da Protecters removed da vail from his eyes, whare under th jaundisd street lite Aleeshas car was gon.
And still he didnt see it.
He wants to go to bed. But his wondering were he parked da car. And sumfing starts lurching thru him. Till hes awake.
And he dozent see the car. But he sees da keys on th table.
And he wen out to the car. Where under the jaundisd lite Aleeshas whip is gone.
And he wandered th streets, coming back to ech one as tho hes made a mistake. As tho dere was a secret slip road in his hed.
But dis was da spot.
An time and space shud be here. (But da Counsil hirelings in thir lorry had come).
Ther is da slave calling on his fones. But no one is awake.
And he has to go back to th flat.
By th leaking liht draping th duvet as it rose and fell wid her breething...
Why did she cume to him like that? Like he cud tell her everything.
And abased, da belever calls out, Wake up, Leesha. Wake up. Drag it all out of me. Let me fall on th hollows of yr hips and call out Save me. Save me, Leesha. Say you forgive me. Coz I cant drag my life back.
(Fajr: 0547 GMT)
Say! My Companions sens the enormus wings, da pressure drop of electric storm. Noble Atid looks at me to say, The time is here, our watch is over, till Asr come agen.
And his account may now be fixt, and deeds alloted to good n bad.
And Angels of sucsesion are passing along a thred to this relm. But we are alredy asending da Empyreans, pinned back by da wait of hopeless Mercy, and I hav alredy forgotten. Each time we return, it is as thoh we were never here. And we too shall be askd by the Uneeq One, How did you find My servant? And how did you leve My servant?
3 | The Account of the Angel of the Left Hand
In which the Recording Angels return on the fabled Buraq to the Archangel Jibreel; and present the creature’s record; and find the Account of the Left Hand is written; and read his struggle to regain his misfortune; and make the mi’raj back to his world.
§
We are carried on the firebird wings of the Buraq. And looking on his grave moonface, his arching Persian brows, with bearing of earnest young mufti, and head perched on dapplegold neck of a horse, I wonder that he has no arms to eat with. Somewhere the Buraq was described as a spotless steed with noble head, and so they pictured a human face. And our Powers pictured as parrot wings.
But then what shape is ours? We have not top nor bottom, nor colour, nor weight. Truly our substance is infinitely stiff, infinitely pliant.
What if you could eat grass or oats, says Hamza.
We do not eat gross material, says the Buraq.
But what if, say, I feed you bran mash? How could you eat enough to nourish a horse’s frame?
We nourish ourselves by His radiance, by worship.
Yes, but what if, says Alif.
Sometimes they chafe him that his wings should sprout from his shoulders or feet, as Persian pictures. The Buraq will ever play perplexed. They have been playing this game for ten thousand years. That is the gift of Jannah—that he fails not to be perplexed, and we fail not to be pleased.
We carry on his wings to the lowest Heaven. And come to an endless plain of serried Angels that ripple to the horizon in salat. And as they flow in waves of standing bowing prostrating, they articulate the fleeting ayat of the Book.
And at the fiat of Jibreel, the plain is bent until its ends encompass a grain, and Protectors and Scribes for every soul are gathered in a drop of sea.
And the Ruh dips a Wing in the skinless surface. And in it we look on our own creatures.
And we descry the shadows of our wretch’s end wobbling in a solid sea, our shadows holding him in a scumstained bath, and a fist that bursts the surface, and our shapes that burst into shards.
And how did ye leave your creatures, says the Ruh.
And the wretch’s page unfolds as a wrinkled grey sea. And now my Noble Roquib’s shikeste hand flashes on the creeping waves. These ayat of dancing lines slanting from imagined corners, and arching up and down like blossom spray. And margins sprouting commentary and calligram.
And my Noble Roquib says: The servant is praying.
(The creature is praying. Ha!)
And we gaze on his Book.
There is the fool. A-sobbing on the carpet. Just the same as last time. And round him are Relieving Angels of the Day, their faces razed as with a veiling cloud, as with a razing cloud the Prophet is portrayed (upon him peace).
And prostrate in the living room, he can’t remember which Naseeb he is. For there is a yearning spot to dash the Plan. To sacrifice the Game and go straight to the sunny Garden of cripples and pleasantry and fruits of doing Good.
And when the mother rises from sleep what will he say about the car?
That he knows? That he knows not? That the fault is his? That the fault is hers?
Tell her, we say.
Tell her, he’s thinking.
We beg the fool as though the story could be different. As though the Pen changes course. (And it is the same if ye warn him or not. And his end is a world of shards that fly in all directions.)
But the mother shall rise and get ready in silence, and leave the car keys on the table. And leaving the car keys, take pushchair and Jonah to nursery. And he can’t tell her. And her Protectors veil her eyes.
And again the Ruh dips a Wing in the wrinkled sea. And smoothes it unto a spotless plain.
And says to the Noble Scribes of the Left Hand, And how did ye leave the slave?
And I take my Pen that had been raised in case the churl repent...
But the Accounts of the Left Hand are already writ!
And what can describe his Account?
His sins scrawled in desert sands from horizon to horizon, endlessly drifting as dunes. And the desert whirls up as a sandstorm. And my letters of archaic kufic rise out of the desert as megalith stones. And the wind lashes the letters till they are honed into sphinx and longprowed dhows and beasts of burden.
But these forms are no more solid than the sands, they flow to other signs. For though the entries for the left hand be so many, this creature may still repent.
And I say to the archangel:
Surely
