"Now come on, it's getting late" he said looking up at the churning bronze sky. 

"There is a sandstorm coming let us go back down to your mother"

"Papapapa" his children cried out in unison.  "Tell us again tell us againabout the woman with the golden hair, and the dark haired muse"

They so loved a good story, his children true souls of the desert that they were.  But before he could pacify them --

"Ali!!  Ali!!!!", came his wife's voice from the floor below.  "I have dinner on the tablebring the children down"

"All right little ones, you heard your mother.  Enough now I have told you enough the next chapter is still to be re-written Let's get you inside" Ali told his young audience.  "Maybe another day, we continue"

He never tired telling his children the story of the women from the West.  Of the sandstorm that swept in and covered this, their battered City.  They would sit up here on the roof of their home on hot, sultry summer evenings, and as he beat on his worn carpets to shake them free from the day's dust and sand, Ali would spin his children tales of light, joy, and beauty.  Of love, and adventure, and passion, and grief.  Sometimes, he would stir the leaves, and brew them a different version.  A tale of fear, and triumph, and sadness, and chaos.  Of truth and deception.  Friendship and despair.  It was a time when nothing was as it seemed.  Friend turned against friend.  Enemies became comrades.  There was liberation in pain.  And lies became gospel.  But at all times, love broke through barriers and miracles held true.

Then, he would stir the leaves again, and brew another version.  Because always -always - in the desert, there are as many stories as the shifting grains of sand.  And when the winds blow, it sweeps away the broken hearts and shattered hopes, to leave a fresh morning on which to write again.  Again.  There are no scars in the morning.  A blank page. 

A blank page.  There are no scars

Maktoob.  And so it is written.

In sand.

The end. -----------------------