Gold Dust

9

With the first fall, Ukhayyad found himself perched between consciousness and oblivion, in that interval between life and death. Using his teeth, he reattached his hand to the tail so quickly that he never left his semi-conscious state. Being in this no man’s land between heaven and hell inspired him to return to the trick he had used before. He tumbled and got back up over and over. He fell into a daze and, parched, licked at the urine when it trickled down the camel’s thigh. It had been divine inspiration to tie his hand to the camel’s tail.

He imagined that the camel was descending from a tall mountain. At that point, he transcended all bounds of consciousness and crossed over again into the shadows.

Returning from his brutal journey into half-conscious oblivion, Ukhayyad found himself atop the well at Awal. He groped around its stony lip for a bucket, but found none. With his teeth, he untied his hand from the camel. The strap had carved a deep gash around his wrist, and now he wore a bracelet of blood. He felt no pain, nothing but sticky fluid. He licked his hand, but tasted nothing. Things were covered in a haze of fog and shadow. His eyes had lost their ability to see a long time ago, perhaps because he had lingered so long in that interval between this world and the hereafter. But life’s force stirred his dead limbs, filling them with an unvanquished will to continue moving.

Ukhayyad now fastened the leather reins to his ankle. He tied the knot securely and examined the place where the strap joined the tail. He stumbled, stupefied, trying to locate the Mahri’s neck, then head. He wanted to tell the camel something before he plunged into the bottomless well. He never doubted whether he would return. At that peculiar moment, he thought about what Sheikh Musa said about death: it was closer than your jugular vein and yet farther than the ends of the earth. He wanted to tell the piebald this. He wanted to tell him what to do as he plunged into the abyss. The piebald lavished the young man with attention, covering him with his lips and licking his face. Ukhayyad was unable to see the other’s eyes and unable to utter a word. He had lost the ability to speak. First he had lost his sight, and now he had lost his voice. He raised his right hand and patted the Mahri’s head. Man and camel spoke to one another, as brothers, by way of gesture. His head began to spin and he looked for the mouth of the well. He stepped out, over the lip, his unfettered leg dangling over the pit. The thought of death never occurred to him. He thought only about what he would say to Sheikh Musa, “Death truly lies closer than your jugular vein, and yet, it is still very difficult for a man to die. Death lies beyond the furthest end of the world. When you arrive at a well, of course there will be no pail. Or you might find a pail, but don’t then expect to find the well that goes with it. It’s always like that.” He held onto the stones that lined the lip of the well. Then he began to crawl into the hole. He saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing. He struggled, using his hands to clamber down the first rows of stone and hoping to avoid a free fall that would yank the strap from the camel’s tail. His descent was automatic, unconscious. He lowered himself into the rock, until his strength — the limbs that had been smashed by journey and injury — betrayed him and he fell into the abyss.

An entire lifetime passed in the fraction of a second that came between the stone lip of the well and the water below. An eon went by, taking him back, beyond the day he was born. During that moment, he saw his own birth pass before his eyes. He saw himself as he fell from his mother’s womb into the chasm. He heard the trilling of she-jinn on Jebel Hasawna. He saw the shadows of houris in paradise. It was one of these dark-eyed virgins wearing a diaphanous mantle who then caught him and gently placed him down into heaven’s river. Here, in this river of paradise, he began to drink.

Then he began to choke and gag. He did not vomit in the well itself, but outside. If he could have opened his eyes, he would have seen a vision of the piebald, and the rays of the sun, glaring sharply like fiery spurs. The piebald had carried out his unspoken command — he had pulled him out of that freshwater sea.

Once more he returned to the space between, and ascended, one more time, into the world of shadows.