This is a continuation, a beginning, an ending.
It is only after the ground has been marked with many a hoofprint, the fire has been sated,
and the headiness of the Majlis-al-Djinn has been expelled in degrees, that Ashrin
remembers the babble-birthing cacophony that was being suppressed in those quarters of
wisps, even as the Djinn carved their hazy walls out of those voices. The quotidian no longer
blends with (is no longer consumed by) the surreal, the multitudinous nature of the Djinn no
longer suppresses all other multiplicities, and the starkness of the earth-smells solidifies his
own place in between adm and Malak, and he sees, for the first time, the
many worlds the Djinn had shown him. The fire is not greater than the clay, there is no unity
in sin and no shared innocence, and the choice the Djinn had offered him was no choice at
all. But it is too late. His Buraq has not abandoned him, but the reins have.
It is only after the ground has been marked with many a hoofprint, the fire has been sated,
and the headiness of the Majlis-al-Djinn has been expelled in degrees, that Ashrin
remembers the babble-birthing cacophony that was being suppressed in those quarters of
wisps, even as the Djinn carved their hazy walls out of those voices. The quotidian no longer
blends with (is no longer consumed by) the surreal, the multitudinous nature of the Djinn no
longer suppresses all other multiplicities, and the starkness of the earth-smells solidifies his
own place in between adm and Malak, and he sees, for the first time, the
many worlds the Djinn had shown him. The fire is not greater than the clay, there is no unity
in sin and no shared innocence, and the choice the Djinn had offered him was no choice at
all. But it is too late. His Buraq has not abandoned him, but the reins have.
