Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The Thousand Eyes of Indra - II

The crowd surrounding the travelling narrator scratch their heads and murmur restlessly. One raises his hand.

"What about a handsome teenage boy, sir? One who is just starting to get the fuzzy moustache of adolescence, whose skin is still shiny and smooth?"

And now other voices chime in:

"The greatest ecstasy lies in mystical union with God!"

"The frisky mountain goats from the Panjshir Valley, sir! When we were in the Mujahideen, we never saw any women anyway!"

"I haven't known a woman for years. I have been reduced to a slave of the left hand!"

"In a fine town like this? Brother Stranger, you must allow me the honour of showing you our local whore-house myself."

"Yes, much more pleasurable than the left hand are those whom the right hand would possess!"

The narrator holds his forehead in his hand. He has a headache, he is getting far too old for this constant travelling, and he can't understand why the strange Northern men are interrupting his rhetorical eloquence with such weird remarks. And where are all the women?