“Every country in the world?” the Dutchman asked. He was half amused and half disbelieving. “How many is that?” Joshua shrugged. “Depends how you count. The U.N. recognizes a hundred-ninety-something, but there are another ten or so pseudo-states. Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria. Places like that.” “Transnistria? I have no idea where that is.” The Dutchman grabbed for his pack of cigarettes on the table. “Do you mind?” “No. Go for it.” Joshua said, though, of course, he minded. But the Dutchman was the only company he had had in a past couple days and he hadn't seen any other Westerners in Agadir. Joshua certainly wasn’t about to be difficult. Plus, everyone else was a chimney in this country, he told himself. What’s a little more smoke at this point? Josh had hopped a bus west to windy Essaouira with its fortress walls, and then followed the coast down to Agadir, passing by groves and groves of trees with goats them. Yes, goats. His guidebook had said they eat the tree nuts, crap them out half-digested and then the nuts are made into some sort of expensive cosmetic oil. Joshua thought that immensely disappointing for some reason. The trees, the goats and their shepherds had been so puzzling and queerly beautiful. Almost mystical really. And yet the end is so…pedestrian, Joshua had thought. Was that the right word? Agadir was a beach town and Joshua did love the beach. He had always found gazing out at the horizon immensely calming. Not to mention, he could catch some rays and perhaps clear up his P spots. The ones on his arm were pink today. Not bad. I must be relaxed. And his scalp didn’t itch too much. It must be the sweat moisturizing it, Josh thought. He had actually read that the goat nut oil was supposed to help, but it was far too expensive. The city turned out not to really be for Westerners. It was instead Saudis who littered the seaside, mostly fully clothed. Some men were bold enough to strip down to shorts, revealing their hairy chest and equally hairy backs. A few women swam in track suits, heads covered by their hijabs. It looked incredibly impractical — like swimming with weights on. One or two women even took dips cloaked in black abayas, their faces hidden by niqab. Salt stains were left rippled on them as they left the water. Joshua had laid out for a bit earlier, but didn’t feel very comfortable around so many piously clothed, so he had cut his tanning session short. Plus, Agadir still proved windy, leaving him covered in sand with every gust, though it was not anywhere close to as bad as Essaouira. In the end, he opted for walking the city the rest of the day. “Transnistria broke away from Moldova in the nineties.” Joshua told the Dutchman. “They actually have their own money, elect their own president, have their own army. You even have to go through a border crossing when you enter.” “Moldova?” the Dutchman puzzled. Joris. His name was Joris, Joshua remembered. He was horrible with names. That’s right. It sounded like ‘your ass.’ That wasn’t really a fair mnemonic device. Joshua thought Joris was a perfectly fine human being. His name just didn’t work well in English. “Moldova,” Josh repeated. “You know, in eastern Europe. Was part of the Soviet Union.” “Oh, Moldavië. Of course. Yes, I know it. So, tell me, what’s in this Transnistria to see?” “Not much, I suppose. It’s still communist, so I think there’s a bunch of statues of Lenin. Maybe some old tanks. Ugly Soviet buildings. Things like that.” “But you want to visit there?” Joshua grinned. “Well, yeah, that’s the goal. To see every country before I die. And to have adventures.” The Dutchman finally lit his cigarette and then set his lighter down on top of the pack in the center of the table. He nodded his head towards something behind Joshua. Josh turned and saw her. It was a woman. A stunning woman, in fact, around his age. She walked - no, glided - along the boardwalk in a white abaya embroidered with gold thread along the collar and sleeves. Jewels seemed to sparkle on her slim body like a starry night as thin fabric trailed her like the proud banner of a lost sultanate. She kept her eyes, rich with mascara, staring at to the ground as she seemed to float by. But, then, for a brief moment, a very brief moment, they flicked over to Joshua. Her gaze was piercing. And Joshua found himself someplace else. He imagined for a moment he was riding a steed across endless, endless dunes of gold, baking beneath a white sun. An oasis appeared in the distance, complete with palm trees, impossibly green and impossibly lush against the barren sands. And then the palace was there, with a dozen bulbed domes and countless Arabian arches ornately carved. Beneath a fig tree, she stood. Fatima was waiting for him. Fatima, yes, that must be her name. Joshua, for a moment, thought of the Indian. He blinked long and hard to push away the thought and turned back to the Dutchman. “So, what exactly defines a country?” Joris asked. Joshua had had this conversation before, though he didn’t mind repeating it, especially with a European. They seemed to understand the quest better. Americans would usually ask “why?” and furrow their brows in confusion. Joshua supposed it was because they thought the world was as dangerous as their news claimed. Or perhaps the thought had just never occurred to them to see the world. Or perhaps they took the quest as a challenge to their own life goals or a challenge to their lack of them. Europeans were different. They always acted like Josh’s desire to visit every country in the world was quite normal and logical. They were amused, even encouraged by it. But, both Americans and Europeans and everyone really, no matter where they were from, were always curious about what made a nation a nation. “That’s a tough one to answer.” Joshua explained. “One could say the U.N., but after spending time in Taiwan and the West Bank, I could never morally use that definition. The Catalans and Basques of Spain would say that countries should be defined by language and culture, but as an American, I find that idea ridiculous. You can’t use currency because some countries share money or don’t have their own. Honestly, the best definition may be if a country has a standing army.” Joris raised an eyebrow. “So, every resistance group is country?” “No definition is perfect.” Josh conceded. “In the end, I’m essentially using the U.N. list, plus a bunch of others. Transnistria, Taiwan, Northern Cyprus.” Josh counted on his fingers. “Palestine, Western Sahara, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh.” “You made those last few up, didn’t you?" Joris said, chuckling. "Those are just random sounds.” The waiter came around for their orders. Joris asked for a coffee and Josh a kiwi-lime juice. The cafe had no beer and no argilla even, but it was outside and offered a cool breeze and a good spot to sit and watch the tourists as they strolled by on the boardwalk. Arabs loved to people-watch as well and so the cafe was packed with Saudi tourists enjoying fruity drinks, spying on each other. “So why are you here?” Joshua asked. “I am trying to make a decision on something in my life.” Joris replied. That was a statement of maximum ambiguity, Joshua mused. “New job?” Josh asked. “New kid.” the Dutchman corrected. “Maybe. I have to decide if I want to be a father.” “You’re thinking about having a baby?” “No, my girlfriend is. Well, she's my sort-of girlfriend. She'e the one who wants the kid. And I have to decide whether I want to be part of that. I needed time by myself, away from my life in Rotterdam, to put it all in perspective.” “How old is she?” “Forty.” “Ah, bio clock.” “What’s that?” “Biological clock. You know, she’s at the age where she has to have one now before she can’t.” “Well, she actually already has one from before she met me. But, that’s fine. She wants another and I have to decide if I want to pay for that burden. My job pays enough for me to live , but I’m not so sure about another person.” “Do you want to have children?” “No, not really.” “Do you want to be with her?” “We’ve been together for five years, but we have our problems. We're not exactly yin and yang. We’ve broken up a few times. She’s kind of crazy and can’t really hold down a job. She’s been diagnosed as bipolar.” “I see.” Joshua didn’t actually understand. His parents, with all of their faults, really liked each other, got along swimmingly and had both wanted children. And all those T.V. shows and movies had always told him that you wait until you find “the one.” You wait for that incredible person who will bowl you over and they will be just perfect for you and you'll just know it's right. How could there ever be a disagreement that big between people that are meant for each other? A decision like whether or not to have a child should be a no-brainer, shouldn’t it? Wouldn’t someone want to combine themselves with the person they love most to form a new body of vicarious opportunities? Then again, the one? That’s ridiculous. Why would the universe, in all of its complexity care about the romantic well-being of humans? Why would a higher-power or fate itself care about romance while dolling out bone cancer to children? It was laughable. Even the major religions, with all of their idiocy, didn’t think their gods concerned themselves with that. No, people are imperfect, horribly selfish and have annoying idiosyncrasies. And, frankly, most people seem to be batshit insane. The idea that any two people can spend years together let alone their whole life is astounding. Don’t they get bored of each other? Joshua certainly had of his past relationships. Or they had of him. And that had been only after only a couple months. Joshua decided he very much liked Joris. The Dutchman was real and a honest. He’d never had anyone paint his life to him so modestly, flaws and all. Most people stare you in the face and tell you their life is great and they are happy. Life had given Joris lemons and he was calling them lemons. It did strike Josh as odd that the Dutchman had really only said bad things about his girlfriend. He supposed an ‘I love her’ was tacit. It had to be, didn’t it? Or is that the movies invading ideas again? The drinks had arrived and Joshua took a deep swig of his juice. The Arabs knew how to make juice, he’d give them that. Or were they Berbers here? Joris put out his cigarette and sipped his coffee. “Have you decided yet?” Josh asked. “No,” Joris shrugged. “Not yet. I don’t know. It’s not a dream situation.” He looked out on the boardwalk, thoughtful. “Though it all has to be better that these people’s lives. Arranged marriages with cousins. Living a life under a sheet.” Joris suddenly looked quite sad. “Well, dreams are paradoxes anyway.” The Dutchman snapped out of it. “How’s that?” “Dreams. We know dreams are memories, things in the past, jumbled up. But we talk about them like they are the future. We dream of tomorrow, but its all based on ideas of the past. Some people even think dreams are prophetic — that they will come to pass. The more you think about the whole thing, the less sense it makes. Dreams are supposed to be liberating ideas, but for some dreams lock people in. People go and believe in foregone conclusions. The past as the future, affecting our choices in the present. Shit, Shakespeare wrote a whole play on it. Othello.” “Well, to be fair the future is often just a rehash of the past.” Joris said as he looked about the table for his lighter, moving glasses. “I don’t know.” Joshua waved his hand towards the covered Saudis on the boardwalk. “This all seems pretty different from anything in my past. I’ve never dreamed of this. Sitting by the beach with a Dutchman in Morocco surrounded by Saudis. Life can be pretty unexpected.” “Yeah, but honestly most people don’t dream of tomorrow or yesterday. They dream of what should be or what might have been.” Joris' passion rose a little. “Their dreams are regrets and what ifs. They dream of how they might have been a football star. Or they dream of the life they could have had, the girlfriend who got away, the dad they never made peace with. That shit. They invent this other world in their head and they live there.” That silenced Joshua. It occurred to him that any of those hypotheticals could be Joris’ life in actually. Probably not the football part, but possibly some of the other stuff. Josh thought it best to change the subject. “Well, you know what I dream of?" Joshua asked. "I mean literally. At night, what I dream of.” The Dutchman paused, intrigued. “What?” “An Indian.” The Dutchman studied Joshua, sipped his coffee and then smirked. “Feather or dot?” “Neither.” * * * She had dreamed of the ghost again. Pale. Funny looking. Pedantic. He certainly wasn’t like in the stories. They were supposed be proud builders and poets, warrior and musicians. Confident and inspired. Her ghost was whiney, directionless and completely unsure of himself. Not that she knew what she was doing with her life, but she was just a Cree, not a dead man. The dream faded quickly and soon she could barely recall what it was about. She remembered the dream was here in Morocco, but at the same time not Morocco. Morocco wasn’t filled with Muslims after all. Kee arose from her hostel bed and padded over the floor of cold tiles to the sink. Her mouth oddly tasted of kiwi. Did I drink a vodka-kiwi juice last night? She couldn’t remember. She turned on the sink, put her head under the faucet and rinsed her mouth out, taking care not to swallow any of the water. She didn't want to get sick. She needed to pee badly and probably more, but the room only had a sink. Annoyingly, the toilet was down the hall. That meant she would have to awkwardly find her money belt. Kee couldn’t exactly leave it in the room with him. Her life was in there. The irony that she could sleep with a man, but not trust him with her things was not lost on her. The Incan surfer snored softly as his muscled back rose and fell. His long hair, lightened by months in the sun, covered most of his face. The rest of him was completely naked save for a tangle of sheets starting at his knees. And somewhere in those sheets was her shorts. And in those shorts was her money belt. Okay, this won’t be so awkward, she thought. If he wakes up, she will just claim she’s looking for her shorts. Yes, another pair was clearly strewn across the chair, but he would be too groggy to put that all together. Still, if he wakes up, that means she would have to talk to him. She walked over the bed slowly and silently, suddenly imagining herself a ninja. At the foot of the bed, she started her search. There was her bra…and one of her socks…and…damn, sure enough, he stirred. The surfer said something in Quechua before switching to High Cree. “What time is it?” “I’m just looking for my clothes.” Kee whispered. “Go back to sleep.” He rubbed his eyes, flipped over onto his back and sat up with no concern for his nakedness. Damn, that was quick, Kee thought. Who gets up that quickly? Back home, Kee would usually hit the snooze button two or three times. Even when traveling, it took a few minutes to shake the ghosts out of her head before she made any attempt at leaving a bed. “What are your plans today?” he said in his thick Incan accent. Last night she had found it sexy. Now it just sounded stupid and grating. The last thing she wanted was to spend the day with him. What was his name? Khuno? She fumbled through the sheets as she tried to come up with an excuse. She actually wanted to do nothing except lie on the beach and get over her hangover, but that answer would be too easy for him to say “me too” to. And then she’d be stuck having awkward conversation with him all day. There wasn’t much else to do in the town except surf, but obviously surfing is exactly what he would want to do. She couldn’t even surf that well, so he would then fall into the teacher role and that would just be horrible. “Uh,” Kee said as she still dug around haplessly. Then, it came to her. “I have catch a bus back in Tiznit and then head to this town called Tafroute.” Yes, she remembered seeing that in her guide book. “Tafroute? What’s there?” She found her shorts. “Blue stones,” she announced proudly with a grin. The grin was secretly for the shorts, not the stones. “What?” Khuno scratched his scalp beneath his mop of hair. “Really?” “Well, they’re painted.” she said as she dressed. As the shorts rose to her waist, the money belt touched against her belly made her feel whole again. “This Aztec artist went out into hills north of the town and painted these big boulders. They’re kind of a pain to get to. After the bus, you have rent a bicycle and ride out there.” “Huh, what’s the draw? I mean they are just painted rocks, right?” “It’s a spiritual pilgrimage,” Kee lied “Finding oneself. Finding God. You know, like Carthage or Mecca. I’ll probably never get to Mecca, so I figure Tafroute instead. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a vision. And without all that fasting.” Khuno looked thoroughly puzzled by what Kee had said as she made her way to the door. “I gotta pee,” Kee blurted somewhat playfully as she left the room. She scampered down the hall to the bathroom and found her relief there. She was quite pleased with herself over the creativity of her ruse. Hopefully, he would think her a New Age loon and be turned off. Not that her story needed to be elaborate, just believable enough for her to shake his company. A bit of Khuno’s life came back to her as she urinated. She remembered Khuno had wasted six months on the beaches here surfing and smoking hash. It’s not like he’s going anywhere. Still, Kee had no idea why she had made it all sound so important. They really were just painted rocks and she had absolutely no desire to waste a day going out to seeing them and a day coming back. As she sat on the toilet, she began to consider her real travel plans. Once she made it to Tiznit, she would likely catch a bus back to Essaouira and then Marrakesh. She had a sudden desire to see sand dunes for some reason. Yes, endless, endless sand dunes, roasting under a white sun. That would be beautiful. She had read there were tours where they take you out to the desert near the Morrocan-Berberian border and you ride camels out into the ocean of sand until sun sets. You camp out there and get a chance to feel the cool desert breeze. And before it gets too cold, the guides build a campfire and everyone sits around telling travel stories. Yes, she decided, that would be it. But Khuno, the surfer, had no need to know all of that. At the bar last night, the surfer had been iffy on her until she had told him of her quest. "A beer, a man and a mountain peak on every continent," she had explained for the millionth time. And like clockwork he had asked “even Antarctica and the Ghost Lands?” She had given a confident nod and just like that, she was irresistible. It’s not that men are too difficult to get to bed, but the thought of being immortalized in someone’s grand adventure made them putty in her hands. And like putty, boring within an hour. After the her trip to the bathroom, Kee felt reenergized. Her thoughts were still of the desert as she entered the room. Khuno was inside fully clothed reading the guidebook she had left on the night stand. “You know, Tafroute, seems pretty cool,” he said while turning a page. “Spiritual rocks — why not? You only live once.” Kee tried to come up with an excuse, but this time, nothing came. “We better get going,” said the surfer. “The bus leaves in a couple hours.” * * * Somewhere on the road to Tafroute, the bus driver had stopped to pray. And Joshua took the opportunity to empty his bladder. He rose, stretched his legs and exited the bus, leaving a napping Joris behind. A hot dusty breeze caressed Josh as he walked up the rocky hill. He checked a P spot on his wrist, noting that is was bit bigger today. Joshua sighed, unzipped his fly and began to water the shrub before him. He quite liked urinating outside. It always reminded him of the hummingbird. It had been at least a decade ago. Josh was hiking near Banff and took a break to relieve himself in a sunny clearing. And there it appeared, hovering near his penis as the stream of urine came forth. Its feathers were an almost metallic green that shone in the sunlight. Joshua was entranced by its beauty and time seemed to slow. Eventually, though, the stream sputtered out, and with that, the bird vanished. It must have smelled something in his urine, he had thought looking back, though it could have certainly been taken as a spirit animal by a hippie. Or perhaps by an Indian. They believed in spirit animals, didn’t they? Joshua wasn’t certain. Movies were filled with so many lies. Unlike the forests around Banff, the rocky hills of the Anti-Atlas seemed fairly barren of life. Joshua’s gaze left his shrub to find nothing but dirt, rocks and more shrubs about him. He soon found himself peering down the road to what looked like a shiny pool of water back the way they had come. A mirage, Joshua knew. Light refraction, not reflection, he remembered from grade school science class. Though, down the road, walking towards the bus there was also a man. That was odd. They were miles past Ait Baha. Where was he coming from? Then, again, Josh had seen this sort of thing all over the world. From the window of a bus or a shared taxi he would often see people walking in what looked to be the middle of nowhere. There must be some village off the road or a farm house. Or maybe that guy just really likes walking. Joshua had finished his business and returned to the road by the time the man had come upon them. “Alhamdulillah?” said the walking man with a grin. Praise be to God, Joshua remembered. It’s usually the first Arabic word that a foreigner learns. Josh supposed the man was referring to the joy of urination. “Alhamduliliah,” Josh replied. “American?” “Quite.” Josh had always heard stories about Americans lying and saying they were Canadians in order to get friendlier treatment, but in that he had never partook. People were generally very friendly to him wherever he was in the world. He chalked it up to the foreigner being generally seen as entertainment or a chance to practice English or an opportunity to sell something. Every once in while, he had gotten negative treatment, but those instances were few and far between. And when they did happen, they were usually from fellow Westerners angry about American foreign policy or the spread of American commercial culture. Some poorly thought out notion of imperialism was usually the complaint. However, Joshua had never come across an Arab that held being American against him. Or at least not to his face. Perhaps it was because they could hardly defend their own governments. Or perhaps it was as simple as them just being more friendly. In Josh’s opinion, Arabs were some of kindest and most forgiving people he had ever met. However, the walking man didn’t sound like an Arab. Certainly not Moroccan. Yes, he was olive-skinned with short curly hair dusted by sand, but something was off about his accent. Joshua had read a bit about accents, as it happened. He knew that humans can quickly extract information from them to determine who a person is. With only a few words, we can know their nation, their social standing and their education. At least on a general stereotypical level. It was a left-over relic from when we were tribes and needed to identify the outsider threat. And it was a more powerful cue than race even, leaving black Americans disadvantaged because people didn’t think they spoke “correctly.” Or at least that was the theory. “You’re not praying with your driver,” observed the man in perfect English, though clearly not in American English. His speech was not British or Australian or South African or any English that Joshua knew, so he searched for some other clues. The walking man wore dirty brown slacks and a short-sleeved plaid button-down. It certainly wasn’t atypical for Morocco, but still, he could be from anywhere. “I’m not a religious man,” Joshua replied. Josh had learned not say that to an Arab or a Berber, but Josh concluded this man wasn’t a local. In the Middle East, Josh had learned, a person was either a Christian or a Muslim. When Josh first arrived, he had revealed himself to be an atheist to a couple of locals and was met with a confused reaction by one and an angry reaction by the other. And so, for the rest of his trip when asked about his faith, he had simply said he was Christian,. This was usually then met with an attempt to convert him to Islam. He supposed that proselytizing was better that than anger, though. The man who had been walking tilted his head. “Don’t you want to go to paradise?” Is he joking with me or is he serious? “That seems a bit scary,” Joshua said. “Don’t you think?” “How so?” Joshua had no idea why he was talking religion with this mysterious man. It seemed so random, but such was life. There were hummingbirds and Indians. Why not debate the universe? Joshua was emboldened. “I was in an airport once, in Buenos Aires,” Josh began. All of Joshu’a most interesting memories began being somewhere else far away, but back in America he knew that speaking of them made him look like a braggart, so he would mostly leave his tales untold. Josh felt traveling was refreshing in that he could be a storyteller again. “A family of Hassidic Jews happened to pass me in the Terminal,” he continued. “The man strode well ahead of his his wife, which is something I heard they do. The wife meanwhile walked hand-in-hand with the children. Except they weren’t really children; they were full grown men with bushy pious beards. But still, they were children in a way. You see, the men were pin-heads. I forgot the proper medical word for it. Micro-something. It’s a condition where one’s brain doesn’t fully develop, leaving one both physically deformed and mentally retarded. These men's heads were too small and their noses too big, both them rather short and they waddled beside their mother instead of walking. I’m assuming the father married his cousin and that the family was inbred generations before that. I don’t know. Maybe I’m horribly stereotyping, but probably not. “Anyway, as I walked by, one of the men cried out ‘daddy!’ in the same high-pitched panicked way a toddler might if his father had walked too far ahead of him. It was years ago, but I can still recall the sound of it, the cry, like it was yesterday. It was haunting, really. “At the time, I felt ill and so I sat down in some plastic airport seats and, just like that, I started weeping. I suppose I was crying for a bunch of reason. Those two souls were the offspring of supposedly the most spiritually-minded of God’s chosen people. And I felt horrible for the pain and suffering that that family must endure. But what saddened me the most was the thought of what happens next? When the pinheads died, would they be like that for an eternity in the afterlife? Or would their god fix them and forever they would they know what their god did to them in life?” “Some would say God did not do that to them,” the walking man offered. “It was the parents’ mistake.” “That may make it worse.” Josh’s voice became higher and impassioned. “For those poor men to learn that the people they loved most in the world did that to them? For an eternity they must live with the parents who made them freaks. Or they at least have to live with the memory of those parents. God, I read about a girl who was imprisoned and raped by her father in basement for years. Does she have to remember that forever?” Joshua paused. “No, the only thing scarier than death is eternal life.” That made the walking man smile. “Some say turtles have eternal life,” said the man coolly. “Lobsters, hydras, clams. Their lives don’t seem so bad and their parents made them even stupider than these pinheads.” Josh didn’t expect that. He wasn’t really sure what point the man was making. It was just perplexing. Still, hummingbirds and Indians. “Turtles die,” Joshua said. “I thought they just didn’t age.” “That’s right,” the walking man looked over to the bus driver who had long finished praying and was now finishing a cigarette. It was time to go. “But it must be nice to not have the march of time’s hot breath on the back of the neck. Turtles feel no need to pray or weep in airports. Maybe if we are very, very lucky, we will return to this earth as turtles. They simply swim and enjoy their lives.” Joshua could see the driver boarding the bus, so he walked towards the door. “And then get eaten by sharks,” he called back playfully. “And then get eaten by shark,” the walking man affirmed. Though, not so playfully. * * * “You know what the problem is with you Cree?” asked Khuno. “You think you own the world.” Kee rolled her eyes as she untangled the bicycle chain. She had had this conversation a million times. “We’re not the ones who colonized half the world,” she shot back. “Your country did that.” Talking like this made her feel like a dark-neck. She loathed everything about those fucking conservatives back home waving their flags with their oversized “proud to be Cree” t-shirts that barely covered their obesity. She promised herself she wouldn’t tell the Incan that the Cree saved their asses in the wars. “They would all be speaking Charruan without us!” one of those knuckle-draggers would say. There was some truth in that, no doubt, but it was still massively simplistic and took credit for the actions of different generation. Damn this chain. The man who rented them the bicycles back in Tafroute had given them a repair kit. Kee had though that odd at the time, but now she understood. The bicycles were shit and this was the third time her chain had come off. It would be a quick fix. Khuno’s flat tire earlier had been much more time-consuming. She had no idea bicycle tires even had inner tubes. When Khuno had pulled his tire apart, it took her back. Her grandfather had had a home on Lake Michigan and the family would go every summer. She and her sister would pull giant black inner tubes from that old shed and race down the wooden steps to the lake. On calm days they would lounge lazily in them until they became blisteringly hot from the sun. Then, they would flip them to the cool wet side and see how long it took for the tubes to get unbearable again. On rough days, it was different. The two girls would share a single tube and brave the crashing waves like two sailors in a dinghy, trapped in a sudden storm. She had never really thought about the fact that those “inner tubes” were the inner tubes of large truck tire until now. Cars don’t have them, but trucks and bicycles do apparently. It made her feel stupid. Her whole life she had been using the term “inner tube” and never thought about the meaning. Little kids would ride colorful ones behind speedboats and down snow hills that were certainly never meant for truck tires. She had called those inner tubes as well. Did other people call them that or just “tubes”? She’s couldn’t remember. “The Incas have made their mistakes,” the surfer conceded. He lounged on a rock behind her in the sun, working on his already dark tan. “But that was in the past. Now, we are much more focused on aid, not dominance.” Kee thought that a dubious claim. The Incas would give aid to their former colonies, but the likely motivation was to create market for their exports. Not to mention, “aid” in general was about paying a foreigner hundreds of thousands of wampums to teach a local about micro-credit loans for a few hundred wampums. It all seemed ridiculous. “Look, Cree dominance is mostly a factor of the market,” she explained as she placed her chain along the crankset. “If people want to buy buffalo burgers and fry bread, who are we to tell them otherwise? Back home we have diversity in products. Other countries just want the same.” “So, you see no problem with your fast food restaurants and hypermarkets driving all the locals out of business and destroying the local culture?” That was rich, coming from an Incan. MachuMart was one of the biggest companies in the world. “When we don’t sell to a country, people scream at us about the cruelty of sanctions,” Kee pointed out. “When we do, its called imperialism or some other nebulous term.” “It is cultural genocide in a way. The diversity of the world is being overtaken by a huge Cree-centered commercial monolith.” Kee rolled her eyes. “It isn’t like killing endangered species and reducing biodiversity. Old culture dies and new culture is born continuously all the time. You talk as if foreign cultures are these static things that been around for thousand of years. That’s bullshit. They aren’t. People will kill their old practices and create new ones regardless of big bad globalization.” Khuno stewed on that. “I don’t know, I still think Cree dominance sounds horrific.” “I think you have way too much Indian guilt.” Kee spun the gears of her bike. They flowed well enough. “Shouldn’t we feel guilty?” Khuno was now good and angry. “For slavery and colonialism? For killing a continent of people?” He was talking about the ghosts. That gave her a shiver. “You’re conflating a whole bunch of issues.” Kee picked up the bike and flipped it over. “Yes, the Cree Lands should feel horrible for slavery, but that has to do with the black people we have at home, not the ones here in Africa. And we hardly participated in colonialism at all. As I said, you south-continent people are responsible for that. As for Columbus, I’m not going to feel bad about a sickly dumbass from six hundred years ago.” That was the weakest of Khuno’s arguments. The Indians didn’t mean to kill off the ghosts. Christopher Columbus had taken those Indians back to Europe on his own volition. Some even say they were prisoners. They were shown off by Columbus in his homeland as proof of his discovery — exotic foreigners to trade with. And then people started dying. It started with a few dozen, then hundreds followed and then thousands. Queen Isabella, the Last Queen, had thought it was a curse at the time, so she sent her “guests” back with an apology and a fleet of ships filled with gifts. Books, swords, gun powder, horses. She had no idea that she had seeded a dozen new empires. Today we know what happened — it was a virus, almost certainly. The ghost people must have had immune systems that weren’t used to Indian disease. But it was centuries before anyone had really figured that out. At the time, it was seen as God’s retribution and it was simply chaos. As the virus spread across the Ghost Lands, everything fell apart. The ghost people were unwelcome in Africa and Asia and were usually slaughtered when they arrived. Their pale skin was a dead give away of where they came from. And there’s the famous stories of Suleiman the Magnificent holding the Bosphorus and saving the Ottoman Empire and perhaps the world from doom. Oh, a few ghost people made it out safely, thousands actually. But over the centuries they bred with the locals. To find a person today who is truly pale to the level of the ghost in her dreams was near impossible. As for the Ghost Lands, superstition kept people out of area of the world for centuries. Trade had boomed for the Indians as did technological progress. The term ”Indian” was adopted to put fear in the heart of enemies, until nearly everyone on the twin continents was calling themselves an Indian. And then the Indians started looking outward to the world, conquering and sometimes enslaving. It must have been odd when the Tairona conquered South Asia. Indians conquering Other-India. “Well, I feel bad about it,” Khuno said. “It’s karma. Somehow, somewhere, we will have to pay for our crimes.” “Karma?” Kee grinned as she mounted her bike. “I would have never taken you as a Hindu Indian.” * * * “Aren’t you’re supposed to call them Native Americans?” asked the Dutchman. “I’m sure people have their personal preference,” explained Josh. “But, I read that the last survey had American Indian beating out Native American. So, that’s what I use. But, I’ll call people whatever they want to be called.” Joris pulled out the kickstand of his bike and left it to balance. “Can you call me ‘your highness,’ then?” Josh laughed. “Of course.” “So, this is it. The blue stones of your visions. A bit...anticlamactic” The two men stared at the boulders. The blue paint covered several dozen of them. Some were faded. Others looked as if they had been painted more recently. The largest stone, which very may well have been part of the bedrock, for all he could tell, went up a good forty feet. The artwork was certainly unique and must have taken a good deal of time to create. They were in the middle of nowhere, so the artist had to bring gallon upon gallon of blue paint out here along with ladders. Josh supposed he could appreciate the effort. But, sadly, and damningly, the piece wasn’t beautiful. The naturally beauty of the area dwarfed the art in every respect. The earthy colors, the majestic rock shapes, even the spattering of shrubs made the painted rocks look absolutely junky by comparison. Well, the Mona Lisa might look plain out here as well. Josh sighed. “I agree with you that these rocks are rather disappointing. The artist seems to have made everything worse.” “Humans usually do,” said Joris. “But, I’ll grant him this: we wouldn’t have ridden out here and seen this incredible scenery without the mission to see these stupid rocks. So, thank you, artist. What’s his name?” “I don’t know. Something Belgian.” “Thank you, Belgian artist, and thank you, Indian girl. What’s her name again?” “I don’t know,” Josh admitted. “I told you she doesn’t speak English and I usually forget most of the dreams anyway.” “Right.” Joshua hadn’t asked the Dutchman to come along. Still, Josh was a little embarrassed by how underwhelming it all was for him. Back in Agadir, he had for some reason told Joris about the Indian girl and the blue stones. It was all he could remember about the dream and he saw the passage in his guidebook about the artwork outside of Tafroute, he figured it was some sort of sign. Someone was telling him something important. But now, there they stood and there was nothing but some blue painted rocks. Joshus gazed at the landscape, scratching some P on his scalp. There was certainly no Indian girl there to tell him about the deeper meaning of the universe. There was no clue. No riddle to decipher. No quest to save the multiverse. “Do you feel anything?” asked Josh. “Like what?” “Like an epiphany.” “Should I be feeling one?” “Maybe. Have you decided that you will now go home and marry your girlfriend and have beautiful 10-foot Dutch babies with wooden shoes?” Joris let out a laugh. “Oh, yes, the universe would be so very interested in my love life. First of all, I never said anything about marriage. Marriage is pointless.” “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Joshua put his hand on one of the blue boulders, hoping it would make a difference. It was warm from the sun, but, otherwise, unexceptional. “What, you believe in holy matrimony and all of that? I didn’t take you for a religious man.” “No, no. Nothing like that. But, marriage has a function. It’s an exercise in self-command. Like putting an alarm clock on the other side of the room or throwing away a pack of cigarettes so you wont smoke them later.” Josh hoisted himself up on the blue rock he had be touching and sat atop it. “That reminds me, I’d like to smoke.” Joris had lost his lighter in Agadir and took it as a sign to stop smoking. He had had five since the declaration, borrowing lights from other people. “But, self-command. Tell me about this.” “Well, marriage is present-you trying to control the actions of future-you. Present-you wants to stay together with someone, but he know future-you might be a dumbass and fuck it up. So present-you sabotages future-you. Marriage entangles people legally, financially and socially so its exceedingly difficult and embarrassing to break up with the other person.” “You make it sound so romantic.” “I’m just saying marriage has a function.” “Well, not for me. If I want to be with someone, I’ll be with some one. I don't need marriage. And why would I want to hinder future me in any way? Future-me will be smarter and wiser than present-me, right? Shouldn’t I trust him?” Joshua nodded. That was a good point. The two men paused and enjoyed the calm for a minute, listening to the wind. Then, Joris offered, “So, Joshua, I was thinking of an explanation for all of this. Perhaps you read the guidebook section on these blue stones, but forgot you had. But it was all still in your subconscious and then you dreamed of it. And then later when you re-read it, you assumed the book was matching your dreams.” Joshua nodded again. The Dutchman was almost certainly correct. “Iago and Othello,” Joshua mumbled. “Do you remember anything else? I mean, besides the Indian girl and the blue stones?” Joshua closed his eyes and thought. The breeze rustled past his ears and, for moment, he thought of crashing waves on the shores of Lake Michigan. “I don’t know.” Joshua shrugged. “Maybe surfing?” * * * “So, who painted this?” Khuno asked. “Some Aztec guy.” Kee pulled her guidebook from her backpack and looked it up. “Tezcacoatl Barca.” The boulders were a mix of blue hues. Some as pale as the sky, faded by the sun over time. Others, painted more recently were deeper and darker. Kee could not imagine what inspired someone to come out to the middle of nowhere and ruin nature. “I guess I like it,” Khuno walked over to a boulder and put his hands against it. “Well, it’s no Mecca after all,” Kee observed. “Now, that place must be must be intensely spiritual.” The Incan leaped up on top of the rock with some impressive athleticism. “You know, I have a this weird desire to go there.” “You know you have to be a Muslim to go, right?” Kee scoffed. “Yeah, I know, but I’ll never forget the first time I saw that black cube thing. It was back in university and I had just stumbled home from some party, insanely wasted. Probably high too, I don’t know. I was practically falling over and quite out of it. I stumbled into my apartment and, for some reason, I went to the front room to turn on the T.V. I don’t know why I did it either. It must have been two or three in the morning. I should have headed straight to bed. “And there is was. It must have been the news channel reporting on Hajj. Thousands of people dressed in white circling. I had no idea what I was looking at at the time. I must have watched for a good thirty minutes. Them circling and my world spinning. I feel asleep right there on the floor.” “So, the circling of Kabaa on T.V. was the lava lamp of your high, drunken stupor?” Khuno let the insult go. “The universe works in mysterious ways. Look, I get that Muslims don’t drink and I’m an infidel and all of that. But that’s what the religion says. That’s what people say. But what does the universe say? What does fate say? What does God say? Mecca was a spiritual hub long before Islam came about. There’s something there that calls people to it.” “And then that mystic force shot up into the T.V. camera and beamed itself to your unversity apartment? If a god exists, she is busy making quasars or aligning neutrinos. Why would she care about calling out to a drunk Incan to get him to come to a desert filled with malls?” Khuno smiled. “Maybe a god doesn’t care. But I felt something.” He leapt down from his rock at that moment to add emphasis. “Aren’t you the one that wanted to come out here?” No, not really. “Look, I’ve been to Carthage and stood in St. Peter’s square like every good Catholic girl should. And you know what I felt there? Nothing. Meanwhile the people around me were weeping. I’m fully convinced it was all in their heads. They felt what they wanted to feel.” “I wanted to be called to Mecca?” “Not specifically, but, look, you had gotten drunk and high that night. Really drunk and really high, you said. Could it be because you were feeling particularly unhappy that day? Could it be because you were feeling especially lost in the universe? Alone? Depressed? You tried to shake that feeling with booze and weed. And I’m sure you had tried to shake that feeling with sex, but were unlucky that night as you came home alone. In the end, you just tried to use spirituality to fill the hole inside you before passing out.” Khuno picked up a rock about the size of his fist and tossed it as far as he could off into the distance. It landed with the sound of a high click. “You’re a real buzzkill,” the Incan said. Kee knew she was. She had always been that way. Thinking too much, being a bit too logical, playing devil’s advocate. It didn’t really win her friends, but at the same time, she didn’t know how to stop. Sometimes she would work herself up into an argument with someone for seemingly no reason. A piece of her would look on in horror screaming “stop!” but she couldn’t. She was on automatic. And later she would berate herself for being so difficult. This was one of those times. Who cares if Khuno tries to use Hinduism or Islam or surfing to make himself feel happier? We all feel the pain of being alone. We all fear the notion of dying and blinking out of existence. We all feel the shame that we are somehow wasting our lives. Can I blame him for not wanting to miserable for moment? The two said nothing for a while, until Kee said, “It is beautiful out here,” to break the silence. Just as she said it, a gust of wind blew sands in her eye. She turned away from the wind, and waited for the tears. * * * “Come to my shop and have a look,” urged the carpet salesman. This was a fifth time he had assaulted Joshua, wanting him to come inside. The first time was when he and Joris had arrived in Tafroute and he followed up when they went to get dinner. The salesman had tried before they had rented their bicycles and, again, when they returned. And here he was again this morning. Joshua, of course, knew better. Getting tricked into looking at carpets was something that all foreigners fall for once, but rarely for a second time. One enters just wanting to browse, but then suddenly a seat appears along with heavily sweetened tea. Now one is trapped by the hospitality. To reject tea is fairly rude no matter what the culture. So, the foreigner sits. How long can tea take to drink? Awhile actually, as one must wait for it cool first. And so while the tea is still scalding, the shop owner unpacks every carpet he has with speed and fury. Dozens upon dozens of carpets are dumped before the foreigner as they sip the tea at the quickest socially acceptable rate, feeling intensely awkward the whole time. Guilt is, of course, the goal. After the tea and all of the trouble the shop keeper has taking to unpack every carpet he owns, the foreigner is left feelings like he or she owes something. The shop owner asks which carpet they like, but the carpets have no prices. After seeing so many carpets, it would seem illogical to say they didn’t like any. So, the polite foreigner points to one with a pretty design. And then suddenly “to like” is understood as “to want” and the bargaining begins, something the foreigner, if a Westerner, has little to no experience in. More oft than not, a carpet isn’t actually sold. Carpets can be expensive and the salesman often overestimates the wealth of foreigners. But the foreigner rarely escapes without things descending into an argument. Best case scenario, they have wasted an hour feeling awkward in exchange for some cheep sugary tea. “My friend,” said Joshua, deciding he would be honest and direct. “There is no way I am ever coming into your shop to buy a carpet. I am sorry.” “But I’ll give you a good price.” “Perhaps, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m never coming in. I do not want a carpet.” The salesman frowned, looking a bit broken. Joshua almost felt bad. Almost. “I do not understand why you foreigners never buy carpets from me. Don’t you understand that Morocco is a poor country. If you don’t buy things, thinks will never get better.” There was a twisted logic to what the salesman was saying, but Josh was too much of a capitalist to think that he was somehow obligated to buy a product he didn’t want. Even if he did pity the man and thought to give him aid, buying a carpet would just encourage him to harass more tourists and produce even more useless carpets that would go unsold. Really the answer was for him to do something else. “I’ll tell a big secret about the West,” explained Josh. “We hate, absolutely hate, not having prices written next to the product.” The salesman furrowed his brow. “Why? I give good prices.” “Maybe,” said Joshua, scratching some P patch on his elbow. “But Westerners don’t know that. They don’t want to be cheated and they hate feeling stupid.” “But I would not cheat them,” the salesman protested. “But, they are afraid you will. Look, we have carpets in at home. What you’re selling is not carpet. You’re selling a memory or Morocco. No one wants to buy something if every time they look at it, they are reminded of how they were harassed, cheated and made to feel stupid.” The salesman looked at Josh skeptically. “You know what I would do?” asked Josh. “I would put the prices right on the carpet. You would be the only shop in town with them so everyone would come to you. And I would write a little explanation of each carpet. Who made it? Is it Arab or Berber? How long did it take? What style is it in? Write a story and that way when people buy the carpet, they will feel connected to it and to Morocco. ‘This carpet was made by Fatima from Fez in the style of her city and took her a hundred hours’ — that sort of thing.” The salesman thought for a moment. “No, that wouldn’t work. If I put a price on a carpet, people would just go next door and ask for the same carpet but for ten dirham less.” He was not wrong; that was the nature of competition. Joshua would have likely continued on pointlessly, but he spotted something in the corner of his eyes. Something plaid. He looked behind him, but saw nothing. My imagination? He thanked the shop owner and began to head towards the market. He had actually been on a trip to get food for the bus trip north to Taroudant before getting sidetracked by the carpet salesman. Joshua figured that if he saw what he thought he saw, there was a good chance he would be at the market as well. Wednesday was market day and the square that was normally barren dirt field was now bustling with commerce. All Moroccan markets were hectic, but Tafraoute was a smaller and simpler place. There were no smokey, narrow alleys like in Marakesh or Fez. Instead, the market was simply a hundred merchant and a hundred blankets with their colorful items for piled high. Ramshackle canopies had been erected over the blankets to shield the merchants for the scorching sun. Joshua scanned the market and sure enough, there he was, examining a plate piled high with some red powdery spice. He wore the same thing that he had worn days ago: slacks, brown covered with dirt, and that plaid button-down. It was the walking man. Joshua walked up beside him. “You made it your destination? That was a long walk.” The walking man glanced over and smiled. “I have walked longer,” he said. “I never asked. You have an interesting accent. Where are you from? Morocco?” “Morocco?” He shook him head. “No, no, no. I am person of the sea.” Josh furrowed his brow. He was fucking with him again. “Like the turtle?” The walking man was straight-faced. “No, like a person of the sea. The world feared us once, but now, not so much at all.” “You’re a merman?” “I’m not riddling you. I told you what I am.” He seemed very serious. “And I’ve lived long enough to know what you are. You are a dreamer.” That struck Joshua. What did mean by that? For once, Joshua didn’t know what to say. “You should listen to your dreams.” the walking man said. He patted Joshua on the shoulder and walked away. Feeling very confused and a bit dizzy, Joshua made it back to the hostel. He had forgotten to buy any food. It wasn’t that important, he supposed. When he entered the room, Joris was there packing his backpack. He looked up from clothes to Joshua’s pale face and knew something was off. “What happened?” asked the Dutchman. “Some weird man in the streets told me to listen to my dreams.” Joris pressed his lips together and pondered that. “I once had homeless man yell that he saw me masturbating. The thing was, I did in fact jerk off right before leaving my flat like thirty minutes before. It really freaked me out.” Josh should have laughed, but didn’t. “Look,” Joris said “It’s probably nothing. Inspirational people say follow your dreams all the time. Besides, we already went to the blue stones. There was nothing there.” “I dreamed again last night.” “Of what?” “I don’t know,” Joshua said. “I’ve forgotten mostly. But I think I want to sneak into Mecca.”
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