The Adventures of the Vessel Condesa

Clark June 13th, 2007

27º03′ South, 70º55′ West

I’m flying everything short of the bed sheets, trying to capture what little wind there is.

I have been reading The Arabian Nights, and it almost makes me want to visit Baghdad…almost. What a contrast to read about the Middle East as capital of the world, when Europe was in the Dark Ages, and what a contrast between the Baghdad of then and now. What would we get if we were to combine the Baghdad of the Golden Age of Harun al-Rashid with the Baghdad of today?:

Saying, “Very well, O auspicious day, O lucky day, O happy day,” the porter lifted the basket and followed her until she stopped at the fruit vendor’s, where she bought yellow and red apples, Hebron peaches and Turkish quinces, and seacoast lemons and royal oranges, as well as baby cucumbers. She also bought Aleppo jasmine and Damascus lilies, myrtle berries and mignonettes, daisies and gillyflower, lilies of the valley and irises, narcissus and daffodils, violets and anemones, as well as pomegranate blossoms, but then Sunni suicide bombers triggered sequenced explosions in the marketplace and none survived but the hunchback.

Or:

Soon after sundown, she came with a girl, as we had agreed on. I received them with pleasure and delight and lighted the candles, and when the girl unveiled herself, she revealed a face that redounded to “the Glory of God, the Best of Creators.” Then we sat down to eat, and I kept feeding the new girl while she looked at me and smiled, and when we finished eating and I set the wine and fruits before them, I drank with her, while she smiled and winked at me as I gazed on her, all-consumed with love, but then seven American rednecks in full Kevlar with Armalites burst through the door. We offered them tea, but they spoke only of a cache of hidden explosives.

• Chile , Fiction , Sailing , South America
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