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was businessmen who backed the organized gangs that managed to take control of the northern part of the country. The rich and the supporters of the fugitive government were convinced that the new faith-based groups would come to power and impose their obscurantist ideology. That’s what the spokesman for the northern region said, and he also threatened that the region would secede. The extremists in the faith-based groups took no interest in speeches by politicians or revolutionaries. They were working silently behind the scenes, and in one shock assault they seized control of the country’s nuclear missile base. “Mankind has led us into ruination, so let’s go back to the wisdom of the Creator.” That was their motto.
    As for the army, it fought on several fronts. In the country’s main port, soldiers with machine guns killed more than fifty people who were trying to rob the main bank. People started to confront the army, which they began to see as the enemy of change. There was plenty of weaponry. Our southern neighbors were said to have given weapons to civilians. In the capital some sensible people called for calm and for a way out of the storm that was sweeping the country. The army surrounded the missile base and began negotiating with the extremist leader, who was living among armed tribes in another country. He was a colonel who had been expelled from the army because of his extremist ideas. It was also said that he had a slogan tattooed on his forehead: PURGE THE EARTH OF DEVILS .
    The old man chewed the meat and went back to his place as if he’d just finished eating a sandwich. He wiped his mouth with a dirty towel, pulled out a book, and began to read. I took out a bar of chocolate and devoured it nervously. The old man was quite loathsome and disgusting.
    He looked up from his book and said, “Listen, I’ll get straight to the point. I’m a jinni.” He put out his hand for me to shake.
    I looked at him inquisitively.
    What was it my grandfather had said in his last few weeks? He kept raving in front of the pomegranate tree (all he could do in this world was suck pomegranates and stare at the tree).
    How I wanted to get up and kick the old man. I noticed he was looking at me spitefully and smiling in a way that suggested contempt. Then he said, “You seem to be braver and less disgusting than this Russian. Listen, I’m not interested in you and the people who visit the hole. All I’m looking for in your stories is amusement. When you spend your life in this endless chain, the pleasure of playing is the only thing that keeps you going. Wretches like this Russian remind me of the absurdity of the game. The romance of fear transforms the chain into a gallows. As soon as our friend the Russian fell in the hole, it terrified him that I was in it. He aimed his rifle at my head. And when I told him I was a jinni, he almost went crazy. He had one bullet. If it didn’t kill me, he would die of fright, and if he didn’t fire it he would remain hostage to his own paranoia.”
    â€œVery well, and what happened?”
    â€œHa! I told him I knew all the secrets of his life, and to make him more frightened I said I knew Nikolai, his aunt’s youngest son. The soldier was disturbed when he heard the name. I talked about how he and Nikolai raped a girl in his village. He broke down and fired a bullet at my head. It’s a silly chain, full of your human stories. Would you believe sayings such as this?” He read from his book: “‘We are merely exotic shadows in this world.’ Trite talk, isn’t it? Life is beautiful, my friend. Enjoy it and don’t worry. I used to teach poetry in Baghdad. I think it’s going to rain. One day we might know one of the secrets or how to get out. There’s no difference here. What matters is the music of the chain
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    I shouted, “You’re eating a corpse, you disgusting old