that it was not directly on his arm but rather on a cotton and leather sleeve that the nomad was wearing on his wrist. It stood with its chest pushed proudly outwards. Its wings were black, and its chest white with black spots. Its eyes stared directly into Alnilam’s – it had eyes that were strong, but not unfriendly – like those of a protective father’s.

“It’s very beautiful”, said Alnilam.

“He”, corrected the nomad. “His name is Thalam”.

“Thalam”, he nodded to the falcon in acknowledgement. He could see that the Bedouins were very serious about treating their falcons as family. Alnilam carried the firewood and followed the nomad as they began to walk. He felt tempted to speak to the nomad about the contents of Lyla’s journal, but he refrained - he had promised Esma, and a man is defined by his word.

Soon they were in the familiar vastness of the desert. Like soft, endless mountaintops, the dunes were in every direction.

“What will we hunt?” he asked.

“I do not know”, replied the nomad, with a friendly smile. “Only what He has written for us”, he added, gesturing upwards with his eyes. “Perhaps we will not catch anything, and our journey will have an entirely different purpose altogether. This is not for us to know yet”.

“People who are suffering, nomad, are usually the one’s who have such strong faith in purpose”, Alnilam responded. He had hoped that this would encourage the nomad to speak to him of Lyla – if he could not discuss her journal, then he at least wanted to know more about her.

“Without suffering there is no joy, wanderer”

“I never took you for one to torture cliché’s, nomad. You have to take the good with the bad? And so on?” he replied in disappointment. “Also, I do have a name now, you know. You don’t need to keep calling me ‘wanderer’”, he added.

“We’re all wanderers at one point or another, Alnilam. Also, you misunderstand me”, he said, and paused briefly to look him in the eyes, before looking ahead. “Without suffering, we learn nothing. We do not grow. Joy does not appear simply because of the absence of suffering. It is the suffering that causes us to move in the difficult path towards that which is truly joyful”.

He was now looking him in the eyes again.

“A doctor can create a machine, that helps to ease the suffering of many of his patients, but you would not consider that machine to be compassionate. No, for that, some suffering is required on its part. Equally, the poor man does not love the wealthy man for his small donation; he loves the one who would share half of the only loaf of bread they own with him. Why? We love those whom would suffer for us, and we suffer for those whom we love. How would you even know love without suffering? It is born from it. A mother loves her child before even knowing them. She suffers nine months carrying it, and suffers once again in childbirth, for someone she does not know. Why, wanderer? People avoid suffering because they do not understand its purpose. Their common conclusion once they’re in a better place is that, ‘I wish I would have done something sooner to avoid my past suffering’. But, simply, without suffering, they would never have taken the necessary actions to be in the place where they are now, and they would not have known love, nor joy.”

Alnilam considered this as they walked.

It was now five hours past noon, and they had stopped. The nomad had released Thalam, who was soaring high above them, scouting for prey. He was watching the falcon closely, and was distracted from his travelling companion.

Alnilam, was tired, and had discovered a large rock, about fifteen feet away from where they were standing, which was barely adequate in size to function as a seat. He approached it, put the firewood down beside him and sat down on the rock. It was a good two or three minutes before the nomad noticed him. Although they were a significant distance away from each other, Alnilam was still able to make out the nomad’s horrified expression. The old man broke into a sprint towards him – something, was clearly wrong. Alnilam looked down.

You never forget the first time you see an Arabian fat-tailed scorpion, and it was already halfway up his leg. He was sitting on its home.

Its thick, black, shiny tail was terrifying, and upright. Its stinger, aimed forward, looked for a place to bury its venom. It moved further up, slowly. Alnilam dared not move.

The nomad reached him. He was breathing heavily, and in the space of time it takes to form an instant, he smacked the scorpion off Alnilam’s leg with the cotton and leather sleeve he was wearing. The scorpion fell to the ground and scurried away.

A lot can happen in an instant, and it was such, that in that particular instant, the scorpion, had chosen to bury its venom in the nomad’s arm, just above the sleeve he wore on his wrist.

The nomad fell backwards. Still breathing heavily, he looked at Alnilam and smiled, then examined where the scorpion had stung him.

“Alnilam, come here”, he said, very serious now. Alnilam, trembling, approached him.

“Esma”, said the nomad. “You owe her something of yourself. Always look after her, and she will always look after you.”

“We have to go back!” interrupted Alnilam.

“Listen to me”, replied the nomad. “In a few minutes, I will be gone. Here, take this”, he said, handing him the cotton and leather sleeve. “You, Esma, Thalam, you have no-one else but each other. Take care of one another. Understand?”

Alnilam nodded. The nomad’s breathing was now rapid and shallow, and he lay down, and closed his eyes.

“This is your place, Alnilam”, he said. “A place to call home, where you are loved, that is all you really need. Do not wander too far from it”.

The nomads breathing now slowed.

“I…I don’t even know where we are… I don’t know how to get home…” he muttered, with false strength.

He felt the swelling in his eyes, the sharp tightening in his throat, and the heavy, unconquerable weight that settled on his chest. He crumbled to his knees. There was a shrill, unintended gasp, and he began to cry.

The nomad was gone.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…” he said.

He was lost, and afraid.

He remained there, on his knees in the sand, for a few more minutes. Briefly, he felt, absurdly, that if only he could prove to the nomad how important he was to him, that the nomad would then decide, somehow, not to leave him. Angry at the world, which had taken away his friend, he felt abandoned and alone, and blamed himself for the nomad’s death. Thalam moved on his arm, as if to remind him that he was not alone, and that he was still with him. Thalam, he felt, although he did not speak, seemed to say everything. He looked at the nomad’s closed, cold eyes, which seemed finally at rest.

He stood up and looked around him, at the tall peaks of the dunes that surrounded him. In the dark of the desert night you could not see the dunes, but you knew they were there because they blotted out the stars of the night sky, painting a deep, black shadow all around. There was no way that he would have been able to carry the body of his fallen friend back to the village – he did not even know in which direction the village existed. He felt sad that he would not be able to afford Esma a final goodbye to her father, since he knew that he would have to bury his friend right there, in the middle of the desert, to be swallowed by it, forever lost in its harsh emptiness. He could not bear the thought of facing her. How could anyone?

He took one of the pieces of firewood, which was the right size, and wrapped the sleeve around it, constructing a perch for Thalam. Then, with both his hands, pierced the surface of the soft, cold sand, and began to dig.

It had taken him many hours to bury his friend, as the soft sand would keep collapsing onto itself. Eventually however, the task was complete, and he stood up and mourned the nomad’s death in silence. The world had not stopped to mourn with him, the death of his friend. Instead, it did, as it always does, and it simply moved on.

He wanted to hate the scorpion, to relieve himself of some of his guilt; but he heard the nomad’s voice in his head, “do not blame the scorpion, it was only defending the place it calls home”. He wished the nomad was there, to give him words of advice – he always had something to say. Alnilam would believe his words this time, and would not debate him, but the nomad, was gone.

He took one look at Thalam, who was on his arm again, and then looked up at the stars above him. He inspected them all for guidance, and he focused his attention towards the three stars of Orion’s belt. “Follow them”, every fibre of his being seemed to call out. He would not follow them, for he was angry at the world. Instead, he turned around and began to walk in completely the opposite direction. Thalam let out a single screech in protest, but he ignored him. His anger and despair had blinded him into believing that he had achieved some small, arrogant triumph over the world. Truly, Man is an ignorant creature.

He walked, and walked some more. The sun rose, and it wasn’t until it had set again, that his anger at the world would slightly subside, and he would begin to doubt his current course. As he watched the sunset, he remembered Esma. To watch a sunset was a beautiful thing, he thought. But to see the sun set on her eyes, was another thing altogether.

He barricaded his heart against melancholy, and removed the thought of her from his mind. He had already walked too far, and did not know whether or not he would ever see her again.

Thalam had spotted something, and took off in an instant. His heart began to beat faster. He was hungry and excited that perhaps Thalam had discovered some delicious meal for them to share. He crouched down on one knee and marvelled at the manner of his friend’s flight. He was incredibly fast, and every single time he beat his wings seemed to be with known purpose – nothing about him appeared to be spontaneous or without meaning. As if, in the instant just before he made any movement at all, he knew precisely what movement to make, and the purpose of why he would make it. Alnilam envied this knowledge of the world that Thalam possessed.

He could now see clearly the object of Thalam’s pursuit. It was a houbara bustard – a slender bird that lived in the desert and rarely used its wings to fly. Its feathers were a combination of black, and the colour of the sand, which camouflaged it well in its environment. It would serve finely as their dinner. By the time the houbara had even noticed the peregrine falcon, it was already too late, and, in the small cloud of dust that Thalam stirred when he swooped down, met its fate.

Alnilam travelled quickly and excitedly to congratulate his friend on his catch. Thalam stood proudly beside his prey’s fallen corpse. “Thank you”, he said aloud, both to Thalam and to the houbara. There is something strange about hunting when it is necessary for food - it makes one deeply grateful for the sacrifice made by their fellow creature.

He prepared the catch and set up the fire, as well as Thalam’s makeshift perch. Thalam by this point, had already eaten – being a falcon, he did not have much of a taste for cooked meat.

The meat was tender, and he was satisfied with his meal. When he was finished, he drank some water from the flask that Esma had given to him, and wished for a cup of tea, which made him sad, because it reminded him of Esma and the nomad. He wished he could have shared this meal with them; he wished he could argue with the nomad, and listen to Esma talk to him about the stars.

He lay down, closed his eyes, and thought about everything that had happened to him. He thought about how Esma had given him a name, and how he did not have one before her. He thought about the nomad of his dream, who had claimed to be a demon. He felt he now understood what the nomad meant, when he had told him that he had lost his name.

The villagers all knew the nomad, as the father of Esma, and his daughter, called him ‘father’. Only the nomad’s wife, ever called him by his name, and she was gone. Like the nomad, there was no one to call his name; he was alone, and had no one for himself. He had no use for a name and so, he too, had lost his name.

He fell asleep.

He was now dreaming again. Alone, and in the middle of a starry night – he was well acquainted with this predicament. He looked at the three stars he was told to follow the last time. He wouldn’t give in this time; no, this time he wouldn’t follow the stars of Orion’s belt, instead, he would move in the opposite direction, just as he had done whilst awake. He didn’t care for the dreams of the desert anymore.

He put Alnilam and the other two behind him, chose a star at random that appealed to him, and began to walk in its direction.

He walked for many hours, and all along the way he thought of the nomad and his sacrifice, he thought of Esma whom he was now sure he loved, and of Thalam, who was his friend. He wished he could rid himself of the guilt he felt for the nomad’s death, and the pain he felt for his loss, and most of all, he wished he would never have to see the ache in Esma’s eyes, when she discovered by his tongue that she would not see her father again.

The sun did not rise - he was not surprised.

He stopped walking. In the distance, he saw a fire.

He approached, and saw that there were five people – three were men, and two women. They were all intently focused on one another’s conversation, and paid him no attention until he was very near. He saw that they were not sitting around the fire, but instead, they were concentrated around something else, which he could not yet see.

When he was standing right behind them, and at the very edge of their circle, they all fell silent and looked at him. Then, they looked at one another, and began to laugh again. One of the women made some space for him, and gestured for him to sit beside her.

“Come” she said, as everyone else resumed their laughter and conversation.

“Hello, I’m…”

“We don’t have names here” she interrupted.

Now that he was part of their circle, he could see what it was that they were gathered around. In the center, was a spectacularly odd, white flower.

It seemed entirely out of place in the desert. It had four long, thin, pearl-white petals that pointed outwards, each perpendicular to the one before. Further adding to its strangeness, the flower was growing out of a perfectly circular, small pool of water. The water was still, and shallow, causing it to behave like a mirror; reflecting perfectly the stars above it. It had the effect of making the flower seem like it was suspended in space, among the stars.

He turned to ask the woman who had invited him to sit beside her, about this rather curious object, but she had already joined the others in collectively ignoring him, and was laughing and talking along with everyone else.

Rather abruptly, one of them, in the middle of their conversation, approached the flower while maintaining his attention on the others.

“I’m next!” called the woman who was closest to him, enthusiastically.

What the man did next, he found particularly curious. The man brought his face close to the flower and inhaled deeply, and with rather a lot of force. Then, he held this breath for a few moments and released it – slowly at first, then all at once. Seeming unusually relaxed by this action, he returned to join the laughter and conversation of his peers, while the woman who had earlier called out, repeated the same, strange ritual.

He found this to be fascinating, and watched as the others, soon after, and one after the other, did exactly the same. Every time the laughter died down, they would put their faces to the flower and take a deep breath, and the loud conversation and heavy laughter would once again, resume.

He could no longer contain his curiosity.

“What happens with the flower?” he asked the woman who was closest to him.

This question had, for some reason unknown to him, caused the group to fall silent, and the entirety of their attention now belonged to him. At first, no one spoke, and then, they smiled to each other, as if they had all communicated and come to some secret agreement about how best to answer him. The woman he had asked, broke silence, and said, “Try it”.

He thought about it for a moment, and concluded that he was too curious to uncover the purpose of the strange routine he had seen them perform. He approached the flower, and they all watched, eagerly.

He was now directly above it, and the reflection of his face began to replace the stars in the water surrounding it. The flower was beautiful, and enticing, but there was some hidden cruelness to it, some invisible, treacherous quality that he had failed to locate, but it made him uneasy nonetheless.

“Don’t take too much, not on your first time” one of his audience warned.

He nodded, and drew his first breath, as he had seen them do. There was something uniquely violent about its effect. It washed over him in a giant wave of euphoric numbness. He felt it do to him, everything it had promised. Beginning in his head, it trickled down his spine, into his arms and legs, and found its way to the very edges of his fingertips and toes. He forgot completely, about the nomad, Esma, Thalam, and the village.

The flower had relieved him of all of his suffering; he was no longer troubled by any of the thoughts that, only a moment ago, were the source of a great deal of pain and longing in him. He no longer heard the nomad’s words in his mind, or Esma’s voice when she spoke his name, or Thalam, or the village. The flower made it all disappear; he thought he had discovered some divine gift that was meant for him. He fell back, looked at the others and smiled, who smiled in return, at him, then at each other. They congratulated him on his inauguration into their company. He re-joined their circle, and made loud conversation, and laughed with them, and felt overjoyed.

Without suffering, there is no joy, wanderer.

He had suddenly remembered the nomad.

“What is this?” he asked, shocked, clutching his chest, where an anxiety had formed much stronger than any he had felt before. “I feel… The flower… Something is wrong…”

“Don’t worry”, replied the woman beside him. “You only need to breathe from it again. The effect is temporary. Just go to it again, and it’ll all be alright.”

The joy the flower had brought him, came at the price of its brief existence. When it left him, it was always replaced by a suffering much heavier than that which he had started with.

He thought about how the nomad had told him that he needed to endure suffering in order to find joy. What the flower did, was reverse the equation – it provided immediate joy, the end result of which was always, suffering.

Overwhelmed by the pain of the memories of the people and the place that he loved, what he did next, is not to be judged. It is what people sometimes do when they’re heartbroken – he convinced himself that none of it mattered to him. The nomad was just an old man, Esma was only a girl that he had briefly known, and Thalam, was just an animal. He moved his face to the flower and, just as his fellow wanderers had done, breathed from its pearl-white heart, a fleeting happiness that was as shallow as the water from which it grew.

He repeated this many times again after that – how many exactly, he did not know. For the people of the flower, nothing ever changed, not for the better, or for worse. Time didn’t move here - it was always night-time. Every time he would go to the flower, he would see the reflection of his face in the mirror of its water. It always showed him his own, desperate eyes, just before he breathed from it, and he would always feel a little bit more of his courage abandon him. He felt he no longer possessed enough of it to remember those whom he loved.

He learned that the anxiety the flower caused him could always be extinguished by another, more powerful breath than the one before. There was also the dull ache in his heart that had since appeared – it felt as if something had been stolen from it. Something, which had always existed yet, had been invisible, unnoticed, until it was no longer there. What was now missing from him was the love we reserve for ourselves. He no longer loved his life in all its chaos, hardship and surprise. He no longer loved himself.

This feeling, he discovered, no matter how many times he put his face to the flower, would not go away.

“So, how do you like our Place?” asked the woman beside him.

He simply stared at her for a while, unable to answer. He thought about the question seriously, and realized that in this place, what he felt, more than anything, was, alone. Although there were five others, whom he had been laughing and making conversation with for quite some time now, he still felt profoundly lonely. He knew that each of them would always love the flower and its effect, more than they would ever care for each other. To them, it didn’t matter if they were five, or six, or twenty, or even a single person - as long as the flower was there, and it continued to provide, that was all that mattered.

“I feel alone”, he finally responded.

The woman stared at him, her smile now faded, and her eyes widened slightly. She seemed to understand what he had meant, but looked at him as if he had spoken some great truth that she too, felt, but had chosen to ignore in exchange for laughter. She put her face to the flower and drew a breath, and returned smiling once again.

“Life is a lonely place, my friend”, she said.

He thought about this too. It is true, that he found life to be mostly a cruel, vicious and difficult thing, but he did not feel that way when he was with the nomad. He did not feel that way, when the little girl from the village offered him a date from her small, tender palms; or with Esma, or even Thalam. Although at one point it did not bother him, he felt that he no longer wanted to tolerate solitude. Life, he thought, is a solitary journey not meant to be suffered alone.

It was then that he decided that this Place was not for him, and he made the exhaustingly difficult decision, to abandon the flower and its people. He would endure the ache of remembering what had once belonged in his life. He would face the darkness in his thoughts, in exchange for even the faintest hope, that another soul may be willing to share with him, in all the burdens and the glory of life.

He stood up, and almost immediately, the woman beside him asked, “where are you going?”

“To find the one who gave me a name”, he replied.

“No!” she cried. “You are one of us now. There is nothing out there for us. Stay!”

Alnilam turned around and made an attempt at walking away, but the heavy breathing had already started in his chest, and he was beginning to feel light-headed. He had taken too much from the flower. His head began to swirl, his eyes closed, and he collapsed onto the sand.

He heard a distant voice.

“Wake up. Tea is ready”, it said.

He opened his eyes; he was a young boy again, in his bed, in the small room where the doorman lived, at the Windsor hotel, in Cairo.

“Alright, alright. I’m coming”

He sat upright in his bed, and saw that Mr. Salama, who was the doorman at the Windsor hotel, was already up, dressed, and polishing the only pair of black shoes that he owned, to the impeccable shine that they always had.

“Good, you’re up”, said Mr. Salama. “Take the cup of tea from your uncle, will you?”

He shared no blood relation with Ismail, the man who was standing at the door, carrying the tray with the small, glass cup of tea, but he considered him to be family nonetheless. Mr. Salama was the only relative he had – he was his real uncle, and had been taking care of him since he was two years old. Ismail was the elevator operator of the hotel, and he lived in the small room next to theirs. He always brought Mr. Salama a cup of tea in the morning, from the nearby coffee shop, before they went to work together.

“You can see your face in those shoes, Mr. Salama, I really don’t know why you spend so much time polishing them”, said Ismail.

“It’s important. You should do it too.”

Although his duties as the hotel doorman were rather limited – since, his was a simple job, he still took great pride in every responsibility that he had, and consequently, it was very important to him that his shoes were always in an immaculate condition.

He took the cup from Ismail and handed it to Mr. Salama, who took a sip of the tea and then put it down, and began to tie his shoelaces.

“There’s a five piaster coin on the table. Buy some bread and cheese, have some of it for breakfast, and save the rest for dinner. Ismail and I will have our breakfast on the way to work today, and I’ll come back with lunch at noon, alright?”

He nodded to Mr. Salama, who picked up the cup of tea, and left with Ismail.

It was a bright, sunny day in Cairo, with a few clouds in the sky. Through the window, he felt the cool breeze that marked the arrival of the beginning weeks of winter. He was glad that Mr. Salama had to go to work today. It was Saturday, and he usually had this day off, but the doorman whose shift it was today, had called in sick, and because of this, Mr. Salama would not spend this Saturday morning making him read books, as he usually did. He hated Mr. Salama’s lessons. Why does he insist that I read so much? It’ll never be useful to me, he thought.

He took the coin from the table and went out onto the street. He did as he was instructed and bought the bread and cheese, came home and made himself breakfast, before going out again to find his friends.

They were playing football, as per usual, at their new favourite spot. They always used the slippers of whoever volunteered that day to be the goalie, to mark an imaginary goal post. The goalie, that day, was one of the two girls that belonged to their group of friends. There were five of them in total, six with him included.

They liked this particular spot to play football in, because there was a high wall there, which served perfectly as their makeshift goal post.

“Hey! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home reading?” shouted the girl who was the goalie of this game.

“The old man is working today!” he shouted back, the joy this statement brought him, clear in his voice.

“Great! Come, stay over here! You can be my defence, they’re playing terribly today.”

He ran over to her and took his position as a defender in the game.

The game was going well, and he was performing admirably, and enjoying himself. He saw the ball fly towards the goal, and he lunged his foot forwards to intercept it. He was successful, and the ball soared high in the air, and disappeared behind the high wall.

“The ball! We don’t have another one”, said Sultan, who was the boy whose attempt at scoring he had disrupted. “Go get it”, he added.

Sultan was two years older than the rest of them, and was sort of the self-proclaimed leader of their group.

The wall was too high for him to climb, so he followed it around the corner looking for an entrance. He hoped there would be a doorman working there, and that he would be kind, like Mr. Salama, and would not give him too much trouble about returning the ball to him.

He came to a large iron gate, which was open. Inside, he could see an ocean of apricot trees, which stretched farther than he could see. There was a small, shiny gold sign on the wall beside the gate. In bold, black letters, it read:

GROSVENOR HOUSE

He couldn’t see anyone around – there was no doorman. He entered the estate slowly, afraid that he might hear someone shouting at him at any moment, and he really didn’t want to get into any trouble. He snuck over to the side of the wall where he thought he might find the ball. The apricot trees were everywhere, and the orchard that housed them was too large for it to be possible for him to find the ball. Still, as a child does, he searched anyway, expecting that he would find it, and that he would emerge as the day’s hero to his friends.

He searched for about twenty minutes; his determination to find the ball was unshaken. As he brushed aside the leaves of one of the apricot trees, he heard a woman’s voice.

“Hi!” she said, cheerfully.

Behind the leaves of the apricot tree was standing a blonde, blue-eyed, young Englishwoman.

“I’m not here to cause any trouble, Miss, I swear! I’m just here for our ball! Sultan… he kicked it over the wall.”

“So why didn’t Sultan come to get the ball?” she asked, smiling.

“Because…well, he always bosses everyone around”

She placed a hand on her forehead to shade her eyes, squinted, and began to look around her. “It’s going to be rather difficult for you to find the ball with all the apricot trees around”

“Yes, I know, I’ve been looking…” he replied, lowering his eyes in disappointment.

“Well, I don’t have a ball to give you, but I do have lots of books! Would you like one?”

He remembered Mr. Salama’s lessons.

“No, that’s alright. My uncle, he always makes me read, history books and science books and encyclopaedias. Every Saturday.”

“Those are important. But what about storybooks?”

His eyes lit up.

“Storybooks?” he repeated.

“Yes, of course! Haven’t you read any? Well, this won’t do at all. Here, come with me.”

She took him by his hand and led him inside the house, to her father’s study.

“Which kinds of stories would you like?”

“Hmm…” he said, thinking about it. “Do you have any stories about the stars? I really love the stars.”

“The stars? No…I’m afraid not. How curiously lovely you are”, she said, and put her hand through his hair. “I do, however, have many, many, adventure stories about the Arabian Desert! I’m planning a trip there, you see. I’m going to be the first ever Englishwoman to have crossed the Empty Quarter”, she added, and handed him a great pile of storybooks.

“I’m Lyla, by the way. What’s your name?”

Lyla would one day tell the nomad all about the charming young boy she’d met in her apricot orchard in Cairo, and the nomad, enchanted by the story, would name his falcon after the boy.

“Thalam”, he said.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a most peculiar, large, blue room. He stood up and, observing all that was around him, concluded that he was standing in the entrance to some kind of palace. The walls were a midnight blue, and hanging on them were portraits of very serious looking people, some with moustaches and others with beards, all looking slightly to one side. There were large, grand, white marble pillars, and the ceiling was painted a darker shade of blue, with stars depicted on it, painted in gold.

Then, at the far end of the room, two grand wooden doors burst open, and through them, first emerged a man who was clearly of more importance than the others that followed. He was short, and slender, and walked with a display of confidence and slight superiority. The others, who walked behind, had their eyes fixed on the more important man, and nearly stumbled over each other, racing to be closest to him, while he, remained totally unmindful of this following crowd.

The important man was now right in front of him.

“You there!” he exclaimed. “What is your name?” he asked, demandingly.

He pondered for a moment whether he should respond with the name he had possessed in his childhood, or with the name that now belonged to him. He decided that ‘Thalam’, suited the nomad’s falcon better, and that he preferred the name he had more recently acquired, and that Esma had given to him.

“Aln…” he began.

“Your last name!” the important man interrupted. “Only last names are important!” he exclaimed.

They stared blankly at one another, while the audience, who always stood slightly behind the important man, seemed confused and impatient at the lack of his response.

“I am the king of this Place. I have the most important last name of all, you see”, he said, and pointed to the portraits on the wall. “These people, also have important last names, and if you do too, then I shall have a portrait made of you, and I shall hang it up on this wall, with the rest of the important last names.”

“I’m afraid I do not”, he responded.

“Very well”, said the king. “You shall be one of my followers”

“Excellent idea your highness”, agreed all of the followers unanimously.

The followers always enthusiastically approved of the king’s ideas.

Before he could protest, the matter had already been settled, as far the king was concerned, who turned around, and began in the direction of the wooden doors. As if possessing his own gravity, wherever the king went, all of the followers always trailed closely behind. Not wanting to be left alone, Alnilam followed too.

Walking through the wooden doors, he found himself in an even larger room than the one before. This room was pink, curiously. Such are the choices, of the excessively wealthy and bored. There was a piano in the middle of the room, just in front of the entrance, and statues, paintings, and various other ornaments scattered, and cluttered in every direction, none of it seeming to match anything else.

The king moved into one of the rooms on the right, and they all followed closely behind. This was a room that was used for socializing, he learned. In reality, the entire palace was used for socializing, and nothing serious or important ever happened nor was ever discussed in the palace, but they liked to pretend otherwise, and so they would frequent this room whenever they felt the need to relax from an excess of relaxing. They referred to it, as the Red Room, owing to the fact that it was painted red, along with all of the furniture, with the exception of the curtains, which were a very dark green, and blocked out any sunlight that might enter, so you could never tell what time of the day it was.

The king took his place on the middle cushion, and the followers sat, immediately after, on the cushions around the king. There was still plenty of space available for Alnilam, but the king gestured towards one very specific cushion for him to sit on, on the left. Curious, he approached it, and sat, immediately rolling forwards. This cushion was attached to hidden wheels at the bottom of it, so that whoever sat on it, always lost balance and fell.

The king belched out in laughter, and the followers joined in. This was the king’s personal joke that he liked to play on newcomers. Sometimes, when he was especially bored, he would invite one of his followers to sit on the cushion, and everyone, including the victim follower, would pretend they didn’t already know the joke, and they would all laugh nonetheless.

Footsteps were heard outside, accompanied by the voice of a woman, who was muttering something.

The king’s wife stood in the doorway of the Red Room. Like Lyla, she was blonde and blue-eyed, but a fundamental element of livelihood had long since abandoned her eyes - a result of too much pretending. She seemed disoriented, perplexed, the anxiety clear in her voice.

“The flower”, she said. “I need the flower”.

“Ah, the flower”, said the king, who smiled to himself, and all of the followers did the same. Alnilam remembered his own time with the flower, and it was clear to him that the king, the king’s wife, and all of the followers, had known the flower too.

Another woman appeared in the doorway beside the king’s wife. “Food, your highness”, she announced.

The king stood up first, then the army of followers, and they all moved into a dining room that stood opposite to the Red Room, and was painted yellow.

There was more food available to serve than all of them could ever collectively consume. Whatever was left over, of which there was always plenty, the king donated to the poor, because this made him feel good about himself. This way, he felt, he had fulfilled his responsibility as a wealthy and important person to positively influence the world, and that no more needed to be done. Anything more, the king felt, would require more serious thought and effort on his part, and nothing of that sort ever took place in the king’s colourful palace.

The king had seven children in total, who didn’t always dine with him, and of which he saw very little, but he would summon them for random lunches or dinners, sporadically and without warning, as this also made him feel he had fulfilled his responsibility as a father, and that no further action was required on his part. It was always a lunch or a dinner, and never breakfast. The king’s children never got up early enough for breakfast, except for during the spontaneous episodes in their lives, spurred by a sudden and explosive motivation, when they pretended that they were being productive. These episodes generally consisted of some sort of painting course, or pretend schooling, and never lasted for more than two or three weeks. The motivation would always expire, just as spontaneously as it had begun. The fact that they never completed or produced anything was never of any consequence to them. The king’s children did, after all, have very important last names.

The meat that Alnilam ate was cooked perfectly, the vegetables were fresh, and the rice was plenty, and filling. It should have all been delicious. However, Alnilam felt, that since he had not expended any effort into acquiring this meal, it was somehow rendered tasteless. He had not stood underneath the hot, desert sun in front of the nomad’s house for an hour, preparing the meat, nor had he worked at all, or hunted, or provided any service in return. There is no satisfaction to be gained from unearned reward, he thought, and wondered whether the king and his followers knew this simple truth, too.

When he had finished eating, he found that, although there were a seemingly infinite number of washrooms available in the king’s palace, the followers were even greater in number, and had occupied them all. He found an empty washroom in the blue room that served as an entrance to the palace, and washed his hands there. Then, when he was finished, he took a moment to examine the portraits on the wall, with all of the important last names engraved on the silver plaques beneath them. There was an empty space where a portrait had existed at one point, but had since been removed. It was Lyla’s – he knew this, because, engraved beneath where it had stood, it read: Lady Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster.

He remembered Esma.

He decided then, that he too, like Lyla, would leave behind the people with the important last names. This Place, was not his to call home.

He made his way to the door at the entrance, which was always open, forever inviting more followers, or new guests with important last names, and their respective followers, to join in the permanent festivities, and the eternal pretending, that took place at the king’s colourful palace.

As he made his way towards the exit, in the giant, never-ending blue hallway, he glanced one final time at the ceiling, and its golden, painted stars. This was the only gold in the king’s palace, and the only thing that Alnilam found to be beautiful.

The king often liked to pretend to himself that he was not wealthy. He liked to pretend too, that his blind followers were really his friends, and that he, his wife, and his children, together constituted a genuine, wholesome family.

Most of all, the king liked to pretend, that he was loved.

Alnilam stepped outside the entrance and felt the cool breeze of the desert night stroke the hairs of his skin. Like a dam had burst in his mind, he remembered all the details of his life.