The Disciple Who Disdained Sensible Shoes
Like a man ascending a steep hill, unaware of what he will encounter at its summit, so is the sleeper as he awakes to yet another day. Will he find the Mongoose of Misfortune and Public Derision, the norah, burrowing into his bedclothes with furious abandon or shall he be greeted by the Centipede of Boundless Joy, the scalahfal, treading meticulously across his dawn-kissed brow?
   So are all of our lives. We never know if good fortune awaits us, like a kindly amah with a tray of fresh sweetmeats or if dire calamity lurks like a submerged and ravenous crocodile, hoping for one innocent, yet dance-career-ending, misstep in its direction. The following account demonstrates this truth.
   Many years ago I set out from Khartoum with my favorite disciple, Ghonad, bound for Karima, a pleasant town nestled in a delicate fold of the great Nile, source of life. A weary journey of 200 miles lay before us, much of it through the grim Bayuda Desert, the rough and stoney child of that pitiless harlot, the sweltering Sudan. 
   My young disciple was a willing lad, quick to learn and always seeking after more knowledge. Many hours we spent fathoming solubility, discussing its cause and effect. He listened enraptured to the dolphin wisdom I tether within my scorpion, and was as good a fisherman as I had ever been pleased to encounter. Many times he thwarted our gnawing and saintly hunger with his angling profundity and piscene understanding.
   Yet this worthy youth had one exasperating fault, and though he heeded well all my other exhortations, he was loathe to correct this peculiar flaw in his otherwise pristine and maleable character. Namely, he refused to wear sensible shoes.
   While this presented no great difficulties within the boundaries of the towns we favored, aside from derisive remarks from lesser men and insolent camel herders, in the barren tracts of the Bayuda it was a most provoking and distressing disadvantage. Ghonad, not one to be gainsaid on this subject, had worn his most cherished open-toed red patent leather shoes with heels more suited to dancing than negotiating the rocky and perilous terrain of the desert. Still, he limped gamely on. By the second day he was heelless on his leftmost foot. By the third his moans had become a constant and uninterupted distraction to my daily meditations and ablutions. By the fourth day his unshielded and provacative digits had become barely recognizable, reduced to mere bloody stumps where his proud and defiant toes had once held forth, beckoning and pliant. 
   That night, as we huddled by our small cookfire among the rocks, I began to doze, listening to the ever increasing moans of my now delirious companion. Suddenly, I was propelled headlong back to wakefulness. These were not just the moans of Ghonad, but the approaching wails and howlings of the Bayuda wolves, the most treacherous of beasts and deadly bane to hapless travellers in this forsaken region. Ever nearer came their evil song, until I was able to see their menacing, arching forms silhouetted against the rising moon.
   Collecting my wits, I roused my feverish companion and set him on what was left of his feet. "It is the deadly wolves of the Bayuda, Ghonad!" I intoned with great fervor. "Run, run for your life, and I will lead these emissaries of the dark ginn astray!"
   As in an altered consciousness my youthful disciple began to stumble and weave among the boulders towards the open desert as I climbed ever higher towards the rocky summit. Unfortunately for my footsore companion his quickness had deserted him, and the wolves, smelling his bleeding feet, were upon him in an instant. At last all was silent.
   When I awoke refreshed and rested late in the morning, I descended from my stoney perch high above to survey the situation and to search for any remnants of my young disciple, but, alas, the wolves of Bayuda had done their work too well. All that remained were the red shoes, Ghonad's final folly, lying forlorn on the desert floor, as if awaiting his return, a return that would never come. With great solemnity I placed his treasured footwear in my sack. "These I must take to his aged father," I said to myself, "though they will bring him great sorrow."
   Such is fate and the lot of humankind. One man's folly becomes another man's salvation. Had not the doughty Ghonad been inseparable from his favorite shoes, it might have been I that was destined for the wolves' bellies. But it was not to be, and, continuing on to Karima I arrived without further mishap or interlude. And to this day the proverb, "Better to lose a Ghonad than be eaten by wolves" is still a caution and a byword among the gentle folk of Karima.

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