Alchemists and oracles –
Doing Goha’s donkey work
Created by Khaled Diab
|
Haflata |
Talking drivel |
|
Aflatoun |
Plato |
|
Haflatoun |
Drivelling Plato |
Part I
– Alchemists and oracles
Part II –
Destiny is a universal conspiracy
Time to zero hour: 18.45 hours
Place: Siwan roads
The brown-furred donkey suddenly decides to
take a detour. As we approach the ruins of Shali, we pass some villagers. “Look
at that big, heavy brute sitting on that poor, little donkeys back. Does he
want to crush him?” I hear one of them declare. Feeling guilty, I dismount and
the donkey leads me as I hold on to his reins.
We pass another set of villagers on the hill
leading up to the old town. “What is the world coming to?” one exclaims. “How
can a man let a donkey lead him?”
“The one behind must be the donkey then,”
another suggests to peels of laughter. Irritated, I run ahead and tug the
donkey along, but when, amongst the ruins, I try to lead him in a certain
direction, he refuses to budge.
Taking back the reins, he walks solemnly amid
the whitish semi-dissolved houses in the abandoned Berber town where a drop of
water burns the salt mixed with rock and plastered with clay like nitric acid.
It is as if he is hoping to find some squatter or a lost companion. “Donkeys
get very lonely alone. They need company,” Luna once told me. I must be a
donkey, Luna, and you… what are you?
Outside one particular abode, the donkey looks
inside with melancholy streaming out of his sad eyes. No amount of tsk-tsking
and rocking will make him budge until he is good and ready. Then, he allows me
to lead him away. On the way down the hill, we pass yet another group of
villagers: “How stupid can you get?” criticises a know-it-all. “A man and a
donkey both walking unburdened.”
“I don’t know if you think I’m Goha or
something, but there’s no way I’m going to carry the donkey on my back,” I tell
the group.
“Ya Allah!” the village big mouth remarks
before anyone can stop him. “I thought you said that if we split up we’ll be
able to get that mad man from
Dozens of disappointed people then appear from
the overgrowth along the roadside and disperse in various directions. “I paid
good money for that position,” one woman in an all-consuming veil says
as she walks past with her (presumably) female companion.
But, then another detour, to the Gabal el-Mouta
(
“Haflatoun, you’re late, and fate does not
wait,” she chastises in wild-haired blindness as I approach.
“But if destiny were a mother, I would be her
son,” I console.
“But destiny already has a child or three and
she does not resemble ye.”
“Are you going to tell me my mission, Umm Uref,
or should I go back to my mango bath?” I challenge.
“Oh, very well, I shall tell!” Umm Uref says,
somehow finding me with her blind eyes, her snakeish strands of dreadlocked
hair seeking me out, wanting to inject me with their poison for my venomous
words. The wise old lady opens her sack but, instead of her regular incense
burner and divining balls, she retrieves a silvery laptop on which a ghostly
white apple lights up with a wistful, ethereal glow.
“When did you go high tech, Umm Uref?” I ask in
disbelief.
“Well, Bill Gates has put the people who
produce my oracle operating system out of business,” she complains, dropping
the verse, and her snakelocks hiss.
“And that apple, Umm Uref,” I point, brimming
with excitement, “does it signify the tree of knowledge?”
“No, it is Job’s apple.”
“I didn’t know Job had an apple.” I scratch my
head. “He suffered the loss of his wealth and his health – he even had to
scrape the sores with the pieces of a broken pot. But I don’t remember any
fruit in any of the versions of the story.” I pull out my palm-held e-Faith and
the Digital Philosopher, and both draw a blank. “Did Satan try to get him to
eat from the tree of knowledge to test him even further?”
“Be done with your blathering rant. This Job is
of Mac and IPod fame. Stop being so lame. Time is scant.”
Dragging on her peace pipe, Umm Uref turns her
laptop screen towards me. On it is the still figure of a young European woman
who appears to be so intellectually and physically flawless that she must have
walked off the pages of an improbable adventure novel. “Allo ’Aflatoun, my name
is Victoria Vectra and I am a physicist at CERN. We are very concerned that
someone is trying to sabotage our new particle accelerator,” she says flicking
back her jet-black hair which contains the mysterious dark energy that
inexplicably pulls men’s gazes towards her.
“We have intercepted some secret communications
that suggest a spectacular conspiracy is afoot involving our Large Hadron
Collider, where we plan to recreate the conditions immediately after the Big
Bang,” she adds calmly, her misty, nebulous grey eyes exuding an absolute-zero
coolness.
“That’s a long time ago. Can’t we let bygones
be bygones?” I ask innocently.
“Of course, not,” she almost snaps, betraying
her cool. “There are so many things about the universe we don’t understand and
this is the only way to do it. Many people, including my grandfather, dedicated
their entire lives to make this day possible. We cannot h-allow anyone to ruin
it.”
Checking her watch, “Sometime within the next
18 hours, some cult plan a spectacular and audacious act linked to the LHC. But
we don’t know what it is, and the accelerator is like a labyrinth with over 27
km of circular tunnels. That’s why we need your help.”
“Then we haven’t got a moment to lose. But how
will we ever get there in time?” I ask.
“Don’t worry,” she smiles confidently. “We have
the prototype of the world’s most expensive plane on hand. The only prototype
of the abandoned NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33 space plane project.”
In Angels and muons
(or is that Angels and Demons), Haflatoun’s mission will be to help
the beautiful and brilliant Victoria Vectra to scupper a plot that threatens to
shatter her cryogenically frozen grandfather’s dream.
_______________
More
Haflatoun
New Series
The Oddventures of Haflatoun
Episode IV – A candle in the political wind
Episode III – Haflatoun needs your vote
Episode II – Major Saga in Guantanamo
Episode I – An Olympic flare
Old Series
Episode IX – A clean getaway or depleted Gs
Episode VIII – Clearing the mists
Episode VII – 273 hostages in search of a journalist
Episode VI – Miscarriage in the air
Episode V – PAPA is watching
Episode IV – When Titans walked the Earth
Episode III – Deserting ship
Episode II – Urban guerrilla – Cat and mouse
Episode I – The dawn of Haflatoun
ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.