The Tale of the Lost Cool

Kifkef spoke:

"In my childhood I heard the legends of a man named Shal who was cooler than the mountain snows. He greeted all that came to him with the same steady smile, his eyes calm and unmoved like still lakes, no matter what faced him. If someone yelled in his face then Shal just waited until they had finished and then wiped off the spit with a silk handkerchief.

Maybe you think you have met other such cool customers before? But remember that not only is Morocco a country notorious for its hustlers, hasslers and wind-up merchants, but also that Shal ran a little cafe in the sweaty heart of the old city, where the cramped and twisting side streets give new meaning to claustrophobia.

To take a walk there is to be misdirected on every corner, have your pocket picked and your head shat upon by the pigeons until your hat turns white. Newcomers to the old city who manage to find their way out again, generally swear it’ll be an air-conditioned day in hell before they'll return. Thereafter they stick to the wider streets where cars can pass.

But despite the hustle and bustle in and around his modest little coffee shop, Shal went about his business without ever raising his voice in anger. No matter if gangsters, pimps or hit men walked in demanding their coffee 'now, damn it.', Shal served them all with the same courteous smile. If they decided not to pay then he didn't serve them again. Simple as that.

Although he was publicly derided as a man of soggy spirit without 'a breath of flame within him', it was no accident that the biggest and baddest of the city spent much of their free time there and deigned to give him their unofficial protection. After all, there was nowhere else that welcomed them and a few of these scoundrels perceived that Shal's calm might be something worthy of respect.

However, no one is untouchable. One summer the unbearable heat was broken by a ferocious storm that rode in over the city,like a pirate ship, blasting the streets with rain and making good business for Shal. Every table was full and hal reached over to the radio to give them a little music. But just as he adjusted the dial, lightning struck and the cafe was thrust into darkness. Everyone took advantage of the power cut by reaching for each other's wallets and, by the time the lighting was restored a minute later, each was better and worse off than before.

But then they turned to see that something strange had happened to Shal - His hair was standing on end and his eyes fizzed inside their sockets. He opened his mouth and it was as if someone else was speaking through him - His voice of velvet had been replaced by a dangerous growl of broken glass.

"Out." He snarled. His customers glanced at each other uneasily. Surely Shal was joking.

"But Shal, you don't close for another five hours yet." One card sharper chuckled, "And it's raining outside. Surely you can't expect-"

"OUT." Shal roared, leaping over the counter with a teaspoon in each hand. He semed so wild that even the heaviest of these bad men found themselves hurrying out into the pouring rain. Shal slammed the doors shut after them.

Well, rumours issued through the city that Shal had finally cracked and everyone shook their heads with satisfaction. Their their worst predictions had been proved true. Thereafter he was seen to pick fights with every seller of fish, fruit and sweetmeats that he could find - they often gave him a good price just to be rid of him. Anyone who got in his way received a full burst of foul curses and abuse and he left many a short-sighted old lady in tears. He even pelted the pigeons with stones when their droppings fell upon him. They shit on everyone, of course, but that made no difference to the new Shal.

He was seen arguing with lamp posts that he'd walked into and the doctor had to bandage his fist when Shal tried to get violent with one of them. He even destroyed with a pick axe a whole stretch of tiles after he decided they'd tripped him up one time too many. Each new confrontation added another ripple to his forehead and his eyes squeezed into a squint that only allowed him to see things in one way. His way.

His family and the few friends he had left thought it might be just a passing faze and just made sure not to come close to him when he had a kitchen knife in his hands. They understood it had gone too far, though, the day that the shooting began. The street was busy with the weekly market but it emptied in seconds when shots were heard from Shal's coffee shop. Twenty bullets echoed terror through the winding alleys. When the smoke had died down, did the first brave onlookers creep closer to investigate. And what do you think?They saw Shal leaning upon his shotgun in the middle of his empty cafe, poking through the rubble on the floor with his foot.

"Damned flies." He muttered, "I must have got one or two of them, surely."

His wife, a delicate creature named Lom, was driven to despair by Shal's wild antics. In desperation she went to consult the wise woman of the town, bringing rose water and dates as a gift. But as she came into what she supposed was the correct neighbourhood, she was hailed from down in the gutter.

"Your husband shoots flies, then?" A voice of vinegar asked. Lom looked down and saw the ragged mystic rolling around in piles of rotting onion and donkey shit.

"But wise woman," She cried, "What are you doing down there in the filth of the street?" The sage shrugged.

"It's easier to read fortunes in the shit and the trash," She explained, "It's what fills most people's minds anyway." She cackled and then turned suddenly grim as if she had been bitten on her behind by a disrespectful bug.

"Your husband has lost his Cool." She snapped and returned her attention to splitting onion peel into spidery strands. Lom bit her lip as she tried to understand. Finally she had to ask:

"And where might it be found, O wise one?" Her guide of the gutter glanced up in appraisal.

"Give me the dates." She spat, "You can keep your stinking rose water." She took the bag of sweet fruit and spent half an hour sucking each off its stone. Then she remembered her visitor and snapped her answer:

"Your husband's Cool is sitting beside a stream in the forest to the West." The old woman withdrew an empty wine bottle from her coat and whispered 'salaam' inside it, the word of peace.

"This bottle will guide you there," She announced, "And Shal's Cool will not be able to help itself from slipping inside. Then you can take it back home and make your husband drink deep from the bottle."

Lom took hold of the glass vessel and it immediately dragged her down the alley - So fast that she lost both of her shoes and her head scarf blew off in the wind. She ran through the streets under the pull of the bottle until she left the city and came to the forest.

The trees were elegant and slender, bending in a slow dance to the tilts of the breeze. The air was suddenly light and fresh and she realized that her lungs were full of the city’s smog. Twigs crunched beneath her feet and birds fluttered on the branches to her sides to check out their new visitor. With each step the pull of the bottle became more gentle, until she rounded the last twist of the trail and beheld the goal of her quest.

There was a murmuring stream nudging past rocks covered with moss and sunlight fell through the canopy above like flakes of gold. A willow tree spread its branches in protection over the grass plateau beside the water. And there, shimmering in blue a metre above the ground, was Shal's cool. It hovered in calm silence and she was reminded of the feeling of watching the glints of moonlight upon water.

With a little hesitation, Lom held out her wine bottle out in front of her towards her unsuspecting prey. The Cool drifted closer to inspect and then disappeared through the mouth of the bottle with a soothing gush. Lom put her thumb over the top and was surprised at how easy it had been.

Yet she could not feel in the least bit happy. For in the moment that she had the Cool trapped in her hands, she understood that she held the one thing that she truly loved about her husband. Without his serenity, Shal was an obnoxious, aggressive man with no sophistication or wit - How could she feel anything for such an asshole? It had been Shal's unfailing calmness, his gentle patience that had won her heart. And now she held that in her hands.

Without a second thought, she smashed the bottle against a rock and the Cool was released like a casual genie into the air. This was where her love longed to be, she realized, not in the stench of the teeming city, imprisoned in the besieged cage of a human's soul. It belonged here. And her with it.

Lom took her seat beside the water and the auric blue cool wrapped about her, flooding her senses with peace that nourished her like plants drink the sunshine. Their love was so perfect that she never found cause to leave or even move again. She grew old in her unexpected idyll, thoroughly happy in her heart, right up until the day when it pulsed no more.

As for Shal... He spent years trying to find his Cool but was too angry to know where to look. Eventually, he threw a cup of hot coffee in the wrong guy's face and died as violently as he had ended up living.

So it goes, my friends. Look after your Cool and it will look after you. But keep losing it and one day it may just not come back.”

Chapter 16