by M I A Harba
Jad proclaimed,
‘Praise to Allah. Did you hear the jinnee fly away?’ Obviously, he was referring to the pigeon they heard. The Sheikh nodded and continued his recital for another 15 minutes. Then he reclined back on the sofa, appearing exhausted from the ordeal.
‘Is it done?’ asked Sam.
The Sheikh waved with hands to Sam to keep quiet, while continuing to whisper. Jad was wholly mesmerized by this, his eyes glued to the window in expectation of more things to happen.
‘Praise to Allah. Praise to Allah. Let’s pray two Rakats for Allah and His kindness,’ said the Sheikh.
They all stood up and took turns into the bathroom for Wudu, the washing ritual before prayers. They took their places behind the Sheikh, and all three prayed, with the Sheikh acting as the Imam of the prayers.
‘It’s all done now. Thanks to Allah. The jinnee departed and hopefully, never to be seen again,’ said the Sheikh.
Jad felt visibly relaxed and started to eat some of the biscuits, dunking them in his tea. The Sheikh, who had not touched his drink, started at some biscuits. Sam replenished their drinks, as they were getting cold.
‘Her name is Kharimos,’ said the Sheikh.
‘What does it want?’ asked Sam.
‘She says the burial ground of her ancestors was disturbed by the digging,’ said the Sheikh.
The Sheikh was obviously referring to the digging by the archaeologists.
‘I told her it wasn’t intentional. It was done for scientific purposes, and they didn’t know it was her burial grounds,’ continued the Sheikh.
Sam smiled. His logical mind couldn’t tune to this mythology.
‘OK, Jad. Let’s unload my supplies,’ said Sam.
They both went out to the lorry.
‘Did you see this, Sam. The Sheikh got the jinnee to fly away. You should be alright now, nothing will disturb you,’ Jad said while unloading.
‘Should I pay the Sheikh money?’ asked Sam.
‘No, he wouldn’t take any. But a donation to the mosque, to help the poor, would be acceptable,’ answered Jad.
Back in the house, Sam handed over some money to the Sheikh, saying it was a donation to the mosque. The Sheikh accepted the money and pocketed them without counting. The mosque kept a box for such donations, to provide food and clothing to the area’s poor.
‘Sheikh, how did you feel the jinnee’s presence, and how did you talk with it,’ asked Sam.
‘My dear friend, this is something beyond you. The mosque does not encourage a dialogue with the jinnees but only by the clergy, and for useful purposes only, like this one.’
‘I understand and won’t do it myself. But I mean, does it talk in an audible voice to you?’ continued Sam.
‘Yes, as audible as your voice now.’
‘You recited verses from the Quran. Are you assuming this jinnee is a Muslim?’ asked Sam.
‘Most jinnees are Muslim. Those who are not are satanic,’ answered the Sheikh.
Such a perfect answer, no suspicion, or questions by the Sheikh, or Jad, were shown or needed. They were 100% convinced. Sam, sadly, was not. However, it was good enough for Jad to agree to continue with the supply runs, combined, of course, with the motivation of extra money.
The Sheikh said his task was accomplished and wanted to go back in the time of the noon prayer. They left immediately, both in the supplies’ lorry was unloaded, and Sam waved them goodbye and a safe journey.
Sam sat in the living room, slumped on the sofa, looking at the desert terrain beyond. He found it hard to admit, but he felt comfortable, and the presence had fleeted. Where does the Simulation Hypothesis fit in this? Religion has its way of dealing with the unknown and the paranormal, and apparently, it works. Science would tell you it is all in the mind, but this experience was materialistic and outside the mind. The clergy, in all religions, know about this phenomenon and have their ways of dealing with it.
Witch doctors, who operate amongst tribes in the jungles of Africa and South America, play similar roles. They attribute their power either to their Creators, the spirits of their departed elders, or whatever they believe in. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism believe in the single Creator and attribute the clergy’s apparent powers to the single Creator. Science, on the other hand, hates all of this and considers them primitive human attributes due to the lack of scientific knowledge.
Sam wished he had the same conviction as that of the Sheikh and Jad. They didn’t need to build houses out in the desert to clear their mind. Their minds were clear, crystal clear.
What the Sheikh was implying was that we, humans, share the same world with the jinnees, but they are invisible to us. However, we are not invisible to them. They have genders similar to us and marry and have families. Wasn’t this similar to what the elusive guest was saying? But that guy never mentioned religion in his discourse.
Is it possible all of these outlandish experiences, the UFOs, the elusive guest, jinnees, seances, etc., are all the same phenomena? Or was Sam’s mind too influenced by the deductions of John Keel?
Sam was confused and wished he didn’t contaminate his mind with this stuff, which made him teeter on the edge of hallucination.
He spent the afternoon cleaning around his house. He marked on the floor where the legs of the table and chairs were. If they were moved by this ‘jinnee’ he had a way to measure it, to make sure it wasn’t in his mind. In a way, he was preparing himself for the night. Whether the jinnee had gone away or not, he would find out.
He didn’t believe the archaeologists would come back to the dig. He left their tools and the tent at the lorry driver’s house. He also sent a letter, while he was in Rawa, to his friend in Baghdad to pass the message on to them. He wished they would come back, he wanted to know more about this.
He prepared his lunch late in the afternoon and sat outside eating while the sun dipped behind the horizon. The golden reflection against the dunes painted a picture that would soothe any troubled soul, his in particular. The stars started coming out of their daily hibernation, without care for jinnees or their burial grounds. He wished then the elusive guest would come; he wanted to counter him with this new evidence of jinnees. Sam felt sure he would be ready with an answer, or a lie, as he always did.
He remained seated outside well into the evening. It was a beautiful evening, cool, quiet and with no wind to stir the sand or dirt or anything else. These were not, however, the ingredients of circumstances when the elusive guest usually turned up.
Sam went to bed early that night; he hadn’t had enough sleep the night before. He slept blissfully, apparently by the comfort instilled in his mind by the Sheikh. He was amused how, even when he didn’t believe it, the Sheikh’s cleansing had this comforting effect upon him.
Sometimes in the night, he didn’t know when, he woke up in a jump. He had this feeling he was being watched, up close. It was too dark to see, so he switched his torch and what he saw almost gave him a heart attack. It was the elusive guest, standing beside his bed staring at him. Sam screamed in horror at the sight of the elusive guest, with a deluge of insults and expletives.
‘What the hell? you gave me such a scare. Did you have to do this? How did you get in?’ screamed Sam.
‘Sorry I gave you a scare. The door was open, and I didn’t think anybody was in,’ said the elusive guest.
As before, the elusive guest was ready with a convincing answer, or a lie. Sam was sure he closed the door before he retired to bed. But he could be wrong.
Sam dragged himself out of the bed to the living room, followed by his unannounced, and invited, guest. Sam yawned while asking,
‘Coffee or tea. No, I know it is coffee.’
The guest sat on the sofa while Sam made the coffee.
‘So, what have I done to deserve the pleasure of this visit?’ asked Sam with some sarcasm.
‘I promised to visit you again, didn’t I?’ answered the guest, and continued, ‘you said you might have other questi
ons to ask,’ continued the guest.
‘Yes,’ said Sam, sipping his coffee.
‘Well, here I am. Shoot!’ said the guest.
‘I take it you are aware of the business of a jinnee scaring the archaeologists at their dig,’ said Sam, looking intently at the guest.
‘Of course, and it is not a jinnee.’
‘What was it then?’ asked Sam.
‘You won’t understand.’
‘Try me, you’ll be surprised,’ answered Sam confidently, and in a way waiting to hear another explanation or a lie by this prolific liar.
‘Did you believe what the Sheikh said? I can feel it in your mind, you didn’t,’ said the guest.
‘Frankly, more than what you explained. His was easier to understand than your explanation. Showing yourself at night, and giving these fantastical theories about your phenomenon,’ said Sam.
‘A jinnee who breeds and has a family. Give me a break,’ said the guest.
Sam felt speechless, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t defend something he didn’t believe in.
‘Do you know about the poltergeist in my house, a couple of nights ago?’ Sam asked.
The guest smiled.
‘It wasn’t a poltergeist,’ answered the guest, and continued, ’it’s what your mind explains it as such. Didn’t your Simulation Hypothesis explain it as a glitch in the program?’ The guest answered a question with another.
‘What could it be then?’ asked Sam.
‘Again, you wouldn’t understand,’ came the answer.
‘Frankly, you are giving me but to confuse me more. I was more, much clearer before I met you. I don’t know even if you are real. You know what, I wanted to invite my cousin to meet with you, but I knew you wouldn’t come, and I would be taken as a mad man,’ answered Sam.
‘What makes you think I won’t come? Invite your cousin without telling him about me. If I didn’t turn up, you lose nothing,’ answered the guest.
It made sense to Sam, but the elusive guest had his ways of getting him in trouble. No, he would not invite Salam.
As usual, the guest was uninformative. His answers were vague, adding to Sam’s insecurity of mind.
‘I forgot to tell you. There was an agent from the security police looking for you,’ said Sam.
‘Was his name Basil?’ said the guest with a smile.
‘Yes, I take it you know him,’ said Sam.
‘I know him. He’s one of us,’ said the guest.
‘He knew you. He had a printout of your picture. He wanted to wait for you here in this house,’ said Sam.
‘What did you tell him? Did you mention anything about UFOs?’ asked the guest.
‘No, I didn’t want to look stupid. But tell me, why was he tracking you? He was asking in Rawa about you, then made the trip here,’ said Sam.
‘I’m a rebel in the eyes of my people, so to speak. Haven’t I been open about our world? They wouldn’t be this open,’ said the guest.
‘So, you’re saying because you gave me all the information about your world, they were unhappy with you and were trying to arrest you,’ said Sam.
‘You’re right about the first part, but not the arrest part. We don’t arrest in our world,’ said the guest.
‘Is Basil affiliated with the security department in Baghdad?’ asked Sam.
‘Yes. We placed him there,’ answered the guest.
‘Does this mean you have infiltrated all government departments?’ asked Sam.
‘Not only in your country but everywhere,’ answered the guest in a relaxed way.
‘What shall I tell Basil when he comes again looking for you?’ asked Sam.
‘Tell him the truth, that I came,’ answered the guest.
‘Are you saying you are controlling us, humans?’ asked Sam.
‘We are not controlling you but saving you from your own malice. You are a dangerous species.’
‘Where are you going to, now? I mean after this,’ asked Sam.
‘Nowhere in particular,’ answered the guest.
‘Please, don’t misunderstand me, but I don’t want you to visit me again. I don’t really know you, and not sure you are who you say you are. Obviously, you don’t need my help and you have your own agenda for meeting me. You could be a fugitive and the security police are looking for you. I don’t want to be involved, please understand me,’ said Sam.
To his surprise, the guest was not offended.
‘I’m afraid you can’t get rid of me. I’m already in your mind, and that cannot be extracted,’ said the guest.
‘That’s my problem and I need to work on it like I’m working on the other troubling issues circulating in my tired brain,’ said Sam.
Without further comments, the guest stood up abruptly and left without saying goodbye. Hopefully, that was the last of him, Sam thought.
All Theories Failed
After the elusive guest left, Sam stayed in the living room, drinking coffee, and contemplating what had transpired. He couldn’t go back to sleep. His brain was completely messed up, as all the theories he learnt crumbled, and failed miserably in one field or another.
The Simulation Hypothesis could not account for the elusive guest, with his story about UFOs and the UFO base. The jinnee had much more pronounced effects than a mere glitch in the simulation program. He wanted to face Salam with these extraordinary new findings, to see how he could argue them out. He was sure, though, Salam would be ready with convenient answers.
What if the elusive guest was a guard dog in the simulation program? It was there to discourage and confuse potential finders of the simulation paradigm. The guard dog is a concept used in real-time programs of mission-critical applications. When the program crashes, for whatever reason, the guard dog detects this and issues a restart to the program. There is a clock in the program that the program sets to pre-configured values at regular intervals, and then, the clock starts counting down. If the program crashes, the clock reaches zero since the program could no longer top it up. When the clock reaches zero, a reset instruction is issued to the system to restart, and hence resume normal operation. Without the guard dog, the program remains in its crashed state, upsetting the mission-critical application.
If a human edges towards finding the truth about simulation, such a guard dog, in the form of the elusive guest, is sent to sway them away from this. Wasn’t this possible? Sam was getting close, or so he thought, to discovering the truth about the Simulation Hypothesis, and this elusive guest popped out of nowhere to divert his mind away from it.
Sam, however, in his latest state of mind, had disbanded any belief in simulation. Reality is much more obscure than what is implied in the Simulation Hypothesis. Wasn’t that what the elusive guest wanted? It guarded the program against humans, like Sam.
This thought was too complicated for Sam’s brain at that time of night, to envisage a scenario to support or disband these new revelations.
What a nuisance the elusive visitor had been, turning up in the darkness, standing by the bed and staring with open eyes at Sam jolting him into consciousness from his sleep. A heart attack was the least expected. Did the elusive guest have no morals? To sneak up on unsuspecting people, to give them the scare of their lives.
Sam lay on the sofa, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. It was time he thought, to give Salam an unannounced visit, to gauge his reaction. But he didn’t dare. Try to explain to anyone with a decent education that you saw a UFO base up close and experienced a jinnee in action. They would write him off as having gone over the edge. He would be the laughingstock of the whole community, to his shame and his family’s.
Even the Sheikh from Rawa, while he could understand and deal with the jinnee, he wouldn’t understand this conjecture of seeing UFOs or visiting a UFO base. This is why Sam never disclosed this to the Sheikh.
Where does it all end? Spacetime does not include predictions of UFOs or jinnees. Einstein even became squeamish at the thought of sub-particles rea
cting to measurement, or detection by a conscious entity. To talk about UFOs and jinnees is a medieval kind of talk for him and most scientists, too.
All theories were failing one after the other. Humans still lack knowledge about objective reality. Sam’s mental capacity was way behind specialist scientists, and he could not come up with his own alternative theory. He reached a dead end.
He slowly dozed off while he lay on the sofa, and his short dreams were scary, not nightmares, but visions of monstrous creatures. They talked to him, joked about him, laughed at him, and told him he was a complete failure. When he woke up, it was as though he never slept. He had puffy eyes, felt disorientated, and couldn’t focus. He staggered as he left the sofa, and not even the beautiful day outside could bring serenity to his soul.
The first thing to check was the marks on the floor for the chairs and that table. Indeed, there was a slight displacement, but couldn’t be sure if it was him or the elusive guest. Maybe the jinnee and the hated elusive guest had gone out of his life and his house. It would be such a relief.
He prepared breakfast and had it on the patio. It was completely quiet, no breeze, no sound, as though nature had stood still. The desert plain showed no interest in his state of mind or the happenings of the last few days. No doubt, it has been like this over the millennia and will continue for as long as Earth continues to exist.
Was this a savanna ten thousand years ago? Science says it was, with tropical growth and animals roaming the jungles. There were freshwater lakes, hundreds of kilometres wide, with an abundance of fish and other marine life. Didn’t he find a shell of a sea creature recently, and send it to Dr Khalifa for dating? Paintings and imprints on the walls of caves by early humans in this desert suggested so, too.
Then the whole area, in a band extending over current day Saudi Arabia and North Africa, turned into a desert. The rain stopped falling, and the animals and humans moved on.
Science says this was due to the pendulum oscillation of the axis of rotation of Earth. It oscillated between 22 degrees and 25 degrees every twenty thousand years or so. This has a pronounced influence on the weather. It moved Earth between ice ages and made deserts and savannas on the planet. This oscillation has been going for millions of years, and this area went from desert to jungle then to desert repeatedly.