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back A Brioche Too Far: Gastronomic Wonders and Sexual Awakenings in the Hinterlands of Northern Iraq by Paul Garner, Peter Wilson Number of episodes: 20 Words of previous episode revealed to each author: 5 Written between 10 May 2002 and 21 Aug 2002 The chips fell, The bread was broke, a valley, crossing a brioche, a brioche too far... Three nymphs traversing. The calendar was draining well, but Juliet knew that rain was imminent. Dirt and sand hissed and whirled in eddies around my feet. Every sense was abuzz as I listened to the shifting, scratching sounds and tasted the cool, clean edge to the expectant breeze. A fast-moving particle of inspiration, from the other side of the sky, came and lodged in my brain and asked me a question... the sound, the movement, the taste and smell of this moment - how could it be captured? ...kneaded, prepared, and baked into something totally new... a kinetic confection, adding a new axis to the experience of my particular art. I stepped back inside my tent and poured a cup of apple tea from the old and dented, soot-black kettle that had belonged to my grandfather. I swirled the tea around in the cup, as the leaves at the bottom danced in little eddies of their own, and pondered my unanswered question. Movement requires energy... there are many forms of energy... food is itself a source of energy... chemical energy... potential energy... stored, waiting to be released. I looked up from my tea just as she walked past the entrance to my tent, lithe, barefoot, in a scarlet shawl hiding those green eyes that had been haunting me these past few weeks. It had just been a passing glimpse, but already I could feel my heart beating faster. Then there was my inspiration, nagging, nagging at the back of my mind. I would have to start somewhere, experimenting... inventing new methods, starting from scratch. For want of a better place to begin, I decided to see what I could make a simple meringue do... on the compassionate ground. "Do you really want to talk?" It was a rhetorical question. All this little meringue wanted was sticky fingers in her mouth. An over-ripe summer fruit, squeezed and pressed into firm acquiescing skin. Her skin was milk, his golden and charged with bronze privileges, a fecund youth ready to take what was his. Sometimes it seemed like the dust was just as horny as he, rubbing against all the exposed surfaces that lay baking in the sun... the tent, the boulders, shimmering in heat... an abrasive massage from a persistent lover always hissing: "I'll bring you down to sssize, high and mighty princesss, just you wait" ...a million years or so. It would be a sweet dessert, but there was much to do and it wouldn't be easy. I could steal some of the ingredients from the Red Cross aid station, others I'd have to get from across the border in Turkey. I sold my precious rifle and traded it for kif and LSD in the darkest corner of the black market bazaar, knowing that somewhere in my subconscious the recipe had landed, fully formed, I just had to find it somehow. I prepared a week's worth of travelling food, got a good night's sleep, woke early and ate a substantial breakfast. I stole my brother's camel for the journey, knowing full well that he would be sorely inconvenienced without it, but I didn't see any other option. I loaded the beast as quickly as possible and set off straight away. Once on the road to Zakho I sipped a little water and consumed half my stash of psychedelics. You're in for one freakin' wild trip, I thought. I could see them now, some gang of punks ogling their score, not knowing what they had on their hands, I would have felt sorry for them, but stealing from a guy like me, now that was low. They had no idea of the properties of the drugs, the numbers on the pills and the colours of the capsules wouldn't do much to clue them in either. The strongest of the bunch was an innocuous grey capsule, something I'd made myself, a mix that I was quite proud of... heck, it was a trip that would make Hunter S. Thompson proud. The main constituent was psilocybin, which gave it a nice floaty buzz, added to this were parts cocaine, kava-kava and ginseng. I found that the herbs rounded off any edges that sometimes pushed me into a bad trip. There were a couple of other key ingredients which I won't reveal here, this isn't a book of education, like 'How to make a drug cocktail in five easy steps'. I considered the recipe as I tried to walk. The drugs seemed to concertina Time... I could feel it expanding and contracting ahead and apast of me. As I tried to take five easy steps of my own I found they weren't so easy in this accordion continuum. I tried to concentrate less consciously on the movement and let more reliable, less addled, instinctive reflexes take over the task of getting me around. As I did so I could feel my legs gradually taking control and striding forward confidently until they seemed barely my own legs at all . I looked down and found I had no torso, just confident legs, mysterious hands, and my head, which seemed to float free, or not quite free, perhaps tethered to the other limbs by an invisible elastic bond. The dust in the air shone brightly... intelligently, with faery light. Fleeting patterns and shapes emerged and collapsed from the swirls of dust which danced among the jagged teeth-rocks by road-tongue-side, and I held my hands above my head like a tragic Atlas so as not to be crushed between the jaws of sky and earth. Where is my Camel? I thought. A loose collection of sandstone pyramid bricks ambled up beside me, too tall. "Hey!" I shouted and kicked it. The bricks collapsed into a heap and I climbed aboard. Up in the blueberry sky a giant fig pointed the way and my rubble steed loped ahead with a bumpy square-wheeled-cart gait. Time squeezed and wheezed a yellow chord until we arrived at a spring. Desert palms towered protectively overhead, all bold and self-important until a patrolling jet plane scoured across the sky, then they cowered. It must have been an American jet because I could hear the sound of rock and roll music coming from the cockpit. It left behind a vapour trail of stars and stripes... the stars held in the sky gently wobbling and twinkling in the breeze, while the smoky stripes gradually fell to earth and draped themselves across the landscape, where they solidified into buttercream, turning the Persian desert into western dessert. I ignored the lily-livered vegetation and our imperial cake decorators. The spring bubbled up into a marble fountain, fashioned in the shape of a chili pepper, and as I bent down to drink from the fountain I heard a delicate laugh above my head. I looked up to see the sculpture of the pepper slowly decrystallising into the body of a beautiful young woman, a chili-venus still retaining some sense of her previous form. A took a step back in surprise. My eyes started to water, my skin tingled, every sense burning with hot spicy lust. "I am the Spring," she spoke, "What do you seek?" My mouth was drying out faster than I could salivate, tears streaming from my eyes and nose, an uncomfortable erection down below, and I dropped to my knees choking. "...Water," I spluttered. She chuckled like starlight but then looked concerned, and when I'd wiped enough tears away from my eyes to look again I saw that she was clothed in an elegant, chaste gown, made of a thin material like pale brown tissue paper, or... no, it was filo pastry. She held a cupped palm out above me and cool water began to trickle through her fingers, washing my tears away and soothing my burning, stinging skin. I drank a little, gladly, as the cool water sought out every bewildered and screaming nerve in my mouth and sung each one a gentle lullaby. I got unsteadily to my feet. "What do you seek?" she asked once again. "A recipe," I replied. "You are a chef?" "Yes." "Aha!" she cried excitedly, then ran behind one of the palm trees. She returned a moment later and held her hand out again, this time proffering what appeared to be a small vol-au-vent. "It's not spicy, I promise," she smiled, as I regarded it with apprehension. I took a cautious bite. The pastry was light and crumbly, and the filling was moist, delicious. I finished it with a second bite, savouring every morsel. The flavour intrigued me; slightly tangy, with a hint of delicate seafood, my first reaction being that it was like nothing I had ever tasted before. Yet it was also somehow familiar... I couldn't place it. "You like?" she asked. "Mmm, it was delicious," I replied, "What was that filling?" "Ah... is this the recipe you seek?" I thought for a moment. It is very hard for a gourmet such as I to pass by the chance to learn of new flavours and ingredients, but I suspected she would only be granting me one wish, one recipe, and it had better be the right one. "I would dearly like to learn the secrets of your little entrée, however that is not the recipe I seek." "Oh." Her face dropped for a moment then perked up, and she ran off behind the palm tree again, returning with another vol-au-vent. "Here," she said, "Have another one." I went to take it from her hand but she held on for a few moments longer, telling me to eat it much slower this time. Much slower? I wondered. It was only a very small vol-au-vent, how slowly could I possibly eat it? I began by licking a couple of loose flakes of pastry from the top. There appeared to be some kind of glaze there that I hadn't noticed before. I licked that too, it was delicious, tasting much like the filling had. I thought then that I heard chili-venus-of-the-Spring say something to me, but when I looked up I saw she had her eyes closed as if in sleep or daydream, so I assumed not. I continued slowly licking and nibbling away the pastry in this manner. After a while I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked up to see her slowly swaying on the spot like a charmed snake. I nibbled a little more and watched as a new ripple of motion entered her sway, propagating outward from her midriff. This time I was sure I'd heard her speak, but again I couldn't make it out, it just sounded like a wordless moan. I nibbled a few more tiny bites, each time accompanied by the same ripple of motion and wordless sound from her, then as I daintily devoured the last remnants of the pastry shell I suddenly found my eyes beginning to sting and water again. I looked up and was surprised to see she was naked once more, as when I'd first seen her come alive. I took a couple more nibbles into the centre of the vol-au-vent and watched as she began to writhe most lasciviously on the ground, at the same time as my senses became overwhelmed with the hot pepper-spice assault that seemed to radiate from her. "Finish it!" she cried out, surprisingly forcefully. There was barely a mouthful left so I consumed it in one go, then collapsed on the ground beside her, almost incapacitated by the fiery pain. She lay still for a moment, then looked at me intensely with ripe green eyes, concerned once more. She knelt over me and again poured water from her cupped hand to soothe my inflamed skin, starting with my face, where I let some trickle into my burning mouth, then slowly relieving every inch of my poor body. As the pain receded from my consciousness I became aware of the lustful yearning I had, that seemed to be in no less a need of relief than the pain, here with this sensual elemental so close to me. Having cooled my feet she returned to my head and kissed me, all without saying a word, and moistness of her kiss soothed even as it inflamed me once more. Days seemed to pass in a hot-cool burning-wet fog of lustful confusion, until at last we were quenched. We lay still for a while, then she rose and walked back to the pedestal where the chili-shaped fountain had stood. She blinked slowly, once, as if to say good bye, and I watched as her feet started to crystallise into marble once more. Just before she had completely reverted to fountain form, she smiled to me and said, "For the recipe you seek you must ask my brother, the Wind." And at that very moment Gaia let loose a ripper. If you were a personifying type, you could say it was a gastronomic wonder, but to me, clean nosed and science-minded, it was, well, it was one enormous methane-pocket explosion that rocked the mine and almost brought the whole thing to an end. The brioche mine did survive however, albeit heavily damaged. It took us three months of intensive repair and blood-sweating hard work to get back to our July production level. But as November drew to an end I was smiling again, watching the stream of trucks head off loaded to the gunnels with brioche, off to fetch a hefty price at the markets in France. The light outside looked liked early colour photography... desaturated greens and a pale blueish cast over everything, yet intense, bright. It was warm and the markets bustled with people, old people mainly. The ubiquitous pigeons pecked and cooed, unflustered by the throngs all around, pecking intently but rather aimlessly, often seeming to peck at nothing. How do they manage to glean sustenance from specks of dust? I wondered as they strutted about, sleek, plump and grey. A woman was buying oranges, her face lost under wrinkles and layers of makeup... narrow bands of waxy fuchsia-pink where her lips should be, sticky-tar mascara, thinning hair dyed and woven into a straw-basket sculpture. An old man shuffled past, walking stick in each hand, a contrast to the woman... his skin dry and plain, all the colour drained from his clothes, plain browns. I was looking for my connection. His stall at the market was never in the same place of course, and who would ever think to look for it? I knew it would be here somewhere though... you just had to be smart about how you looked. Like any market, the tucked away back alleys and such weren't the place to find any stalls, they were usually full of rubbish, packing crates, diesel generators and the like. Sometimes his stall would be hidden in full view, he'd just be operating a regular stand selling dates and dried fruits, or thyme and fresh herbs, or sweet pastries. But usually he couldn't be bothered with the effort of all that pretense, and it would just be an unassuming flour stall half-hidden, almost blending into the background or the space between two other stalls, yet of course not looking like it was trying to hide if you did happen to see it. I waded through racks of cheap designer label knock-off clothes and was just beginning to choke on the fumes from the perfume stands ahead when I thought I might have spotted it. A tiny little tent, half-obscured by a display of incongruously outdated-looking 'latest style' Tommy Hilfiger jeans, with a table out front purporting to sell 'finest Turkish Delight from Athens'. It had to be him, the inauspicious stall, the quirky in-joke. The little short figure had his back to me but I thought I recognised him, even though we'd only met twice before and the last time five years ago. "How much are these?" I asked, and he turned slowly towards me. "Five euros a dozen... but try one first if you like." I searched his face for any sign of recognition, but the sly old bugger wasn't giving anything away, so I played along. The Turkish Delight was delicious of course; sweet, aromatic, soft and delicate. "Mmm, it's good. Say, haven't we met before?" I asked, hoping to advance my intent. He smiled slightly. "No, I don't believe we have." So, he was going to play it that way. "This really is delicious. Do you use any special ingredients to make it?" I asked, and he smiled a little wider. "Hmm, I do believe we might have met. Come backstage with me a moment dear boy." He disappeared into his tent, and I followed after him, grabbing another piece of the excellent Turkish Delight on the way. "So," he said once we were inside, fixing me with his one good eye, a smooth marble in a walnut shell, "what are you cooking?" I was stumped... how could I explain? I started to speak anyway, as my ears popped inexplicably and my neck felt crooked no matter which way I held my head. "It's a new kind of pastry, but not a pastry.... more like a, well we'll start with a dough mix and then I've got three hands but I can't work with these Turks in the streets and marshmallows the size of Zeppelins hovering steady so still and the blue! the blue! vanilla, vanilla sunrise... intense, sizzling, stuffed with ice-cream, a teriyaki chocolate sauce over the hills, falafel hills rolling beneath the marmalade glare then delicate layers of snow, I mean real actual snow, I think I'll have to import that (I don't know where, have to find the best snow, maybe from Switzerland) the waiter must be soaked in brandy when serving, but I digress.... wild red fruits poached in ice wine then frozen and... what's that sound? Then like a chowder bowl, a soup, and birds fly high with taut sagging wings, soup of frogs legs and electric eel with stir-fried water-chestnut sorbet... knees ache, eyes sore... crust baked on a low heat, the dough, let the yeast rise... sprinkle mustard seed in your eyes, my eyes? Fresh... fresh... I'm lost... lightly seared in olive oil... and..." I collapsed to my knees, mouth dry, a burning in my nose... all the colours in the room seemed to have taken on neon hues, yet were still themselves... lurid neon browns, neon greys and the edges of every object projected out at me aggressively, fierce jutting triangular projections. I grasped momentarily at lucidity and blurted "And it must move!" then blacked out. A glistening Adonis from northern Africa... 'Blacked Out' was his name, hard but lissome was his body, all the housewives knew his legend: He's got the keys In the bitumen breeze On the verge of a sneeze Cos it's... summertime A song drifted through my head, but I had no idea where it came from. Perhaps it had something to do with the legend...? These days it was starting to seem like everything came back to legends, the light in the gutters and rooftops taking on a mythical quality, as if every dream and misplaced idle thought could be a prophecy. I tried to stay focused, my mind was clear but my purpose wasn't and I searched for distractions... it seemed as long as I could get away with it I might as well try and follow my own path. I didn't know quite what had happened or even whether it had happened to me at all, but at least I had the little bag of special flour from the french market seller, if indeed I had ever been to France. A little gold-velvet pouch tied with a draw string, I peeked inside pointlessly, just to be sure the contents were still there. The flour itself looked unremarkable, and I hoped I hadn't been duped or ripped off. Then again, I don't think I actually paid for it as such anyhow, so perhaps it didn't matter... the proof would be in the baking either way. A cool breeze blew in through the open window, my stomach growled and my mouth tasted of last night's onions. The sky, unbreakable and blue, opened its arms wide above me then shrugged as if to say, "What are you going to do now?" It was a good question. I took my camel, Quixote, by the reins but then thought better of it and tickled him behind the ears instead, whispering: "Carry me where you will old friend." It seemed the best thing to do. After all this was an impossible quest and I knew that if I was ever to succeed I would have to let the recipe find me, and not the other way around. He ambled lumpily off in the direction we were already facing. A rather conventional choice perhaps, on the face of it, but camel's minds work in mysterious ways and I trusted the stubborn beast implicitly, though I can't remember why. The morning began sharp and crisp but as midday approached I could feel it crumpling around the edges and my head grew heavy. Every time I closed my eyes I would see fascinating and surreal compositions in a modern art style... figures, creatures in bold colours with exaggerated planar faces - that style of modern-surreal that has long since been appropriated for use by magazine illustrations, album covers, etcetera. I wondered where they came from. There was one of them sitting on Quixote's back ahead of me now, oversized head and face like a heart-shaped bowl, eyelids like orange coffee beans and big banana lips, painted in a fetching shade of blue, with impressionist-hued shadows and highlights of pale yellowish green. All sensuously canvas-textured with a funny drainpipe-limbed body. I guess things don't always go according to plan... the bastard had hijacked my camel, perhaps sneaking the reins away from me while I dozed. Then again, perhaps things were going perfectly according to plan. We rode for a while and I didn't worry about where we were going. The landscape gradually took on a melted quality, like swiss cheese left out in the sun... it looked tasty, as did the sardine hills off in the pink distance. We stopped and Surreal Man cocked his ungainly head to one side inquisitively. I looked around, seeing plenty out of the ordinary but nothing out of place, then I heard a sound, very faint but slowly getting louder. I couldn't place it at first, but as it got clearer it sounded like a crowd of people arguing, then out from behind one of the randomly placed wedge-shaped boulders that dotted the flat, green plain I saw them. A pack of t-shirt logo dogs; flat, black, rectangular two-dimensional bodies and vicious sawtooth jaws, the lower jawbone protruding prehistorically out beyond the upper. They soon had us surrounded and each of them paced about menacingly, on badly animated letterbox legs. "Woof," they each said, "Woof woof! Grrrowl..." in perfect English. Every dog had the same voice, I mean identical, like they were all replaying the same recording, though each was at a slightly different pitch, as if some were a little sped up or slowed down. Quixote wheeled around nervously but Surreal Man steadied him with an expert hand on the reins and a reassuring pat on the neck. I looked at my watch and thought, I really don't have time for this bullshit. The woof-ing stopped and I glanced up. The strange cut-out dogs were still. They'd moved in such a rudimentary fashion before that I couldn't really tell now whether they were frozen and motionless, as they seemed, or just not moving... which of course is not the same thing at all. I put my watch to my ear and it didn't seem to be ticking, then I remembered that digital watches don't tick anyway. I stared at it a while, the time display didn't change but a watched pot never boils, as they say, and who can really be sure when you've waited a minute unless you have a clock to time it by? "Shall we go on?" I said to Surreal Man but he was already spurring Quixote ahead. The day wore on and I grew hungry. We came across a monkey selling giant watermelon slices by the side of the road and I bought one. This delighted the little fellow no end and he jumped up and down, causing the little bell on his fez to tinkle, then he rolled back on his ripe, shiny, monkey-ass and clapped all four hands, grinning a big wide monkey-grin. I waved to him and tucked into the watermelon. It was good. I rested my slice on the camel's back as it was heavy and about as wide as my arm-span. I spat the pips out behind us leaving a long trail of ellipsis, occasionally punctuated more robustly by piles of camel dung. Time, if it passed at all, passed slowly and lulled me into a false sense of security, as if it was entirely possible that nothing more would ever happen. It was about then that we pulled up beside a house, a cute little house, shining and white and shaped like a box of chinese takeaways. A stiff breeze was blowing and a newspaper flapped against the door: Let me in, let me in. I didn't ask why we'd stopped here, as somehow it seemed obvious. What else would we do upon coming upon such a house in this landscape? "Shall we take a look around?" I asked, but Surreal Man didn't reply. He'd never said anything come to think of it, perhaps he couldn't speak. I could just make out part of the newspaper headline: Pink Castle Foils Planting Of Genetically Mod-. It didn't make any sense and frankly I didn't care, I pulled the newspaper down and left it fluttering injured on the ground. The door handle was red, shiny plastic, I turned it and stepped inside. The shell was on the turn. Sand eroded off the rough edges like an emery board on pornographic nails. Iraq felt his desire bursting out, like a scud missile piercing the quiet blue Kuwaiti sky, bound on an unpredictable but none the less explosive trajectory. Sad-eyed like milk I crawled from the wreckage seeing wireframe flower visions floating neon in front of me. There were bits of exotic culinary debris everywhere; I pulled liquorice from one ear and a prawn from the other, fennel crowned my head and I had quail-egg on my face. Everything was unusually quiet but then I realised that was just because I had been temporarily deafened by the blast. There was obviously something missing in my recipe and I was starting to think that ingredient might be common sense. I sat on a tree-stump and, surveying the remains of my kitchen, I felt too dejected to even think about beginning to clear up the mess. Quixote wandered over and nibbled eagerly at some of the scattered delicacies as I absent mindedly rolled a joint. I looked at my watch but I couldn't seem to focus on the hands and read the time, then when I looked up I found the sun had moved further across the sky and Quixote was sitting beside the road with that faintly absurd expression that sleeping camels wear. I had to assume that I was suffering from concussion and had blanked-out for a while, though in light of my recent experiences I surveyed my surroundings suspiciously for signs of surreal weirdness. Well, there was a partially demolished kitchen and various kinds of burnt or squishy food remains scattered about. These included a whole octopus, which had been flattened against the remaining wall by the force of the blast and kind of stuck there. There was also my dozing, lazy camel... but I had explanations for those things and had to assume that they represented reality, although I was starting to wonder if the leftovers of my failed experimental cookery were concrete evidence of a burgeoning insanity on my part. I decided to put this whole scene behind me and take a break from my search for a recipe and a new artform, try and get some perspective and put my feet back on the ground. I knew just the person to help me too, but she was a couple of days' ride away. I looked over at Quixote. It was always hard to wake him up once he'd decided to catch some kip, sometimes I'd be whacking him with my wrangling stick and shouting, cursing him and he'd just sit there, smug, pretending to ignore me. Then when he did deign to rise he'd be in foul temper. He was always in foul temper. I decided I'd had enough of his smelly hide anyway and went to wait by the roadside to hail a ride from the next motorised transportation that happened along. The next motorised transportation that happened along was an ancient, struggling, faded-green Vespa, but it was already carrying three people so I let it pass. An hour later I managed to flag down a battered red Toyota pickup, which by chance could take me more or less to the outskirts of my destination, though I had to share the cargo area with a small herd of goats and an American journalist. * * * * * "Surely you do not expect me to accept such a pittance?" said Haddib. No this will not do, he thought to himself, then: "I will take no less than eight goats and two American journalists," and with that the meeting was finished. Haddib issued a silent command by way of a glance and the negotiator was shown out. "It is an Insult, is it not Nazim?" "Surely Haddib, they have no regard for the Abdul Razaque name. They have dishonoured you greatly." "Do they have a death wish?" Haddib seemed to be speaking to an invisible audience at a large distance from his person, such was his fervour: "Two Canadian tourists, they didn't even remove the maple-leaf badges from their back-packs!" Nazim stepped back. I regarded the scene with mute indifference but Nazim was clearly shaken by what he'd seen and heard. I looked down at the ridiculous curl-toed persian slippers our counterparts were wearing. Americans! I thought, Who needs 'em? On the other hand, if it was true about their back-packs then perhaps I should be more cautious. I sighed - this was all parting the clouds beneath my head and killing my serene buzz. I considered my options but there didn't seem to be much hope of slipping away unnoticed in this flat, open, desert country. I thought to myself, not for the first time, that if nothing ever happened then nothing could ever go wrong. Like now for example - here we were, perfectly safe for as long as the tense stand-off held. It wouldn't hold of course, because no one could possibly bear to let such a dangerous situation continue for very long - even if, as I saw it, the main danger here was in fact that someone would try to do something to diffuse it. I should have had more faith in chaos... after a couple of minutes of sweaty, beady-eyed nervousness my ears pricked up at the sound of a distant air horn. The others heard it at about the same time but didn't dare take their eyes off each other. I peered down the road... the sound was gradually getting louder, someone incessantly honking their horn. It was hard to tell which vehicle was making the racket, but as they got closer it became clear that it was the ancient truck, engine roaring flat-out, weaving from side to side erratically. The other traffic skittled out of its way and, as the drone of its engine and the frenzied sounding of its horn grew louder, the stalematers around me took little glances out the corners of their eyes. I could see now there were colourful flags flying from the truck and people waving and shouting from the windows, though I couldn't make out what they were saying. It was a few hundred metres away now, bearing down on us as we stood in the middle of the road and now my companions made slightly comic figures as they tried to keep one eye on each other, and jump about and wave down the truck at the same time. I was just thinking that it was about time they all got out of the way, as the truck was obviously out of control, either wilfully or helplessly, when there was a tremendous crack-BANG and a blinding flash of hot orange-white. For the second time in as many (days? hours? I couldn't be too sure) I found myself coming to, dazed, sooty and deaf, in the aftermath of an explosion. There were feathers and charred bits of chicken scattered around, from the truck I presumed, and I wasn't quite sure how I'd managed to escape unscathed. I wondered what had happened... it seemed probable that one of the backpackers had panicked and detonated themselves, thus this would go down in history as the first, and probably also the last-ever American suicide bombing in the Middle East. I suddenly felt as if the world were spinning, not like dizziness - I could keep my balance - a different kind of centrifugal disorientation, as though the world was constantly trying to spin contrary to its usual direction and my feet on the ground were the only things maintaining the status quo... big invisible wheels of fear whirled out from my centre, and I started to run... and run... I ran until I was exhausted, then I walked, panting, still vaguely spun out. I didn't want to hitch another ride, I just kept walking. I knew we weren't that far from my friend's house, like maybe a couple of hours' walk in the afternoon sun. * * * * * "Walking around town at twilight, reading reflections from the page, on the chasm between us, bridged by water. Trees seem more real, undistorted with heavy droplets of rain, and concrete becomes earth as the dead leaf stream and the pools dissipate as quickly as they came. "The purple-orange suffuse soon broken: my way down the hill, neon crucifixes above the cypresses giving way to the insidious march of man (and I do mean man not humans in general). These great concrete phalli proving the traffic of traffic has secured its place in inescapable desire." Haddib raised his head. Nazim looked like the proverbial stunned mullet. "Well, what do you think, Nazim?" "I... I... I... it's a great start!" "Yes, I think so. Wait, I'll read you the bit where the..." BBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! An explosion of terrific sound ripped through the palace. I grabbed my girl by the arm. She was still stunned, wide-eyed and fearful. "What was that?" she asked. "Come on," I hissed, "let's get out of here!" I tugged her along with me as I ran back up the stone corridor and around a bend, just as the first palace guards were starting to arrive at the scene, shouting orders and such. My heart was racing... I wasn't sure exactly what had happened but now that they would be searching the palace we were in serious trouble. All this for one night of... I started to think, but it didn't bear consideration. "Come on," I urged her as we ran wildly through the many corridors, which were more or less deserted at this time of night in spite of all the commotion. As we rounded a corner, almost too late, I spotted a pair of guards questioning a group of staff up ahead and I ducked into the nearest room, pulling her after me. "What are we going to do?" she whispered, clinging tightly to my arm. I don't know I thought, breathing heavily, but all I said was, "Have you got a light?" The room was dark. She fished a lighter out from within the bead-encrusted stash-bag she always kept handy. By the timid light of its little flame I fumbled around the room, eventually locating an old brass lamp on the mantelpiece of a very ornate fireplace. I didn't really know how to operate an antique like that, or if it even had any fuel in it, but I fiddled with the wick and turned the choke control whilst waving the lighter flame in front of every likely opening until I found the right combination and it burst into bold illumination. I gestured for her to shut the door as I surveyed the room. It was lavishly furnished and dominated by a large four-poster bed, heavy with red velvet and gold-tassels. There were silk robes draped over mahogany chairs, little gold jars of perfume oil, even a copy of Time magazine. It all looked rather familiar actually, in that familiar-but-different kind of way. Perhaps we were in the old part of the palace, where I'd worked when I was personal chef to the Vizier-azem. I looked around again and it struck me that this could well be the new Vizier's chamber. It was hard to be certain, the new Vizier had certainly indulged in some renovations if it was. I hoped it was... then perhaps we had a way out of the palace - and not a moment too soon! I could hear the guards getting closer as they searched room by room. "Quick, help me with this!" I whispered, pulling up a large heavy rug from the floor. I started examining each slate of the stone floor, looking for the one that wasn't quite right. All the palace staff had heard the legends and tales of secret passages running under the building but I had one up on everybody... I had actually found them once and I was glad now that I'd kept the discovery to myself. What I was looking for was the one slate that had a slightly concave surface. Back in the days when the passages had been maintained for use I think there had been a large round stone in the room which could simply be rolled onto the indentation in that slate, its weight triggering the switch underneath to reveal the passage entrance. The rolling stone was long gone however, so we would have to find something else to take its place - something suitably heavy, as of course the switch shouldn't be tripped simply by someone standing on that slate. "What are you looking for," she asked. "Here, lift the other side of this," I replied, getting my hands underneath one of the terracotta plant pots beside the fireplace. It wasn't so very big, but I figured with all the soil in there and the small date palm too it might just be heavy enough. Actually it was almost too heavy, the two of us had great difficulty lifting it the couple of feet over to what I thought was the trigger slate. As we set it down I thought I saw the slate move a little, as if it was loose, but nothing happened straight away. I waited tensely. I could hear the guards in the corridor, possibly only a couple of rooms away from us now. Eventually I heard a dull grinding sound from behind the fireplace, which I hoped was the ancient machinery swinging into action. A few moments later I noticed a faint musty, damp smell on the air and, as I had done years before, I crouched down and peered into the fireplace with the lantern. And, just like years before, all that peered back was an empty hole, the entrance to the secret passages. "Come on," I whispered and took her hand, leading the way. Once through the fireplace entrance the passage was almost tall enough to stand up in. Just inside was the second of the original rolling stones, and I pushed it into place over the second switch slate. Again there was an agonising wait, then the sound of hidden counterweights moving in the walls as the back of the fireplace dropped down into position once more. Fortunately the passage was a simple one-way affair and we couldn't get lost. I hurried us along, as I didn't really trust all this Indiana Jones bullshit to buy us much extra time (how many other people must know the secret of this bolt-hole?). After about ten minutes of stumbling along the slippery, damp surface of the rough-hewn tunnel as fast as we could, hoping the lamp would hold out, we came to the end. At first it looked like a dead end, but in fact there was a natural fissure in the rock just barely wide enough to squeeze through. It kind of dog-legged in the middle so that from the outside it didn't appear to lead anywhere and from the inside it looked like there was no way out. I pressed myself flat and started to wriggle through. "Where are you going?" she asked, hanging back. "Come on, it's just through here, we're nearly there," I replied. It wasn't actually too difficult to squeeze through, just a little claustrophobic. I peeked out cautiously. The fissure opened out into a much wider tunnel, and the reason for my caution was soon confirmed as I heard a distant rumble accompanied by a high pitched squeaking, chittering sound. A train was coming... the old secret passage now intersected with the much more recent tunnels of the Baghdad Metro. I handed the lantern to my companion and pressed back a little way into the fissure so that the driver wouldn't see us. The train passed with a roar and the hideous metallic screeching of wheels against rails. As soon as it was gone we ran up the Metro tunnel in what I was reasonably sure was the direction of the nearest station, hoping we'd make it before the next train came along. I saw light up ahead and approached the platform cautiously. I needn't have worried since at this time of morning there was no one around except a snoozing kif head, sprawled out on one of the benches. We clambered up onto the platform and I looked at the map wondering what our next move should be, whilst a giant portrait of Saddam smiled benevolently over my shoulder. This Metro stop adjoined an overland railway station. Considering our situation I figured we could do worse than just to get the hell out of Baghdad, so we straightened up our appearances as best we could and headed for the mainline terminal. Looking at the destinations on the flip board, the next train heading any distance out of the city was northbound. That was as good a direction as any for me. "You got any money?" I asked her. She rustled up a couple of dinar and I had a couple more, enough to get us on the train at least, if not very far. We'd have to dodge the ticket collector I guess. The tickets weren't as expensive as I had expected and would take us as far as Samarra. The train left only a quarter of an hour late, a wait which passed very tensely for us, and I half expected the palace guards to show up at any moment. But they didn't. We got on board and as the train pulled away I began to notice how tired I was. The sun was just coming up though and I couldn't sleep, I just watched the scenery unfold as we left the city; stark, arid, but beautiful in the first light of dawn. Feeling safe once more, she snuggled up close to me in our hard railcar seat... scandalous behaviour to be sure, but somehow here on the train our anonymity as strangers served to protect us from unwanted attention. I eventually dozed off, shortly before we reached our destination as it happened, and I was dreaming of nothing when she woke me up to leave. Samarra is pretty in the spring. There was no one waiting to arrest us at the station and suddenly I felt lighthearted and carefree, a rare thing these days. "Let's go visit the gardens," she suggested, clutching my hand tightly, her eyes smiling into mine. How could I refuse? Why would I want to? There was a miraculous cool breeze in the air and the gardens were near the station. We passed an old man selling musical instruments along the way and, although broke, I couldn't resist perusing his wares. I plunked a few notes on a little bazuq. "How much?" I enquired casually. "To you, special price today, twenty dinar." "I haven't any money," I replied with a sheepish grin. "Ah," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. But then, perhaps picking us for the social degenerates I guess we were, he seemed to change his mind. "You like the instrument though?" he asked innocently. "It's cheap rubbish for tourists." "Special price, today only, eighteen dinar." "It's not even worth ten." "Fifteen dinar, best offer." "I don't have any money." "Perhaps you have something else to offer?" "I don't think so, we are very poor." Well, it was more or less true right now. "Ah." He looked by turns wistful, then pitiful. "I'm just a poor man myself. An old kif head trying to make a living." I looked over at my girl, she had been smiling at our conversation and was now rummaging around in her little bag. With long-practiced and casual discretion she showed the old instrument seller a small brown cube of hash. "That's fifteen dinars worth," she told him. "Looks more like ten," he replied with a sly glint in his eye. "So does the instrument," I reminded him. He looked hurt for a moment, then snatched the hash from her hand and shuffled off round the back of his stall nodding goodbye to us, leaving me in possession of a new bazuq. "Thank you," I said, picking out an old melody as we walked. "That's okay, I like to hear you play," she replied. "But... what are we going to smoke now?" "Oh... I still have a couple I rolled earlier." "Ah, my dear, you're so resourceful. And always thinking ahead!" The gardens were beautiful of course and we found a secluded shady spot under a flowering tree with hanging branches. She rested her head in my lap as we smoked one of her joints, and I played a little. The hash and the music soothed my mind until I drifted off somewhat into a reverie, whilst my fingers kept playing... they never did particularly need the ego to interfere in what they were doing, so in the meantime I dreamed a little and pondered un-deliberately on the problems facing me in the culinary arts. For a few moments I felt like I was on the edge of something, some great realisation concerning the recipe which I was trying to seek without searching, something to do with magic and harmony and the properties of vibrating strings. Maybe I was just stoned. Physical sensations brought me back to earth... she had her hand up my trouser leg and was stroking my calf. It seemed a strange way to caress, but it was nice to touch. I ran my fingers, not so much through her hair, as into the thick dark lazy curls, then over her face and under her chin, across her neck. She smiled up at me, it was a happy moment. I leaned back against the tree and she sat up, still smiling and staring into my eyes. "I like you," she said in her particular little voice. "I like you too," I said as we touched noses, then kissed. Her tongue felt like tongue, her mouth tasted like mouth, and everything was of all and in the physical. Her hair smelled like hair. I kissed her neck and she clutched my head to her, making sweet little noises, and I could tell we needed to be closer than we could allow ourselves to get, here in this public garden. I wondered if I was lost again. * * * * * I thanked him for the light, drip dry haircut or no, it was good to be with people again. Out in the desert with only dry bones and enochi caves to talk to I guess I had gotten a little lonely, a tad out of touch. Well, here I was back in Baghdad. I looked up at a four by six picture of Saddam... he was peeling at the edges, I knew how he felt. I tried to consider my own feelings on the subject more deeply, but found it hard to swim through the waters of lethargy. My neck ached, it had been a bumpy ride. It was hard to care about anything, feeling like this... more sleep, that's what I needed. I nibbled one of the chocolate biscuits I had been saving and perked up a bit. "Do you think we can make it to Esfahan in time?" I asked my new friend. His leathery skin glistened with the sweat of a relentlessly hot desert afternoon. Having eaten lunch shortly after getting up around midday, somehow it still felt like morning to me. "Best get moving," came the terse reply. He was right, it was getting late in the day and we would be lucky to even make the Iranian border by nightfall. I bought cured meat snacks and bottles of what purported to be Evian mineral water from a roadside vendor with no teeth, then Uri piloted the old Lada 4x4 out onto the broken highway. The chocolate biscuit quickly wore off and I zoned out in the passenger seat until I found it impossible to make sense of the shapes my eyes were relaying to my brain and sleep at last overtook me. I awoke, thirsty, in time to catch the sunset. "Here, go into the backseat and put this on," said Uri once he noticed I was awake, handing me a bundle of sheets. It was a burqa, I soon realised. "You want me to dress as a woman?" "It will be easier if we cross border as farmer and wife." "Why not just two farmers?" "The papers I have are for farmer and wife." I didn't press him any further. I didn't want to know where he'd got the papers from, and anyone seeing Uri's broad-shouldered six-foot-something frame would most likely concur that if one of us was to dress as a woman, it shouldn't be him. He had manly features jutting out all over the place... manly elbows, manly earlobes. A chin like Batman, the animated cartoon one with the enormous, square, manly chin. Not even a burqa could hide them all. "Your name is Mitra," he told me. "And yours is...?" "Hassan. Here are your papers, memorise the important details." There was just a dusky pink glow left in the sky when we pulled up at the checkpoint. We all have moustaches, I thought to myself nervously from inside the veil. My throat was sore and froggy but I resisted the urge to clear it, fearing I might sound unfeminine and ruin the disguise. More than one set of guards on either side of the border checked our papers, but they were obviously in order as we passed without undue attention. Uri ground the Lada into gear and we headed off into the Iranian desert. It looked much like the Iraqi desert. Despite the fact that I wasn't supposed to be here and was currently disguised as a woman, I actually felt safer now than I had for the past few hours. After all, we appeared to have got away with it... here we were, in Iran, on our way to the majestic Temple of the Feasts, in Esfahan. We had a couple of days' drive ahead, as the Lada flies. Uri didn't have much to say but I was keen to get out of my costume. "Can I take this off now?" I asked. "No, is better we keep identity until tomorrow." I looked sidelong at him. "We check into hotel with these papers, then change identity tomorrow. And get new car... not Lada!" "Okay..." I said. "Don't worry, I am good husband!" At this the big Russian mercenary laughed heartily, for the first time since I'd met him. I laughed too and hastily lit up a joint, which I proceeded to smoke awkwardly through the nose opening of the burqa. "We'd better have separate beds..." I began. "No, no!" he interrupted, laughing some more, "We are happy married people! Sleep in marriage bed, you cook me dinner." He slapped the steering wheel with his big blunt hand, "Good little wife!" I laughed along. You wouldn't be laughing if you saw what happened last time I cooked, I thought to myself. It was a rather sobering thought for a chef and I stared out the window silently for the next few minutes, as Uri got his breath back and I finished the joint. I didn't offer any to Uri, I'd already discovered he frowned on it as a drug for 'women and layabouts' and preferred to get paralytic on bootleg vodka instead. Dressed as I was at the moment I could hardly argue that point with him. "I'll cook dinner as long as you go out and get the food," I told him. "What? No, that is woman's job!" He was smiling again. "Uri, my friend, there's no way I am going shopping in the market dressed like this..." "But why, it suits you!" I let him have his laugh. The stresses of the day, and possibly the kif, were getting to me, making my head feel funny, swollen, like it was ready to burst... but not painful like a headache, just over-full, under pressure. It was dark outside, our feeble headlights cutting a narrow swathe through the night and, tired as I was, I couldn't sleep. No matter, we were soon making our way through the outlying shanties of Kermanshah, they gradually gave way to the inner shanties of the city centre. We found cheap lodgings easily, as there didn't seem to be any other kind, and I let Uri do the talking. As soon as we were up in our room I took off the burqa and breathed a sigh of relief. "I will get us some food," he said with a smile. "I don't feel like cooking." "There is no stove..." Indeed the room was pretty bare. I slumped on the bed, wanting nothing so much as a beer, but I knew that the only alcohol I was likely to encounter here was some of Uri's moonshine or the local Aragh, whose name gave a pretty good indication of the sound people usually made upon imbibing it. Uri left and returned surprisingly quickly with a couple of kebabs and, even more surprisingly, a couple of cans of Tuborg. He winked at me as I eagerly took the offered lager and sipped it ecstatically... "I know someone," was all he said, cryptically. We ate and drank, though alas the beers were gone too soon, and then retired to bed, modestly sleeping on top of the covers, semi-clothed, our backs to each other. In the morning I awoke to find that the savoury aroma of our kebabs from the previous evening had survived the night intact, yet paradoxically the kebabs themselves had turned into something altogether unsavoury within me during the same period and indeed were right now clamouring to be released. I spent an unpleasant few minutes squatting Turkish in the bathroom while Uri packed our things. I donned my costume, we checked out and hit the road once more. "I thought today we were losing the disguises," I said to Uri as we droned down the highway. "We will my friend, but we must find alternative transport." I wondered how we might achieve this end, but I placed my trust in Uri's robust and occasionally brutal resourcefulness. "Tell me about this temple we're going to," he said, after we'd travelled in silence for a while. "The Temple of Feasts in Esfahan was built by Mithradates the First, uh... this Parthian king, yeah... in, like, two hundred BC as a monument to honour the mastery of his palace chefs and, you know, Parthian cuisine in general. The chefs became like high priests of this cookery cult and food lovers everywhere would flock to the temple to... you know, like, 'learn the ways of the masters'. But anyway, I heard that the walls are inscribed with the recipes for these fabulous dishes. You can't see them of course, tourists aren't allowed past the visitor centre and the all-you-can-eat Parthian buffet restaurant, but I thought maybe once I was there I, um... well, could find a way to learn something." Uri studied me for a few moments with his hard, Caspian eyes but said nothing. It was a boring drive - long, hot and dusty. "How did you get into this line of work then?" I asked him, before the silence had time to become unbreakable. He didn't reply for a while, then when he spoke it was very slowly and deliberately. "My brother... he died. Fighting for independence in the Nagorno-Karabakh. My grandfather took his body back to Armenia. My mother, she said goodbye. The army took our house. That's when I decided if I was going to die it might as well be for money." He was staring straight ahead at the road. I couldn't think of anything to say, somewhat awed by his story but also feeling nothing, unable to relate. Neither of us said anything more and after a couple of hours of the noisy chaos of our Iranian highway I found that even noisy chaos could be soporific. I drifted off into a noisy, chaotic slumber. Two rivers. The birthplace of civilisation, as often quoted in history books. Looking at the ruins, searching for meaning... Was it destined to be? That the son should return to kill the mother? I opened my bag, found a slip of paper and scribbled down some notes, what I was just thinking. I looked at the words. Why do I write everything down? Written obsessively, but what good would they be to anyone? I felt hopeless with the realisation that knowledge, useful knowledge had been slowly receding, disintegrating, since the days of cuneiform tablets. Until all that was left was information so dense yet so removed, abstracted. Specialised and codified smoke, so thick you could almost grasp it, so heavy that it choked your lungs, polluted your mind. Until the children returned to their birthplace, so mangled, so blinded as to drain the river, unhearing their mothers screams. My ears rang... this wasn't how it was supposed to turn out! For a moment I saw my life growing out ahead of me like some noxious vine, strangling possibilities, hapless trees, overrunning the undergrowth. I shook my weary head, sand in my eyes. There was a cool breeze blowing but it didn't soothe me, I just lay there on my back for several minutes as if I was unable to get up. I didn't want to get up, I just wanted to sink into the ground where it would be warm and soft and maybe I would grow into a tree, a beautiful fruit tree perhaps, with succulent oranges hanging from low branches; I would become an oasis of shady dark-green leaves and sweet fruit here in this barren, bomb-blasted, ruined, mixed up land. I got up. So did I. There were two of me, we stood facing each other. "So what are you going to do?" "I don't know." We looked around. "Is it normally so hazy like this?" "I think it's smoke..." "Yeah." "So..." "Um." "At least I still have this?" We held a brittle copper scroll in my left hand. "The ancient recipe from the temple..." "...at Esfahan. Yeah. And this flour." We held the little pouch of flour in my right hand. "I guess I should get it translated." "Yeah, the um... yeah why not? I'll ah. I guess someone knows how to read this language?" The scroll was a thin sheet of beaten copper. Ancient glyphs had been debossed upon the surface, perhaps by means of a sharp pointed instrument, a hammer, and a lot of painstaking man-hours of intricate scribe work. I knew what it was and where it had come from, though I wasn't entirely sure how it had come into my possession. I wondered if Uri had escaped our raid on the temple as I had managed to. Memory and reality were slipping through my fingers and the sound of the sun tinkled in my ears, presumably some kind of synaesthetic after-effect of the psychedelics I had been consuming lately. We shuffled around absent mindedly until I realised I had my back to myself. When I looked around he had gone, leaving me wondering whether we had been reintegrated or if he had just wandered off. I didn't like to entertain this last possibility for too long, for several reasons, but chiefly because I would like to think that I'd have had the courtesy to say goodbye. I wandered off in search of the road, it was time to go home. I hadn't wandered far before I realised I was already on the road. Perhaps there was a layer of tarmac somewhere under the dust, dirt and desert grit, but it wasn't obvious. Still, I was definitely on some kind of trail, I could see it stretching off towards the hills on the horizon. The sun was high in the sky, making it hard to get my bearings... I didn't know where I was anyway, although assuming I was still in Iran then my general plan would be to head west for home. A riderless camel ambled up the roadside verge and onto the trail, ahead of me. The camel was saddled, so it was obviously not wild, and I wondered what had happened to its rider. To be honest it looked kind of familiar and on a whim I called out to it, "Quixote! Here boy!" The camel snorted. Quixote had never actually responded to his name, or any other voice commands for that matter, but given my situation I took this as an affirmative. I patted his sandy flank and to my surprise the beast knelt. I climbed aboard, a rather awkward process, but he waited patiently. "Where have you been?" he asked me in his split-lip camel voice. "I... can't say for sure." Quixote snorted. I wondered why he'd never spoken before. "Where are we going?" "Home, my friend. Do you know the way?" He said nothing but started walking in the direction of the distant hills, I tried to relax into the lurching ride. I could see a heavy thunderhead was amassing on the horizon to the northwest. Looking around at the parched landscape I figured this place could probably use a drop of rain. I wouldn't have minded a cool shower myself, and Quixote could certainly use a shampoo and polish, however as we travelled towards the western range and the dark clouds gathered in strength I could see that we were in for quite a soaking. "Head for the hills!" I urged my loyal dromedary. He lurched a little faster. I was hoping we could find some shelter before the heavens opened, but I could feel the wind starting to pick up now and the storm was gradually getting closer. I looked around and spied a building to the north of us, nearer than the hills... a large industrial building of some kind. I tugged Quixote's reins and aimed for the structure. The wind was blowing stronger, the air was warm and humid... hot and wet. The ground was still dry and rock hard though and I knew it would flood easily if there was a lot of rain, such as the impending storm seemed to promise. As we got closer to the building I could make out a brand name painted on the side: Agarak Flour & Yeast Co: Home Of The Majestic Loaf. Underneath was a logo with a cheerfully grinning Saddam Hussein holding a steaming loaf of bread in each hand. We were evidently already back in Iraq and I spurred Quixote on, hoping someone at the bread factory would let us take shelter there. I could feel an intensely unpleasant sensation in the vicinity of my kidneys, not quite like either pain or queasiness, but with some of the qualities of both. I wasn't sure what caused it, though I had felt it before, infrequently, and while the ride from my camel's back certainly didn't help, I couldn't blame that. Gradually, mercifully, it eased. The factory gleamed with new white paint over its old corrugated iron flanks, maybe three or four stories tall, and I could just about make out the vague shapes of large stainless steel machinery inside. We were approaching from the rear and it was ringed with a high wire-mesh fence, which we followed around looking for the front entrance. I noticed hundreds of bits of paper fluttering about on the breeze, one came up and plastered itself on my cheek. I pulled it away and examined it, half-knowing what to expect anyway. Sure enough it was printed with the same message in Arabic on both sides... an American propaganda leaflet. It read: Oppressed people of Iraq! This factory has been bombed in accordance with the United States of America's policy on the elimination of biological weapons production capacity in your country. We wish to make it clear that we do not attack civilian targets and take every effort to minimise civilian casualties in all our operations. Your oppressor, Saddam Hussein, has lied to you most cruelly by disguising this plant for the manufacture of biological weapons as a bread factory, whilst so many of you are starving! We urge you to rise up against this evil tyrant. [American flag] My heart sank on reading this. As we travelled along the perimeter fence and the front face of the building came into view I was expecting to see the great devastation which had been invisible from the rear aspect. Instead there was a small crater and pile of rubble, perhaps the remains of an administrative office, and a sooty black smear across the front of the factory The larger structure seemed more or less intact however, save a few broken windows near the source of the blast. I found it hard to believe that the US Air Force and their laser-guided bombs could have missed, but I guess nothing and no one is infallible. Or perhaps they'd hit their intended target and hadn't needed to raze the factory proper, there was really no way of knowing. Apart from a vague worry they might come back to finish the job, I decided to take this as a piece of good fortune. A loose sheet of iron flapped in the gusting breeze. I was lightly dressed, and damp now, so even the warm air chilled me with its draft. "Okay, let me down my friend," I said. Quixote knelt and I dismounted, we really seemed to be getting on well lately. I clambered through one of the imploded window frames. Inside, I could hear the rain rattling against the translucent plastic roof sheeting above. I was in an office of some sort. There was an old wooden desk, pale white and brown wallpaper with an embossed woven effect, a couple of large brass drawing pins stuck in at random places, pinning nothing to the wall, a calendar... Miss February peered out from behind the gold-tasselled fringes of her burqa with amazingly seductive eyes. I longed to catch a glimpse of her nose. I was tired from the long ride, the long day... the long unquantified period of time I had spent, it seemed, chasing wisps of imagination. Where the hell was I anyway? Some half-bombed bread-and-anthrax factory in God knows what part of the country. I wondered what my mother was doing right now. So tired... I started to feel a little dizzy. My damp clothes clung to me and the room pressed in... I stumbled and whirled around for a few moments, like a drunkard, as if that was the only way I could stay on my feet instead of curling up and going to sleep on the floor. I lunged for the door handle and found it, but the door appeared to be locked and it the handle slipped through my fingers. I gathered all the strength left in my fatigued limbs and shoulder-barged the frame. It was only a flimsy construction, merely a partition not a structural member, and it gave way easily under my onslaught, damn near bringing down half the office wall with it. I was glad there was no one to hear my crazy laugh as I looked back at the ridiculous sight, the devastation I had inadvertently wreaked upon that fragile definition of a room. Huge stainless steel cylinders, funnels, vats, tubes, pipes and the like loomed above me now that I was standing out on the factory floor. The comforting, yeasty smell of bread was in the air, and that perked up my spirits somewhat. There were metal staircases and gangways amongst the machinery and I climbed up a couple of levels to get a better look. The effort somewhat winded me but, panting for breath and looking out over the various parts of the factory, I came to two conclusions: one) that the Americans had got it wrong somehow and this was a regular bread factory, and two) it had only recently been bombed and deserted, as the machinery appeared to be fully loaded with ingredients in various stages of becoming dough and then loaves, none of which seemed to be going off yet. I could see a big hopper full of flour, a large cylindrical tank which appeared to be refrigerated and perhaps held several tonnes of butter, conveyor belts running into a long oven. There was a flash of lightning then about ten seconds later, the crack of thunder. The noise of the rain on the factory roof was getting louder and more gravelly. I remembered Quixote outside. I looked around from my vantage point for a door or entrance he might be able to fit through and spied a loading bay on the back wall, with a roll-up door you could drive a van through. I ran down the clanging metal staircase, thinking for a moment that I should really have some of those white rubber boots and an elastic paper hair net on. I pressed the big green button by the door with my palm, but nothing happened. The power was out of course. Normally this would have put me off, after all, what could I do? I was gripped with a sense of urgency however and I ran off in search of tools, like a freezing cave man desperately seeking to discover the secret fire by working from first principles. I returned to the stubborn door with an axe, which I'd found shacked up with a fire extinguisher, a chair, a bucket and a ten foot length of metal pole. I wasn't sure any of them would be useful but it was the best I could do. I pulled at the door experimentally but it wouldn't budge, which I hoped was just because of resistance from the unpowered electric opener and not because it was too heavy for me to lift. I kicked the bucket out of the way, stood on the chair and started hacking at the opener's drive-chain with the axe. The chain wasn't very taut, nor held in place too rigidly, which made it hard to bring much force to bear upon it but eventually it snapped. I tried the door. Sure enough it was stiff and heavy but I managed to heave it up far enough that I could wedge the pole in diagonally, to hold it up. I ran around the outside of the building back to where I'd left Quixote. The water splashed under my feet, slow to soak into the dry-baked ground, maybe a couple of inches deep already. When I got there he was pacing about nervously near the fence and I could tell he didn't like the water. "Come on my friend," I called to him, "let's get inside!" He shied away from me at first, but came over after a bit of coaxing and I led him by the reins around towards the back of the factory. I thought it was the thunder and lightning that had him so jittery and tugged him along behind me. The stormclouds had darkened the sky somewhat and I angled my head downwards so that the rain drained off my eyebrows. All of a sudden I heard a screech and a whooshing sound, like I'd stuck my head out the window of a moving car... Quixote was startled and ran forward knocking me almost off my feet, I grabbed onto his neck to steady myself... then everything went darker still, there was a big rush of air and in the confusion I saw giant animal-shapes; feathers, a pair of scaly claws... there was a moment of stillness, then a fearful jerk and I clung to Quixote instinctively, then clung tighter most deliberately when I realised we were being lifted off the ground. I felt terrified yet strangely numb, perhaps I was in shock. Giant wings flapped overhead and we lurched unsteadily higher into the sky... vertigo, my stomach in my mouth. The beast smelled like a chicken coop. I clung tight, so tight, that was my only thought. I couldn't feel my arms. I tried to get a little grip with my legs too, wrapping them around Quixote's forelimbs. I didn't look down, but we were soon up in the clouds and all I could see was grey fog, rushing past, buffeting us in the icy airstream. The beast's claws dug cruelly into my camel's flanks and I hoped he wasn't too badly wounded. The mists seemed to part suddenly as we swooped down out of the clouds and I noticed that the hills were very close. Our giant avian kidnapper was approximately the size of a Cessna, truly a terror of the skies, I watched as a wild goat below saw us and ran bleating from our path. The adrenaline couldn't last forever, I could feel my arms again, was aware of how tired they were getting, could feel the strain of every rigid muscle as I hung on for dear life. My fingers continually slipped through Quixote's wet fur and I had to keep adjusting my grip. I had time to wonder about what would happen when we landed (we surely had to land...?) I had no weapon and it seemed I was in grave danger of ending up as some kind of meal or evening snack for the creature, yet I had no choice for the time being but to keep hanging on, bound to my fate. I wondered for a moment if this might not all turn out to be some kind of terrible hallucination and I would come to in a couple of hours, lying on my kitchen floor, hugging a table leg, drool running down my chin. We soared along a ragged ridge, then as it fell away into a deep gorge our captor swooped suddenly to cut in against the cliff face and I damn near lost my grip. At that moment a harsh, inhuman voice filled my head: "HOLD ON, PREY!" I wasn't sure if this confirmed or refuted my hallucination hypothesis. For some reason I kept bringing up memories of the back-streets and markets where I had lived and played as a child, when the edges of my world were defined by how far I'd dared to ride by myself, on my bicycle. I wondered if my life was trying to flash before my eyes. Then that same grating, hideous voice inside my head again, "HOLD ON" and the creature began to beat its wings faster to stay aloft as we slowed down. I soon saw what must be the beast's lair, where we were about to land... an ominous pile of large bones, a loose collection of small rocks and broken tree branches gathered into a rudimentary nest which contained a single large blue egg, all atop this remote windswept peak. It set us down remarkably gently and I winced as the voice intruded into my mind once more, "DON'T RUN, PREY." I didn't run, even though perhaps I should have... Man is not used to being addressed as prey. Instead of ripping into our flesh with its menacing beak the creature just watched us with beady, forward-facing, predator's eyes. I could see it clearly now, in form like an eagle, in scale, a giant, a monster, and there was something else about it too, something regal and imposing about the creature that had nothing to do with its physical size, an air of the heroic and mythical. "Please don't eat me," I found myself thinking, although if that had been the beast's intention I would probably be eaten by now. I felt very small. The eagle cocked its head to one side, then appeared to look off in the distance. Then it half-opened its wings and shifted its weight from foot to foot, and I got the impression something was making it nervous. I wondered what on earth could make this terrible creature nervous, but then I heard something too... the pulsating drone of a helicopter, or possibly helicopters. I ground my teeth as the eagle's voice cut across my thoughts again. It was very insistent this time, saying: "LISTEN TO ME, PREY. THEY ARE COMING. YOU HAVE THE SCROLL. YOU MUST NOT LET THEM HAVE THE SCROLL. THIS OTHER PREY CAN READ IT FOR YOU. I SACRIFICE THIS FOR YOU. YOU WILL NEED IT." It was a strain for me to have this voice in my head. The words throbbed in my temple and made me weak at the knees. Pained and confused, for the first time I spoke to the creature. "Who is coming? What?" "I WILL FIGHT THEM BACK. YOU MUST FOLLOW THE SCROLL. I GIVE YOU MY EGG." The eagle gestured with its beak to the rugged nest, but I collapsed to the ground, disoriented. Coloured spots swam across my vision and I closed my eyes. I just needed some sleep and rest, I thought... all this travel, now our flight with this monster and the fear, the fear. I had nothing left to give. I heard the echo of a ringing sound, then another voice in my head, only this time soft, soothing. Possibly my own. The words were indistinct, ideas more than sounds... Like a broken gong Be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom Where there is no more striving. Like herdsmen driving... "GET UP" ...their cows into the fields, Old age and death will drive you before them. But the fool... "GET UP!" ...in his mischief forgets And he lights the fire Wherein one day... "GET UP, PREY!" ...he must burn. "GET UP!" The eagle's mind-voice tore my peaceful coma into shreds. I cracked my eyes open only to have them blinded by the unexpected brightness of the daylight. "YOU MUST GET UP," the voice made them water all the more, my head hurt. I rolled to my hands and knees and forced myself to stand. Quixote nudged me with his nose and I took a few steps, then he nudged me gently again and I took his reins in my hand and let him guide me. We headed away from the eagle's lair and the sound of approaching helicopters, down off the summit, I felt maybe we should run but I didn't have it in me. I heard what must have been the fearsome screeching cry of the giant eagle and the sound of rockets and gunfire, I held tight to Quixote's reins as he walked faster, almost pulling me along. Time falls, slowly but surely I thought to myself as we descended, feeling battered and numb, disconnected. Eventually we found a place where there was a small overhang, almost a cave, and some boulders in front, it would serve to give us a little cover, hide us from the air. Quixote squeezed as far in as he could and sat down, I gladly dropped to the ground. "Show me the scroll," he said. I retrieved it from his saddle bag and gently, ever-so-carefully unrolled the fragile document in front of him. "You can really read this?" I asked. "I don't know, I've never seen it before." "But you might be able to?" "The bird said I could." Quixote brought up some cud and chewed it thoughtfully as he contemplated the ancient text. "It's in, er... Parthian I think," I offered by way of encouragement. He said nothing for a while, just mashed his jaws together slowly from side to side for a couple of minutes. Then abruptly he spoke, evidently quoting the scroll, trying out different interpretations as he went. "Method for (the) preparation of... god... of the holy bread... bread of the gods: Take five... units, weight units of... temple flour.... blessed flour? Of blessed flour and make a... dough of... increase... a dough of increase, according to custom..." "That's a leaven dough I think," I suggested. "Once the... leaven dough has... matured, take a further fifteen units of... blessed flour. Sow... seed (the flour) with two units of cane... of sugar and... half a unit of salt. Take a... unit... twenty one, I think. Take twenty one eggs and make a... smooth... dough. Fold... the leaven dough into... this dough, the smooth dough. Split... divide the dough into two portions. Take... one portion and add... twelve units of... warm... of softened butter and... fold the dough, then... fold... fold in the other portion of dough. Wait for the dough to... increase... until... two doughs... to... wait for the dough to double in size, I think. Then... make loaves... form the dough into loaves. Make a fire... no, bake the loaves... bake the loaves until... complete... until they're done." I was thinking, trying to follow the recipe and its unfamiliar quantities. "Sounds like some kind of brioche recipe," I said. That was not really what I'd expected from the scroll at all, particularly considering its origins. "It goes on some," said Quixote, "but that's the end of the recipe." I stared at the scroll. It seemed to be asking a question, challenging me, baring its teeth in a psychic-primate hindbrain-mainline echo of barely grasped purpose as I contemplated it. It sat inert. I started to laugh. I laughed like a madman. I laughed until my head came off. My torso sat balanced, still and frozen in the bent posture of convulsive mirth we'd held the moment before parting company. But not dead, it would have fallen over. My head rocked from side to side a little on the uneven cave floor before reaching equilibrium. I looked up at my camel from a strange angle. "Um..." I said, not laughing any more. I couldn't see the scroll from my position but I felt it, hot-cold, just beside my cheek but not touching it. It burned. "Oh, OKAY THEN!" I shouted and, suddenly off-balance, I put my hands out just in time to break my fall. I got to my feet too fast and, ignoring the pain in my forehead and the bleached vision of almost-fainting, I took Quixote's reins and led him out of the cave, saying, "Come on my friend, let's go see how that bird's getting on." Recovering a little of my energy in manic enthusiasm I ran up the hillside, Quixote trotting behind, my loyal sidekick. I didn't know quite what I'd be facing once I got to the top, but I didn't care, I was caught up in this now and there was only one way forward. I could hear staccato machinegun fire and the rapid thud of chopper blades, as we approached the summit I noticed smoke rising from the other side of the peak, thick oily-black smoke. I kept hiking up, panting now. We reached the eagle's lair at the summit and I still couldn't see what had happened so I crept cautiously towards the far slope, taking what cover I could behind rocks and boulders. Finally I saw. The eagle was standing awkwardly, bloody and battered, wings partly unfurled like a ragged cloak. It was standing atop the still-smoking wreckage of a military helicopter which it had evidently vanquished, but at a terrible cost. I don't think it could fly any more, and a second helicopter that had been hovering warily some distance off now came in closer and opened fire. I watched as a stream of bullets ripped through the noble creature's coppery plumage as it stood there, helpless, unable to move or defend itself. It stood for a long time in the face of this onslaught until it seemed that its body would surely disintegrate long before the creature conceded it was dead. "YOU... MUST NOT... LET THEM..." it said to me, its voice weak and strained, yet still just as uncomfortable to receive in my mind. "YOU MUST... MAKE THE..." "YOU... MUST..." The giant eagle fell stiffly to the ground, standing fast even in death. Its last words to me should have been poignant but I felt nothing. It probably hadn't even existed yesterday. Still, I had to admire the remarkable way it had clung on until the very end, tenaciously carrying out its purpose and, well, the sheer wonder of the thing, that it should have lived and breathed and flown and fought at all, however briefly and for whatever reason. The soldiers in the helicopter, they were also pawns in a way and perhaps, if they hadn't been likely to start firing on me any minute now, I might have pitied them too. As it was, I hid behind my boulder and froze, suddenly terrified, my earlier blasé confidence all evaporated. The helicopter's matt-beige, camouflage-patterned exterior bore no identifying markings but I recognised the design, had seen similar ones flying under American insignia. I also knew that the boulder, solid as it was, couldn't hide me from their sensors... sure enough the hovering chopper turned slowly on the spot to face me. I realised I was holding my breath. I noticed an infinity of acute details around me... the tiny blooms of orange lichen on the rocks, the stalks of hardy desert grass blowing in the fierce breeze, each stalk drifting in and out of not-quite-parallel with its neighbours, so crisply, richly formed... such a long moment... grains of sandy dust blowing across the face of rock, the colours and contours... majestic clouds of jet-black ink-burst stretching up and across the sky... the spinning blades of the chopper, an elliptical whirl, slowly angling forward... its protruding gun-barrels, like a bundle of spears tucked under each arm... exhale... a new sound, a dissonance in the thrum of spinning wings, an interference pattern in the sound... the pilot of the helicopter, faceless in helmet and earphones, visor down, the ant at the helm... new frequencies and harmonics, behind me, over my right shoulder, the electric drill sound of turbine engines, a change in the breeze. I looked round and suddenly the moment was over. A second helicopter emerged from behind and below me, barely twenty metres away. Nowhere left to run, I curled up in a ball as it loosed a volley of rockets which hissed through the air with a sound like skates on ice. Barely a second later there was an explosion so loud that I did not hear it, instantly deafened, and I was buffeted by a pressure wave that would have knocked me off my feet had I not been cowering on the ground. I lay very still. Time is a voice that goes on speaking whether you are listening to it or not. After a while I tuned in and found that I was still alive, could still move, I got shakily to my feet and blinked the dust out of my eyes, the empty, numb sound of deaf silence filling my ears. The air felt very hot and dry, yet somehow thick and liquid too. I peered with difficulty through the rippling waves of hot, liquid air, stumbling on my feet as I listed unsteadily from side to side, trying to make out the shapes in front of me. The second helicopter had landed, having... what? Destroyed the first? A figure was coming towards me, removing its helmet... the second pilot. My balance was all out of whack and I looked up to see Uri's concerned face at the same moment as the unstable ground seemed to slip from under my legs. He caught me and stood me up. I could see he was speaking but I couldn't hear the words and I gestured to my ears. I don't know if he understood, but he helped me as we walked over to the helicopter. I wondered where he'd got it from, I certainly wasn't paying him enough for that kind of hardware. I'd never paid him anything come to think of it, nor had we ever spoken about payment. In fact when it came down to it, all I'd ever really asked of him was to hitch a ride to the border. We were all playing our parts in this endeavour it seemed. As we swam through the thick, heavy air the memory of a green-eyed girl flitted across my mind and I thought how sometimes it's as if the past is just a dream. Where is she now? Where am I now? Who am I now? I am now. From now into the future, here I am. I coughed. It was strange to cough but not to hear the sound. Uri helped me into the chopper, into a leather seat surrounded by a fetishistic array of dials and switches, a cubist vision of calibration and measurement. He handed me a helmet, climbed into the seat in front of me and closed the cockpit door. For a while there were no thoughts in my head, I felt a kind of deadness. Then a voice cut through so clearly, so immediately, that I thought perhaps I was receiving it directly in my mind as I had with the eagle. But no, it was Uri, speaking over the headphones in the helmet, and my deafness had only been temporary after all. "Where to now, my friend?" he asked. I hesitated. "Can you hear me? ...Wait, I'll turn it up." There was a slight crackle then Uri's voice came through unpleasantly loud, "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?" "Yes I can hear you!" He chuckled and turned the volume down again. "I thought maybe you had gone deaf." "Only for a while." "Where shall we go, my friend?" "I... does this machine have a... rope or a... one of those winch things?" I could see the egg through the cockpit window, marbled blue in shades of sky, about the size of a family car. "A rope?" asked Uri. "We need to carry that egg," I replied. Uri said nothing but opened the cockpit door again, clambered out and disappeared from sight underneath the helicopter. After a few minutes he came up and motioned for me to get out too. "We have a winch and rope," he said, "but the hard part will be lifting the egg with it." I wondered how much the egg might weigh. I had no idea, no way to guess. I had no idea how I was going to accomplish any of the things that I knew I would need to do, but still... onward into the future. "We need to get some support under the egg," said Uri. I got out of the helicopter and went over by the egg, feeling less deaf and more steady on my feet as time passed. Quixote came over beside me. "Any ideas?" I asked him. He looked back at me enigmatically, as any camel might do when faced with an engineering problem. "If we moved some of these rocks it could roll maybe?" said Uri. "Yeah," I said, "have we got anything...?" Uri stared at the egg, so did I, attempting to think laterally. "Do you have a blanket?" he asked "Yeah. It... I don't think it's big enough." We really needed a big tarpaulin or something, I was thinking. A big sheet of canvas. A tent would have done the trick. "I..." Just then the ground moved beneath my feet, only a little, so that I thought perhaps my balance was playing up again. Nothing seemed stable any more. But there had been a low rumble with the motion. I looked at Uri and I could see he'd noticed it too. "The earth, she is restless," he said. I had an idea. "Do we have any parachutes in there?" I asked, indicating the helicopter. "Yes, I... ah yes, of course!" The restless earth twitched again. Uri went back to the chopper and returned with a small square backpack, whilst I started dismantling one side of the eagle's nest. The egg was heavy and didn't roll as easily as I had hoped, the ground being quite uneven, but we eventually manouevred it onto the unfurled parachute. As Uri hooked our makeshift sling up to the helicopter's winch cable I went over to Quixote and rummaged through his saddle bags. I found a lot of things I didn't remember packing and couldn't account for: a single oven glove, a bottle of tequila, a hand-held pinball game (broken), a shrink-wrapped packet of black olives, a game of Scrabble (Farsi edition), a sheet of Christmas-patterned wrapping paper, a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, an umbrella. I also found what I was looking for - my little pouch of mysterious flour - and at the very bottom one saddle bag I found a small red chili pepper. I couldn't really account for it any more than I could the oven glove or the wrapping paper, but I held it in my hand and regarded it carefully. It seemed important, familiar. There was something about it, a sense of exquisite perfection in its simple form. I put the pepper in my pocket along with the pouch of flour and said a brief goodbye to Quixote, who was preoccupied munching the tough leaves of a small sub-alpine shrub, then joined Uri in the chopper. He ascended gently until the egg too was off the ground and swinging pendulously below us. "Where to, my friend?" he asked. It seemed like people were always asking me that these days. "Uh..." I was stumped, as I realised I had no idea how to get where I wanted to go. I looked about but the dark clouds hid the land below, hid everything except the hillside whilst we were still close to it, and soon that too would disappear into the mists. "Just fly..." "Which way?" "Into the future." "The future? Like time machine?" "Wherever the wind may blow." Uri was silent in my headphones for a few moments and all I heard was the muffled, rhythmic beating of the chopper blades. "Ok, my friend," he said at last and tipped the vehicle's nose forward. We flew ahead, into the storm. I could hear the steel winch cable squeaking and groaning as we were buffeted about in the choppy air currents, and I hoped the egg was safe down below. Well, mostly I did. I realised a small part of me hoped instead that it would fall and break uselessly on the rocks below. Perhaps then I could go home. Uri said nothing more as we flew, neither questioning nor complaining, but I knew it was probably harder than he would ever let on to keep us aloft in these conditions, and me unable to provide useful guidance. The whine of the turbine engines rose and fell, rose and fell, as if constantly reflecting the pitch of their mechanical anxiety. I was startled to see a flash of lightning crack then rumble nearby to the left of us... the helicopter suddenly seemed very small, a little boat being tossed about by turbulent seas. "The wind, she blows..." said Uri. "I'm sorry, my friend," I replied, not knowing what else to say. To my surprise he laughed, "Ha! This is adventure, no?" "Oh yes! I've never done anything like this before..." "Ha! There is special hell for you and me, no? Ha-ha!" "You could be right..." "Ha-ha! Yes, but I think you know we should go there another time. Not for long time!" "That's fine with me." "Yes, I think wind has blown us far enough, no? Safer below the clouds, no?" "Here is as good as anywhere..." As soon as I could see the ground it seemed very close, much closer than it really was, although we were certainly flying fairly low. I looked around, half expecting to see the Agarak Flour & Yeast Co. directly below us. It wasn't. There was a road just to our right though, running parallel to us. I asked Uri to turn us around and sure enough, a way down the road, through the heavy rain I could just make out the shapes of a factory. It had to be. "Follow the yellow brick road!" I said to Uri. I could feel a throbbing in my knuckles and in my knees and found myself jiggling my legs and tapping rhythms with my hands, a kind of nervous excitement in the joints. The chopper nosed ahead, still rocked by strong gusts of wind, engines flexing and straining. "Those buildings?" Uri asked. "Yes, I think so." "And then?" "Haha yes... and then!" I replied meaninglessly, overcome with feverish undirected glee. We approached closer until I could make out the Majestic Loaf logo on the side of the largest building. "Can you hover over the top of that main building?" I asked Uri. "Sure," he replied a little warily, manouevring the chopper into place. "Great," I said, "now drop the egg." "Drop the egg?" "Drop the egg!" "I can't land here..." "No, no, just drop the... oh." It occurred to me then that we hadn't any means by which to drop the egg, we would have to land and unhitch it. That wouldn't do, I thought and suddenly, with a recklessness that astounded me even as I was doing it, I undid my safety harness, opened the cockpit door and stepped out onto the runner. "What are you doing?!" asked a worried Uri. "Raise her up!" I yelled. "What? You're crazy!" "Go higher! More altitude!" "Okay..." "Have you got a knife?" "What?" "A knife!" Uri handed me a purposeful-looking military-style knife and I heard his voice over the radio crackle something about going to hell, but I couldn't make it out. I clambered down until I was hanging from the runner, legs dangling just above the egg, and began hacking at the parachute cords. I stepped down onto the egg so that I could reach the cords on the far side. Down below the earth quivered and shivered, shook and broke apart... torrential rain poured into its wounds... lightning struck, a giant sumo clap thundering across the desert plain... the factory collapsed, fragmented and spilled its treasure across the heaving ground... giant golden nuggets, hills of white, dissolving, congealing in the rain and flood as I watched... another flash-boom of lightning... a deep gash opened up under the remains of the factory, swallowed them into its gaping maw and chewed them up... another convulsion shook them out as the earth folded... kneaded... I could see steam venting from some of the cracks, smell sulphur in the air... I cut through another cord and suddenly I was falling, screaming, barely comprehending the foolish mistake (mistake?) which had sent me plummeting... I clutched the little chili in one pocket and the pouch of special flour in the other, the giant blue egg beneath my feet... I knew that it was just the beginning. back © All work herein copyright the stated authors.

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