The Last Muezzin

And my world is a grid of sandstone columns, one meter apart. By this fearful symmetry, I can calculate the surface of the universe: sixty-five thousand, five hundred, and thirty-six square meters. Beyond, the sere breeze of the wild blue. In the middle, the last minaret, where I read the Quran in peace. And from it, I can see how the corners are discolored, though each pillar seems of a piece with its neighbors.

And I am the warden of these last men, these ashamed beasts who refused Heaven. I will never know their nameless faces. I imagine them crying out as their skin wears away. Maybe each day they feel a murder of crows pecking. Or they feel each day that they are less, with the memory of being more. Maybe it is not painful. As the long clock reckons, I call out the prayer to the faithful. None come.

And on that forgotten day when I became the caretaker of this graveyard, I calculated its decay to know the length of my durance. At every count, I weary and perhaps forget; yet I have at last finished. So I say with certainty that if I read but one verse of the holy book each day, before the end I will have read it more times than all the faithful have ever read scripture.

And did not Allah intend different messages for those different readers? So I have begun a new game—each time I read the Book, I make myself another. At the end, I will finally understand.