To be used only on a sleepless night. Read four times and then let its words fly north, south, east and west. Close your eyes and you shall find sleep.

~

Once upon a time I was told that if I were as silent as an unborn child in its mother's womb, I would hear a zebra breathing. So I stood very still on a steep hill on the lost side of the ocean. And listened quietly as centuries slid like black satin through the stripes on his back.

Once upon a time I was told that if I stood under a bamboo tree and received its virgin whisperings into my story its branches would protect me from the burning sun. And so I hibernated in the shade of the bamboo tree, and eavesdropped on countless conversations in foreign tongues. But somehow I understood them all in that moment in time.

Once upon a time I was told that if I watched the patterns in the sky I would feel the wind dance, leaf by leaf, cheek by cheek, innocent wish by innocent wish. Until it came back to its resting place for a split second as if to say, look I can. The wind tantalised me from afar, showing me gardens fresh with strange orchids that grew from a watery bed of coins. But when I tried to pluck a flower to keep forever the wind gently blew the petals away.

I had never seen a zebra before. I had never heard a bamboo tree before. But I had, of course, met the wind in another country and had hoped to count to some extent on familiarity. So I spent days making a little clay figure of my zebra and hours painting a little canvas of my bamboo tree and saved only a few breathless seconds for the wind. But try as I did to hold the breeze within my fingers it eluded me. It looked me in the eye and said, fahimeh, do not seek what you shall not find.

A whole continent sometimes gets entangled in the knots of my hair. And when it does I brush my hair with a stroke for each day of 24 months, the bristles raking my scalp like a scolding mother. I lock my clay zebra in its little box and bury it deep under the weeds of the fifteenth flowerbed. I retrace my steps to the fourteenth but even its weeds have withered. So I climb to the highest branch of the mango tree before my window and hide it amidst the fullness of heavy fruit. But the breeze has other plans. It rustles the stalks of my painted bamboo tree. It sweeps away the manure from the fifteenth flowerbed and my zebra pricks up it ears. And the wind looks me in the eye again and says, fahimeh, do not hide that which you cannot erase

For all eternity I walk through the salt fields with sweet tears like rivulets on my face. My little clay zebra clutched to my chest and my bamboo painting strapped to my back. I walk and I walk and I walk and then I walk some more. In the middle of the salt fields there are 24 stories, each with a different balcony. Once upon a time I stood on the 24th balcony and looked out towards the sea only to discover that someone had dried up all its waters and left only the salt behind. I knew it must have been the wind. So I look the wind straight in the eye and ask it to dry the wells in my eyes too, and it says fahimeh, treasure the storms enveloped in your eyelids. They are of you and from you.

Once upon a time I let my little zebra free in the salt fields though he still comes to me in the still of the night and breathes in my ear. Once upon a time I planted my painted bamboo tree in white grains though its branches still find their way to my bedside. I did not know what to do with the wind. It was not mine to own.

Once upon a time I let the wind carry me away and asked not my destination. As we flew amidst fledgling spring leaves on wings of feathered gold, a million sunrises dawned. The sun opened its arms and its rays gently touched my skin. I knew then that destiny requires closed eyes. If I surrendered to the possibility of the impossible, the wind would not forsake me. It knew what only the wisest know and guard jealously: you will not find if you do not lose. You will not live if you do not trust. I looked the wind straight in the eye and said a few silent words, the way twins do. Fahimeh, said the wind, finally you understand. And so we lived happily ever after…the zebra, the bamboo tree, the wind and I.

~ The end ~