Created by Khaled Diab

Haflatoun must abandon Kahka’s oasis of freedom where he has spent weeks reclining against a palm tree feasting on an intoxicating diet of dates, democracy and mangoes. His oracle gives him 24 hours to avert disaster but first he has a date with destiny – and a Brazilian alchemist.

Haflata	Talking drivel
Aflatoun	Plato
Haflatoun	Drivelling Plato

Part II – Destiny is a universal conspiracy

Part III – Doing Goha’s donkey work

Time to zero hour: 24 hours

Place: Under a date tree, Freedom and Democracy Area, Siwa

The late afternoon sun is giving me a gentle face massage through the branches of the palm and olive trees while I lie snoozing, idly chewing on the odd ripened date that falls into my mouth. Not far away is my mango bath, a portable tub I transport around the oasis to quench my thirst for that juicy fruit. A couple of hours ago, I sat in it, bare-bodied, undressing a ripe mango which sprayed me with its thick, viscous juice every time I pierced its skin. Afterwards, a swim in the salty birka soon had the mango off my skin.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité… How great it is to savour those haughty ideals in the Freedom and Democracy Area of my respected friend Kahka (my existential baker and failed presidential candidate) who decided to move our colony, at the last minute, to the outskirts of Siwa, rather than Fayuum, to escape prying eyes. I am concerned at her decision to deliver on her election pledge to step down as leader of our little community and to cancel its fledgling government, I fear that we are heading too much towards the kind of freedom afforded by anarchy.

My watch starts bleeping loudly causing the stone of the date I am chewing to lodge in my throat. ‘Urgent mission! Urgent mission!’ I read on the display. Still chocking, I, nevertheless, begin to wonder what the commotion is all about. “I’ll always remember this date,” I decide as I finally manage to spit out the stone.

Time to zero hour: 23.18 hours

Place: Haflatoun’s lodge

I stroll back to my lodge which contains all the essentials needed by a modern-day philosopher prince and general-purpose pandit. Sirens pierce the tranquillity normally enveloping my new abode. The donkeys are braying more urgently than usual and Otter, my near-blind Siamese cat, is in a tizz outside the front door, and Double-Click, his guide mouse, is trying desperately to calm him down. With not a moment to spare, I rush to the bathroom where my toilet-side communications hub is a hive of activity and flushing lights.

I switch off the alarm, pop a laxative, roll up my galabiya and sit down on the toilet ready to let rip. You may ask yourself why it is I have decided to take this pitstop at such a critical and inconvenient moment. Aristotle’s assertion that our hearts were the centres of our intelligence has long ago been disproved. But what modern-day scientists refuse to acknowledge is that the brain, powerful storage device and information processor that it is, is not actually home to our intellect. As I’ve shown by example for many years, our intelligence – the intellectual, not the CIA/MI5 variety – actually rests in our guts and I had to clear my mind for the task ahead.

There is also a more practical reason: fingerprint technology is easy to fool and the IT experts of intelligence services and organised crime rings are hard at work cracking the secrets of retinal scans. However, as the rest of the world ogles the eye, I have been focusing my attentions further down, in the lumbar regions, and I have discovered that, in the authentication stakes, faeces are better than faces.

Visual and olfactory sensors examine my deposit and, once I have been positively IDed, an in-toilet screen comes down. Umm Uref’s face appears on the display. Concern is knotted all over her oracular brow.

“No time for salam, no time for kalam,” the oracle utters, her wise and wisened voice full of uncharacteristic urgency. “Trouble is at the door. Hurry, Haflatoun, we have only an hour or 24,” she continues cryptically.

What could be the matter?

“Your system has had a breach. We are now limited to speech. Hurry, I beseech.”

A breach? Impossible! My system is airtight, as the noxious fumes rising around me confirm.

Part II – Destiny is a universal conspiracy

_______________