Back to the Arabian Nights

the Threshold

"I'm not crazy right?" I asked again, rubbing my forehead, "And Arabian nights? " I shrieked higher. 

 The man sitting in front of me in a wooden round table, had told me that his name was Ali. He had said that just like me, he had showed up to this world  completely out of the blue one day. 

"Why don't you help yourself with some water?" Ali, the saviour, poured in some water from a ancient looking vessel into a copper glass and handed it to me, looking weary of my state. I drank it in one gulp, in a tense.

"How is that even possible? Deep down, I thought this was my heaven or heck- my hell!", I played with the copper tinted glass, traumatized by what Ali had said, "but a realm? A realm?", 

"I thought that too. I thought I was in my hell" He continued to look at me in concern, speaking very slowly as if I would discombobulate at any given second if he wasn't careful with what he said, "But then I met the Guru".

We had been sitting down in a old wooden chair inside a wooden hut. I would call it a hut, but Ali insisted it was a 'cottage'. And inside the dark, fire lit cottage, Ali had explained to me how he came here and what he had been doing until he found this miracle of a man he called the Guru. He extensively told me a work he did where he was thrown into the fields and ploughed intensely alongside the oxen and the bulls, until the sage Guru had come to rescue him. 

We were chatting about our confusions when the door heard a knock. 

"He said he was born a prince. And then he told me he distorted the reality and became a sage. " Ali said, as he opened the doors.

My mouth was gaped open- the things I thought I'd never hear in my life and yet here I was. And the funny thing was, this was starting to make sense to me. 

"When I heard he can play with realities and stuff, I realised he probably knows about my reality too. About our world" Ali continued as he looked off to the distance. 

 The open doors from the hut did nothing but let in the cold gushes of air. 

I couldn't believe people did the silly knock-and-leave prank here too.

"Guru-ji! Speak of the devil and you're right here on time. You really are the devil" Ali spoke scathingly to no-one particularly.

"Avani" Ali faced me with a glee in his face, "Meet the magical Guru" He gestured his hands theatrically to the weird hippie man as he finally emerged from the pitch dark. 

The silhouette of the man slowly transpired into a distinct picture. A man-bun, black kaftan, a staff and accessories of beaded necklaces and bracelets everywhere. He looked like a hippie more than a sage I had been picturing.

"Shut your mouth, you dimwit" The Guru smacked Ali in the back of his head as Ali winced in pain.

"Why'd you do that for?" Ali kept his soured face intact.

"It took you painstakingly long to find her" He glared at Ali. 

"I found in very early" Ali protested, "Tell him Avani, did I not find you within your first hour in Agrabah? I was late because she got trapped by the blue scrollers." Ali looked at me. 

I looked at the Guru. I wondered if I had any foundation to trust the sage. He looked foreign, but for some strange reason, I felt as if I had known the man for years. 

"Hello, Avani" He said as he joined his two hands together in a greeting.

I found myself confused momentarily, but I returned the greeting.