The winds of Bughaghi shall carry the arrow across the field
Fibwa's vines shall pour of nectar into ancient barrels
Vernal hands with letters upon drifting leaves traverse
Round objects on corners a beast of hooves must guard
Sometimes the Yesman uses words to convey an image not by the way it appears on the page but by the way it sounds. I don't know about you but “Bughaghi” sounds like “Bag Daddy”, so I'm going to share with you an experience I had many years ago that helped me form the way I think today.
It was the summer of that year and like any other day in that city, it was hot as a stone oven in a Baghdad bakery. I was in an eastern block country once considered an enemy of our nation. I was there as a travel photographer and sure enough it was just a matter of time before the authorities thought that I was there for another reason. They didn't like the fact that I had a camera.
She made herself noticed the very first week I started going to that restaurant. The ladies man that I was, naturally, it didn't take very long for us to begin conversing. Her name was Ganya Shishkova. “Call me Gun Shy”, she said. It wasn't until later that I found out why. I relied on her as a source of information on everything about the area – the events, the history, the best restaurants and the places to see. I was there for seven weeks and soon I met with her almost everyday. I was such a regular there that everyone knew me. Everywhere I went, I developed the reputation of the friendly and naive traveler that everyone loved. "Gun Shy" and I got so close, we held hands, did back-rubs on each other and the ultimate show of commitment – a foot massage in public in broad daylight. That was my first true exposure to a fetish. She made me do things I normally wouldn't. We would be having dinner and all of a sudden her foot would pop up between my legs suggesting, if not demanding a massage. This would usually happen before desert.
The mystery was, whatever we did, we only did it at the restaurant and no place else. We spent hours and hours there. The only exception was when we went to the grocery. I did it just about every other day as a way to thank her for the tourist information she provided me. The regulars started calling me “Bag Daddy”.
It wasn't apparent at first but little quirks started surfacing here and there that made me feel something bad was going to happen. And the closer my departure date got, the stranger things got between "Gun Shy" and I. So, on our last outing, three days before I was about to leave, she said she wanted to go out. “You pick where we'll go and I will meet you there”, she said.
I picked another place across town where everyone knew me. On the way in, I was shaking hands, back-slapping and trading banter. Some people had hands stretched in admiration and yet others were somewhat jealous. I was like Caesar entering Rome to the boisterous applause of everyone at the restaurant. It was a happy moment. That was until she pulled a Don Rickles on me, only worse. By the time she was done with me, I was reduced to a little man with an even tinier voice. I took a cab and went straight to the airport. I waited for my plane to depart some three days later.
TO BE CONTINUED
(Analyst X147)
(Analyst X147)
