The Tale of When People Had Tails

Kifkef began:

"By the age of 14 a Muslim is considered a man. So it was met with approval when I forsook the comfort and security of my mother’s house in Marrakesh and took to the road in search of adventure, truth and not a little profit along the way if Allah felt generous. ‘For there is no virtue in a man who does not travel and none in a woman who does.’"

“But all the profit is in vice anyway.” Gypsy Lou countered.

If Kifkef agreed with this then he was too irritated by the interruption to show it. He turned towards the sadhu and continued:

“My travels brought me to the land of Palestine, that troubled bed of blood and war (I doubt it shall see peace in 1000 years) and I was taken under the wing of an infamous and irascible wanderer named Ali - may his soul rest in peace. I had but the beginnings of a fuzz upon my cheeks and I was fortunate to be walking with such a man. He allowed that I should accompany him on a walk across the Negev desert, resting and refreshing at the various caves and water sources he knew within the barren expanse.

It was a place without even the breath of green and I shivered at the distances that faced us on all sides. Mostly we walked without talking; the vast, imposing deadness shaming us into silence. Loose clothing covered our skin and head as protection from the wind and sun and we applied olive oil to our lips to keep them from cracking. I followed Ali at a respectful distance of ten metres or so, his silent figure my only point of reference, my life raft in this hostile unknown.

The first two nights we slept out under the desert sky. Romantic, I hear you say? Not a chance. Thanks to the cold, wind and sand I hardly caught a moment of sleep. Naturally, I cursed my choice of guide and guessed he was testing my resolve. But he was not an unkind man. He began to choose a more gentle course and, on the third day, our first real shelter appeared on the Northern horizon. As we neared, the swelling of stone grew to be a cluster of rocky hills and the bushes promised the presence of water. Most welcoming of all, there seemed to be caves where we could at last hide from the relentless wind which I now hated with a vengeance.

It tangled my head scarf, whistled in my ears and threw sand in my face - What was Ali thinking when he dreamt up these miserable jinns? I thought of the tribes in Algeria that had once marched out in full battle dress to make war on the wind. But their swords were no use in the sandstorms that swallowed them up alive.

We arrived and I slung down my knapsack by the first fissure in the rock that I saw. But Ali grabbed my arm and insisted that we rest in a place higher up. Without him I was dead in these parts and so I reluctantly followed him up the trail. It was miserably steep after a day of walking. I composed curses for Ali under my breath and by the time we'd climbed high enough, I was muttering: 'May you marry a diseased camel.'

I staggered after him into an uninviting, narrow gap in the rock, leaving behind the glorious sunset to trust in this old man’s love for dark lairs of shadows and dust. Ali struck alight some candles and we at last set down our packs. I headed at once for the pitta bread and olives but that madman grabbed my hand and pulled me further into this dump of a cave.

I feared that he was possessed with the infamous Arabic fondness for teenage lads... I was about to struggle free when I saw that he had other things in mind - On the far wall, painted on the sandstone, were ancient chalk sketches of those who once lived here. There were images of the tents they used, the way they hunted and pictures honouring the rulers of the time - Just like any ancient art you might have seen in books but with one glaring difference - Everyone in the drawings had tails.

Not thin, graceful tails like a monkey or a cat - These extensions were thick and tough, covered with rough, matted hair. There were pictures of families wrapped up in the tails of mother and father like blankets. They fought with them like whips and wore them as clothes to hide their nudity. And most weird of all, there were drawings of people with tails far longer and thicker than anybody else, coiled up beneath them so that they sat high above the others - like kings on their thrones.

By the time I broke my gaze from this astounding sight, Ali was grinning to each corner of his moustache.

"You know about these, Ali?" I asked him. He nodded happily, "Well what's the story? Who were these people?"

"You were more interested in pitta and olives, no?" He winked with satisfaction, "Then, by Allah, let us eat."

"Forgive me but I cannot eat until I know-"

"First I will pray to Allah for delivering us here safely. Then we will eat until our stomachs thank us. And then, if we are not too tired, I will tell you the story of the people with tails."

He went off to kneel down towards Mecca and I tried to contain my burning curiosity, knowing that he could hold out on telling me the story for days if he thought it worth the sport. His worship had put him in a merciful mood, however and, in between sucking olives to the stone, he related the legend in a soft voice, as though he was speaking to himself.

"Though it is not in Qur'an or Hadith, my boy, yet it is said that in the times when this dead land was alive with gushing rivers and green fields - Do not smile. Harpoons are still found in the desert. Indeed, there are some who say that the rivers still flow, many miles beneath us. Yes, it is believed that, in that forgotten, fertile time, a tail was another of the gifts from God, bequeathed upon us so that we might wrap it around ourselves and stay warm, seeing as we lack coats of fur.

It was not long after we returned to life upon the land after many centuries of living in the ocean - Though that is another story - Yet it may be because of this that our tails were less alike to the monkey than to the lizard. For not only did we grow tails, we shed them at times through our lives."

"But it seems that they grew to different lengths." I pointed out, "Some of the drawings-"

"Oh, perhaps you would prefer to tell the story?" Ali snorted. And only by preparing the coffee in the tradition that he'd patiently shown me the previous day, was I able to coax him into continuing the story.

"Now, the interesting thing is that although people used to lose and re-grow their tails like some of the reptiles do, it was for altogether different reasons - For we are not animals but humans - The most magnificent of all in Allah's creation. Our ancestors lost their tails whenever they did or said something they knew in their hearts to be dishonest or bad. The sheer shame of it caused their tails to fall, the very symbol of their pride." Ali paused as he stubbed out his cigarette and watched critically as I allowed the small coffee pot to boil seven times. I poured out for each of us a small glass of this life-saver of the desert, blended with cardamom.

"So it came to be that the length of one's tail was evidence of one's good nature. Naturally, the leaders and guides of the people were chosen from those with the lgreatest integrity.This was simple to determine for, as you saw on the wall, they came to sit upon their coiled tails like snakes - Whoever sat the tallest was also clearly the most pure of heart.

"But," Ali hissed, with cheeks full of biscuits, "That's where it all went wrong for them. Because there came a generation when some people, through no fault of their own, were born without tails and couldn’t grow them. They just had the little bone behind their assholes - just like we have today. These mutants were thought to be utterly sinful as they could clearly not go even one day without evil thoughts and so could not grow their virtue at all.

"These freaks were scorned and literally looked down on. They were expected to serve the pure and good who sat up on their increasingly tall coils - a life of service to pay for their wicked nature. But their time was coming and they knew all they had to do was to be patient. For that current generation was also one of such moral character that all of those with tails sat higher than ever before. So high that they could not come down and the tail-less had to climb up to them on ladders to deliver food and water and to empty the shit pots.

Well, one day the high and mighty awoke from their throne beds and rang for their servants to climb up with breakfast. But no answer came. They looked down for the first time in many months and saw that all their wealth and belongings had gone. The tail-less had departed during the night, abandoning them to sit helpless in mid-air. They screamed and they shouted, perceiving now the foolishness of their pride. They cried out for forgiveness but were cut short as the shadows of vultures passed over them. Some tried to get down and fell a long, long way, breaking every bone in their bodies. Others were too afraid to try and just starved to death upon their accumulated piety, strangers to the ground."

Ali poured himself the dregs of the coffee and put the last biscuit in his mouth. I had been too absorbed in the story to eat and now I saw with horror that only a few stale pittas and dubious-looking olives remained.

"But Ali. Do you really believe all of this?" I cried.

"Of course not." He frowned, "I'm a good Muslim and it is not mentioned in either Qur'an or Hadith. Good night."

And he blew out the candle to leave me to fumble in the dark for my blankets."

Chapter 3