The Pen- Sultan's Wisdom

by Dennis Galloway

  Harold got up from the desk, grabbed the paper drawing, and turned out the light. He took it to his bedroom and pinned it to the wall next to his bed. He sat down and looked at it. Then he got up, went back to the study, and got some colored tape. He went back to his bedroom and surrounded the drawing with the tape to make it look like a framed drawing. Satisfied, he sat down on the bed and looked at the drawing again.

  Harold closed his eyes and said to himself he could feel the leather case in his hand. He could feel the soft leather it was made from. He could smell the aroma of the leather. He could feel the warmth of it as it was held by his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at his hand. He made himself almost see the leathered case in his hand.

  Satisfied he had followed Al-Hamid’s suggestions at visualizing the item he wanted in his mind, he took off his robe and slippers, lay back on his bed, tucked his feet under his covers, and instantly went to sleep.

  When Harold woke up in the morning, the first thing he did was repeat the same routine with the drawing he had done the night before.

  Harold did this for weeks and weeks on end. He did not even go to the study to write during that time. He wanted to know if this would work.

  About the third week, he was beginning to feel silly. He was a grown man after all. What was he doing with this nonsense? Then it happened.

  He was on his way home from work late one night when he decided to take a different street just to break up the monotony. A new store had recently opened on that street. As he was passing by, he looked at the window display. There it was. The exact Moroccan leather case he had drawn. The hairs on his neck stood up. His eyes grew wide!

  “What?” he said to himself out loud. Other people passing him by on the street turned to look at him with some curiosity.

  Harold saw that the store was closing, so he quickly stepped inside and went directly to a clerk.

  “Can I help you, sir? We are about too close.”

  “Yes, yes, you can. That fine Moroccan leather case you have in the window, is it for sale?” Harold stammered, excited.

  “Yes, it is. It is very rare, indeed. I believe that is the only one we have.”

  “I’ll take it!” Harold said, louder than he had intended.

  “Don’t you want to know how much it costs?” asked the surprised clerk.

  “No, no. I will take it, please,” Harold said.

  The clerk retrieved the case from the window display, wrapped it carefully in some paper, and placed it in a bag.

  Harold paid the clerk and rushed out of the store. As the door closed behind him, the store lights went out.

  Harold was a believer now. Once more, his life had changed. He was happy, but now curious as to what else he could learn from the dream travel with Al-Hamid. So, Harold once more picked up the pen and began to write in the flowing Arabic script.

  Return of the Nubian

  Harold found himself dream-traveling to a market plaza early in the day. People were going about visiting each stall, looking over the goods displayed. Fruits and vegetables of all colors were piled high, meat hung from hooks, camels and donkeys were being sold, chickens in cages were clucking away, odds and ends of leather goods, clothes, and more filled the space. The sun was high in the sky, and somewhere a flute was playing as someone sang along.

  Harold spotted Al-Hamid looking at some items at a table as Al-Hamid’s voice resumed the narration.

  My life was good. I was finally beginning to get the things I wanted, but an unfortunate event occurred in my eighteenth year.

  Late one day, I was going to a new market to obtain some goods for my master, Jomana Karim, when out of nowhere, I heard someone shouting at me.

  “Stop, thief, for I remember you, and you will not succeed in stealing from these merchants that I, Esta Kalal, am sworn to protect!”

  I looked around toward the voice that had come from across the plaza. Then I saw the Nubian warrior—the one who had sworn he would someday find and arrest me—pointing at me. I also saw he had released his monkey, which was now running toward me in haste. My eyes grew wide. I could not believe this man was still pursuing me unjustly. I panicked, dropped the goods in my hands, and ran.

  Harold was too far away from the monkey to grab its tail this time. He saw Al-Hamid take off at a full run, followed by the monkey and the large Nubian warrior. Harold quickly ran after them.

  Blinded by fear, I ran from the plaza, up dark, narrow alleys, up and down twisted streets as fast as I could go. I heard the monkey’s claws scratching the stone pavement as it ran after me. I jumped up onto some stacked bundles, leapt over sleeping people, opened doors to run into shops—anything I could do to lose the trailing monkey. The animal was screaming, “EEEEEEaaaa!” and getting closer.

  Soon, it was nipping at my heels. I was quickly becoming exhausted.

  The street I was on emptied onto a small pier on the edge of the Nile River. I blindly ran down the pier in sheer panic, took a mighty leap, and jumped into the river.

  I quickly sank under the dark waters. The monkey stopped at the edge of the pier and screamed in anger.

  “AAAAaEEEEAAAAAoooHHEEE!”

  Harold and the Nubian warrior arrived at the same time and stood by the screaming monkey, looking for Al-Hamid. A crowd soon gathered behind them, wondering what all the fuss was about.

  I swam to the surface, sputtering, splashing to stay up as I gulped in air. The crocodiles on the shore nearby felt the disturbance in the water when I jumped in and slithered into the water, heading toward me.

  The Nubian warrior saw me and then the crocodiles slipping into the waters.

  “The Nile crocodiles will eat you alive, thief! A just ending for you! Ha!” he said, raising an arm and pointing at Al-Hamid.

  Laughing, he gave a command to his monkey, which then ran up his arm and sat on his shoulder. They watched as I struggled.

  Exhausted, I began to sink again.

  Harold watched as the warrior turned, pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered on the pier, and went back to the market. Harold stayed and watched.

  As my head went under the water, my flailing hands struck some floating branches of a tree torn from some shore upstream. Thrashing and grabbing, I desperately gripped the branches, held on, and breathed, while coughing up water I had taken into my lungs. Something rubbed against my legs, then grabbed onto the edge of my kaftan. Fright shot straight through me.

  “Haaaaaa!” I yelled.

  Harold turned, pushed his way through the crowd, and ran along the shore, keeping an eye on Al-Hamid as he fought to stay alive.

  I kicked my feet against the rough bony head of the crocodile and pulled at my garment to free it from its jaws. A large piece of cloth finally tore away, and I scrambled onto the floating tree trunk. I realized I had been blessed to escape the crocodile’s grip, for the Nile is full of crocodiles that are always hungry.

  Harold found a small boat up on the shore. He pushed it into the water and paddled toward Al-Hamid.

  “Ouch,” said Harold as a small splinter penetrated a finger of the hand gripping the paddle.

  The boat owner, who was sleeping next to the boat, awoke to see his boat slip into the water, seemingly empty, and begin to paddle itself away. Puzzled, the man scratched his head as he watched it go. He was too afraid of the Nile crocodiles to swim after it.

  I continued to drift farther down the Nile as the sun began to set on the western riverbank. I decided to hold on and wait. I did not want to swim to shore now and get caught by the Nubian, his monkey, or a crocodile. All were a death sentence.

  As the darkness of the night began to dim the sky, I began to get sleepy. Each time my head drooped, I would shake awake, afraid that I would fall off the tree. After a while, however, despite my best efforts, I fell asleep.

  Harold had drifted with the small
boat next to him in the dark. He did not know exactly what to do. Suddenly, it occurred to him how to rescue Al-Hamid. He bumped the boat into the floating log he was holding on to and pushed it toward the shore, then backed off.

  With a sudden jerk of my body, I was awake again and found I was near the Western shore.

  It was very dark, no moon. I realized if I stayed on the floating tree, I would eventually fall asleep again and drop off into the water. I decided to paddle the log toward the shore where I could safely land.

  Harold followed at a short distance in the dark so Al-Hamid could not see the boat.

  It seemed like hours, and my arms burned with the effort, but finally, I could hear the waters lapping upon the shore. I thought perhaps I was close enough, for I could not see a thing. I could only hear the water in small waves breaking on shore. Slipping off the log, my legs dropped down and my feet touched the mud of the river bottom.

  I abandoned the log and sloshed up onto a small beach surrounded by reeds and promptly collapsed. I was so grateful for not drowning. I fell fast asleep, not caring if there were crocodiles nearby or not. I do not know how long I slept there.

  Just as his vision began to darken and Al’s voice ceased, Harold saw that Al-Hamid had reached shore.

  Hidden Enemy

  Harold awoke to a small pain in one of his fingers. He looked closely at it and found a splinter of wood sticking out. He got up from the chair he had fallen asleep in, went to his bathroom, and retrieved a small pair of tweezers. He diligently pulled out the splinter, and after sucking his hurt finger, looked closely at it.

  “Hmm. From a paddle more than 1,000 years ago, I suspect!” Harold said, smiling. He knew it came from his dream travel of last night.

  Harold carefully placed the splinter in a small envelope and labeled it, “A Nile Adventure.” Placing it in a desk drawer, he went about getting ready for work that day.

  Things were going well. Harold was elated at the recognition his work received from his colleagues and his supervisor. Everyone seemed to appreciate the new Harold. All except Falstaff, a clerk who was jealous of Harold’s success.

  Falstaff was thin and stooped in his frame. Black was his favorite color to wear. He had a large, protruding nose that made him look as if he were a walking hatchet. Always, he wore a frown. Whenever someone greeted him, he would just say, “Hmmff,” and walk by the person, totally ignoring them.

  The only time he smiled, showing his broken and crooked teeth, was when he passed his supervisor, Mr. Fraser, in the morning.

  “Good morning, sir,” he would slur.

  “Morning, Falstaff,” Fraser would reply out of obligation rather than want, and then he quickly went back to shuffling papers on his desk to appear too busy to talk.

  Falstaff had long been under the false impression that one day his work would be seen as superior to that of others. He thought he would be recognized and elevated in position. In reality, his work was badly written and not well thought out. Many times, his finished work was returned to do again. He received the rejections poorly.

  “Imbecile. He doesn’t recognize a superior mind in my work. He is an idiot pretending to be a supervisor,” Falstaff would mumble under his breath about Mr. Fraser.

  When Harold got his new position, Falstaff was astonished. He began to treat Harold with contempt and even avoided crossing paths with him in the office. He did not want to be contaminated by Harold’s low intelligence.

  “I am smarter than he is! Why him? Why not me?” Falstaff would mumble while sitting at his desk, head down, scrawling on some paper before him.

  This resentment only grew as Harold continued to show how well he could work with others. Each day, whenever Falstaff saw Harold, he cursed him under his breath. Finally, Falstaff was so upset at Harold that he felt driven to get rid of him—to get him out of his sight forever. He devised a plan that would implicate Harold in the theft of a sensitive company document.

  Late one afternoon, Falstaff went to Myron, the clerk in charge of the company’s secure documents room. The document room was down a dimly lit hallway that led to dark stairs descending to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, one had to shoulder open a heavy door, which sat next to the even heavier document room door. The area was gloomy and dull. There was a short, narrow hall with the documents room on one side and a dingy, poorly maintained restroom on the other.

  Most people avoided the area unless they had to drop off sensitive documents for filing.

  Myron’s job was to sit behind the barred window in the document’s door, with a small space at the bottom for passing papers through and collecting sensitive documents to file. Per company policy, he did not allow any but company officers into the secure documents room. Consequently, he did not have any one to talk to on long days. He was overweight and somewhat dull. His writing skills were not the best, but he was organized and well suited for the job. The only problem was he got lonely and would thus eat more than he should.

  “Hello, Myron. How was your day today?” Falstaff asked with his best crooked smile as he handed Myron a sweet biscuit and a document to file.

  “Well, could be better. I didn’t have much of a breakfast. I hurried to work after waking late. Thank you for the biscuit,” Myron said, appreciative of the discussion and the biscuit.

  Falstaff befriended Myron over the next couple of weeks with kind words (which he hated to utter) and more delicious biscuits (which he detested giving away). He hated being nice to this dullard, but it served his plan.

  One day, Falstaff thought he could move ahead with his plan. That afternoon, he brought tea down to Myron. The tea was formulated to instill an irresistible urge to relieve oneself soon after consumption.

  “Enjoy, Myron,” Falstaff said, watching him sip the tea. Then he passed Myron a file folder and went to the exit door. “See you tomorrow, Myron.”

  “Thanks, Falstaff. See you tomorrow,” Myron said, beginning to feel a bit odd and uncomfortable at his desk.

  Moments, and a few sips, later, Myron felt a sudden urge to relieve himself. He got up from his desk, grabbed his keys from their hook, and threw open his door. The door to the documents room was always locked from the inside and only opened with the key from the outside. Myron had locked himself out once, forgetting to take the key on a restroom break, and had received a dressing down he was in no hurry to relive.

  As Myron rushed across the narrow hall and flung open the restroom door, Falstaff pushed open the stairway door he had been waiting behind and stuck a long stick into the documents room door to keep it from slamming shut. He pushed it open and went to a filing cabinet, opening the drawer marked finances. He looked inside and found what he was looking for, a file folder labeled Receipts and Disbursements, 1921. He removed the file and stuffed it inside his jacket pocket. He replaced the file with another of the same title he had brought with him so the original would not be missed. He closed the cabinet and left, closing both doors softly and heading up the stairs just as Myron returned.

  Back at his desk, Falstaff did a little chair-jig, knowing he now had the means to destroy Harold and make a little money as well.

  Setting the Trap

  Falstaff, like many clerks at Harold’s firm and other firms, frequented The Office, a small pub in the law office district. It was always crowded after work as clerks stopped in for a quick pint or two before heading home. Harold had recently begun considering stopping by the pub himself as he became more confident about socializing with his peers after hours.

  The evening after he had taken the file, Falstaff went to The Office looking for clerks from his firm’s competition who often had a pint or two there. Until now, he had not bothered to talk to them. He had always sat in a corner by himself, anonymously drinking until late in the night. When he’d identified a likely group, Falstaff waited until his firm’s clerks had retired for the night; t
hen he struck up a conversation with his marks.

  After some time, and purchasing a round, he inquired whether they would be interested in certain financial documents he had in his possession. They were, indeed, interested, but they would need someone from their company to meet him to gauge the documents’ worth.

  They agreed to meet again the following evening. The phony smile on Falstaff’s face turned into a real one as he sat back down to drink by himself in a dark corner.

  The next evening, Falstaff met the potential buyer at the pub. Over a few drinks, they looked at some of the documents. The buyer was impressed by the sensitivity of their information. Of course, no names were mentioned. However, Falstaff had paid a young man to walk by the table and greet him by a false name in passing.

  “Hello, Harold,” the young man said, adding, “and a good evening to you, my friend,” as scripted. The buyer had heard of Harold, knew where he worked, and assumed the documents were legitimate. He paid Falstaff, stuffed the file under his coat, and left, leaving Falstaff feeling smug and ever so bright. He paid the young man, bought him another round, and headed home. He’d have to find another pub, but he didn’t care for the clientele at this establishment anyway.

  Over the next several weeks, the competing firm, once in possession of the stolen documents, wrote a series of articles published in the local business paper outlining what it characterized as shady practices. Harold’s firm had done nothing improper, but with the numbers in hand, it was easy to misrepresent some small detail, turning it into a reason to doubt the firm’s integrity.

  This, of course, upset the company’s president and staff. An immediate investigation was conducted. The false file was soon discovered in the secure documents room. Myron was questioned, but no one suspected or accused him of stealing the file himself. He had been well vetted before being placed in his position, and he showed no sign of enrichment after the theft. He was, however, sacked because the theft had taken place under his watch.