magic realism

Deep in the deserts, a wind rose up and with it, a thousand djinn stirred from their sandy sleep. Cyclones of fine sand lifted into the air and dressed themselves in Egyptian cotton and the coarse wool of goats and sheep raised on the edges of the wilderness. Their bodies were wrapped in robes, their heads covered in turbans, their faces obscured by scarves held across nose and mouth so that only dark black eyes looked out. The wind whipped around them, and then blew northward taking the djinn with it.
 
 
 
It was about midnight in Petach Tikvah when the sound of the laundry room door banging open and shut woke me from my sleep. I'd been having a strange sort of nightmare, and was glad to realize that it had only been a dream. I lay in bed for a few minutes, hoping that the wind would die down a little and the laundry door would go quiet. I knew better, though. If I didn't get up and close the door solidly it would keep slamming, and I'd have to listen to my downstairs neighbor complaining again about how rude I am when they are trying to sleep.

Some people think that stories like the one I'm going to tell you only happened some time in the way distant past, somewhere a long, long time ago and far, far away. But that's not true at all. The gods are still around, and they still interact with people today, and there are many, many interesting stories happening everyday right under your very nose. This is one of those stories. Not that this happened under your nose, of course. But it did happen right under mine. Just last week, in fact.

The girl sat by the window watching the rain pour down onto the streets below. The headlights of the cars echoed on thin pools across the road and the sidewalk. Her tears made each light and reflection look like a twinkling star. She held her right fist against her heart as if that could make it stop hurting so much. She wondered if this is what it felt like to have a heart attack. The tightness tore at her and made it difficult to breathe.