Tales and Stories

Chapter 27 - The Last of the Night

Baba Gene smiled.

“It seems that we all live side by side with our dreams. And yet with the arrival of morning such visions disappear as though they never were.

And so I feel it may be with this night. The wise used to say of death that ‘God cuts the thread’. The greatest illusion that Maya spins is that what we can grasp will last. Yet when their time comes, all possessions, ideas and feelings will be gone forever and there will be none left to miss them.”

“That is the poignancy of my people.” Gypsy Lou sighed. “And it’s also the reason that I live as I do, squeezing the juice from each moment until there are none left to enjoy.”

“And it is the reason that we worship Allah.” Kifkef contributed. “That he may be pleased with our service in this life and reward us with an ample supply of houris in the Gardens of Paradise.”

He considered that it was time for the morning prayers. But to ignore his guests would surely be a worse sin and so he elected to do twice the salutations later. If there was time.

“And yet,” Baba Gene pontificated, “Perhaps not even the idyll of your afterlife will be invulnerable. For there is a tale whose origins lie in some unknown place, far East from India, which has yet traveled thousands of miles to be known amongst some sadhus and which reached my ears not long ago.

The Story of the Last Night