Battuta's Ramadan

The faces of the elite of three continents swam around him in the last days of Ramadan. Chewing mouths, food everywhere: what of the spirit of the season? Ibn Battuta moaned in pain. Eight hours since eating, five more to go, the infidels all around, food, food, food. What was this place? In an Arab country?

Was this an Arab country? Their jabbering speech – “…security holes in Windows…” “a Byzantine filing system!” “Darling! I’m going to be home in a week!” “…flights to Fiji, Cook Islands, New Zealand…” – filled his ears, the jargon of the local traders and merchants. He was a man of the world, he could adapt. Sometimes he wondered.

Their boxes. Every one of them stared at their boxes, Satanic machines speaking “wi-fi,” their sins only barely tamed by the “proxy.” The traders beside him snorted in contempt: the “proxy!” Despite the risk of sin, he allowed the electric djinns of own machine to push distant messages to him. But what of those other chattering little boxes, the “mobiles”? To speak to that? To listen to that? Believers and unbelievers alike caressed theirs like lovers. This is a dream, yes? A nightmare?

So far from his beautiful friend! She waited for his return, or so he hoped, all smooth skin and long limbs… But in the present, now, the masticating faces of these shameless foreigners. So pale; so blond, accents echoing cold northern isles or the hot southern continent. To eat, to consume, this is what life is here, he thought. More, mOre, and yet more... Yes. More. The “café” had seduced him.

On the roads huge white SUVs flashed behind him: aside! High beams high-low-high, faster faster faster. Ignoring them, Battuta’s tiny light-metallic-green camel pushed gamely onward.

The Travels of ibn Battuta (Part 2)

“Park or drive?” he asked himself as his distressingly small car puttered along in the 2kph traffic. “Park?” he mused. Radio One cackled in the d.j.'s distinctive South London accent, “Oh, you poor sods on Sheikh Zayed! A pedestrian-camel-SUV-truck accident’s blocked all fifteen lanes out by Interchange 93. News next!”

He took stock: the two days’ supply of water he'd set out with was now had no more than a rationed six hours. Food? Bad news: the U.S. Army-surplus MRE’s were significantly diminished by rat pilferage. (“In the news, the Dubai Municipality today assured that the rat infestation on Shk. Zayed was completely under control and that plans to fully eradicate them will be completed within several months.”) Emaar banners fluttered weakly. Dashboard thermometer now 55, but workers still high in the scaffolding of the second, third, and fifth largest buildings in the world, each with interconnecting skybridges. One tumbled off; the others continued. On the passenger seat tabloid headlines scream of Emaar’s newest artificial land-island, The Blob, “Evoking the Free Spirit of 1950s American Horror Films!”

He sighed and turned down the satellite television. Write! His novel “Jam!” was stuck in low gear. In his daydreams: film rights. The heroic commuter: Keanu Reeves? He pulled out his voice recorder. “Chapter 140. Acceleration!” But his heart wasn’t into it.

When they finish the 1511, he thought, things would get better: only four hours out into the Empty Quarter at 120kph, a fast return counter-traffic. Home. Life.