THE THIEF OF YESTERDAY

A long time ago, but not so far to walk. The celebrated city at the foot of the Atlas Mountains dripped with smoke and oil from the tip of a Master’s paintbrush, slathered in fresh-blood red, cornflower blue, dazzling white, and diagonal slashes of fiery orange cast off from the setting sun. The heat was making me sleepy.
Tomorrow I would make my way north to Casablanca by way of Safi, but this evening I wandered aimlessly along the dusty streets of Place du 16 Novembre, beneath rows of intricately carved archways flanked by shimmering fountains. I navigated my way by the soft spheres of lantern light that illuminated the plaza like soft, small stars sleeping in the arms of the darkening sky. The sharp smell of kerosene and incense was everywhere.
As I stopped to gaze at the details of an archway, a stranger approached me quite suddenly from the shadows, grasping my arm with forceful desperation. One minute, I was alone with my thoughts; the next, I was being dragged through the streets by a strange man babbling excitedly in a mix of Arabic and French.
\"You are American!\" he exclaimed in English when I voiced my protest. I fought down the urge to brush him aside and pat my pockets for my wallet and passport. Everyone is polite in Morocco, even to their sworn enemies. Nothing can happen without politeness; if you have a problem and you lose your temper, you give up any hope of solving it. A careful combination of courtesy, patience, and persistence is the best approach. I was in no danger, so I followed him.
He cut blindly through a chaotic market crammed with a hundred thousand curious things, ignoring the people conducting business in our path and clutching blindly at those he collided with. It was as if he could not see them, but he glanced at me with a reassuring smile and hurried on.
We passed a giant fountain that grew from the dust like a strange and ancient flower, its blossoms feeding on the shadows cast by unmanned parapets before entering a café, where he bade me to join him. What the hell? I was hungry, so I sat down at a small circular table.
When he ignored the waiter, I grudgingly ordered a carafe of fresh coffee, figuring this was part of some con to place the responsibility of the check on me.
His face was gaunt, and bristling with stubble. \"I am so glad I found you, my friend,\" he said in an anxious whisper, dabbing at his neck and forehead with a bright silk handkerchief before stuffing it into the breast pocket of a worn and tattered suit. The sheen of perspiration renewed itself immediately. \"It has been a nightmare!\"
His eyes were wide. \"I thought perhaps I was the only one! Perhaps I was dead! There are no words for the fear I felt,\" he moaned, and clasped at my hands again in a show of gratitude. \"We will be fast friends through this terrible tragedy, and share the burden of our curse together!\" He was practically in my lap at this point.
\"What the hell are you talking about?\" I asked with a friendly laugh. Placing a firm hand on his shoulder, I gradually pressed him back and reclaimed my envelope of personal space. I didn’t want to upset the poor guy, but I was getting a weird vibe.
\"Listen,\" I told him, \"if I’m gonna buy you coffee, which, I’m guessing is the reason you led me here in the first place, the least you can do is drop the bullshit, right?\" I showed him a wide, friendly grin as if to say \"no harm done\".
This brought out a wild, nervous laugh from him, and I continued to gesture with open palms, hoping to egg him into dropping the charade. My hands flapped awkwardly in the air between us; I couldn’t remember if pointing with my fingers was a social faux pas here. Better safe than rude.
\"Yes! Of course! No bullshit!\" he cried with elated merriment, as though this was the first laugh he’d had in a week. He threw back his head and rewarded himself with an even louder laugh, displaying a mouth of jagged yellow teeth.
\"So we understand each other, right? I see through your act, but I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, anyway; in return, you get to leave me alone. Deal?\" He nodded, whipped out the handkerchief again, and mopped his shiny brow as I set about filling our cups with coffee from a tall, delicate pitcher that had appeared. I don’t think he was listening to me.
He looked at his cup longingly, but made no move toward it. As I sipped my oily black, I caught the face of a couple in the corner whispering behind their hands, and pointing at me. Slowly, I returned the cup to its saucer with a distinct click. \"...the hell’s going on here?\" I murmured aloud.
\"Surely you understand,\" he began hesitantly. \"You see me and I see you,\" he pointed first to his chest, and then to mine. \"I see no one else but you in this room.\"
He leaned closer, waving his hands near me as if to confirm that I was real, and clutched my hands a third time. My fingers were turning white.
\"Listen to me carefully, my friend,\" he said with a trembling voice, \"someone has stolen... today... from me, and trapped me here... alone... in tomorrow.\"
A silence gnawed the air between us, and forcefully I threw away his grasp. Now it was my turn for nervous laughter. \"Hey, that’s a great fuckin’ story, man! You almost had me there!\" I took another sip of my coffee, and thought about escape. My generosity had turned tail, and the vibe in the room was getting dark.
\"It is no lie--\"
\"Oh, come on!\" I interjected. \"I’m supposed to believe this shit? I can see you sittin’ here plain as daylight, and so can everyone else.\" I gestured around. \"I’ll pay for the coffee, but I’m leaving. Fuck this.\"
\"You have the look of one who knows!\" he insisted. His voice rose suddenly, and he moved to grasp my hands a fourth time, but I pulled away violently.
\"Come, my friend!\" he spat, his eyes alight with fire. \"Look around! Hmmm? They see you sharing coffee with no one! You are alone at this table today, and I am alone in this world tomorrow!\"
\"Okay, joke’s over, asshole. I’m leaving,\" and I stood up indignantly. \"I’m sorry, but you’re late for your meds.\" I tossed a handful of dirham on the table to cover the coffee. \"Hope it all works out in your dimension, pal. Thanks for the story.\"
As I left, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was still seated. His expression was plaintive, and his shoulders were slumped, but he made no move to follow. I took a few rights and lefts on the way to the hotel just in case.
Returning to my room, I lay down for a nap, planning to do some late night stargazing in an open courtyard nearby. My watch read a quarter to eight. When I opened my eyes again a few minutes later, the hands read 7:30.
\"Must have looked at it wrong,\" I thought, and opened the door to the patio. The sun had not yet set, and in fact the longer I stood there, the higher and faster it rose. Did I oversleep? Shit! I grabbed a light jacket and headed to the lobby, hoping to reschedule my trip.
I pounded the bell at the front desk for almost ten minutes, but no one came. The phone lines were dead, and the lobby was vacant. I felt apprehension rising in my chest, and I tried to convince myself that I just was being silly. There must be an explanation for this.
I walked outside, and stopped short in the silence of a ghost town. There wasn’t a soul to be seen. What the hell was going on here? The sun was climbing higher and faster now, and the only sound was the rapid hiss of palm trees whispering aloud the lost truths of a thousand years. At my feet, the compass of shadows swung faster to the east like the last accusations of a dying man, urging me toward the culprit.
I followed, moving from stall to stall and hammering on each one with a fist. \"Hey! Open up in there! Where the hell is everybody?!?\" The brightly colored awnings of the market were rolled away like sticks of dusty peppermint. There was no smell in the air, and the clouds raced overhead.
I ran headlong through an endlessly repeating pattern of key-shaped archways toward a vanishing point of light that spilled out onto the center of Avenue De Le Menara, the knife-edge of shadows pointing faster all the time. In the distance, a lonely figure disappeared around a bend. My feet barely touched the ground now, my steps stirring the dust in twisting plumes as I ran, and I was sick with the knowledge of what I would find.
When I skidded around the corner, the man from the café turned to me, his remorseful face unfolding into a grateful smile. \"I am glad you are here, my friend,\" he said with a sigh, lifting his arms open to embrace me like a long-lost brother in the ancient shade of blue gardens.
It was a long time ago, and not at all.