Some years ago, obviously before 11 September, in a respite during my travels I had a most strange experience. Most of the time I wrote down everything and so now I will share with you, those days where perhaps I was not quite in this world…

It will be in the form of a diary, that is how I wrote it, and even if I want to share it with you I do not have much patience to edit the all thing.

Hope you may enjoy it.

Today if it possible I feel worse, my throat is worse.

Dinner as always was broad beans soap with a piece of badly cooked bread, obviously I am not in a hotel, and in fact I am in a prison of the emigration department in Sanna Yemen.

My companions are from African countries and some from Arab, I am the only western.

Although I may add that I’m perfectly integrated, in all arguments I give my contribution, never missing an occasion to be as much quarrelsome as my companions. It is the only form of distraction that we have.

I’m totally mixed up with them, and when I am very bored I nominate another emir, who I invariably advice that he must be hard, and severe so to rule a mob of 44 Muslims in such a restricted area.

It is now going to ten years since I became a Muslim. Tired of Europe I decided to travel for a while, and somehow I came to Yemen.

For a while my live was quite lively, because it was quite cheap, I rented a palace in the old town and regularly had at least 10 guests at my dinner table. I hate to eat alone.

Certainly I might have caused the secret police to take notice of me, although I am quite innocent, never passed my mind to put a bomb anywhere and much less in Yemen, where I was enjoying so much.

So some months ago they came to arrest me, I had to endure the most obnoxious interrogations, not that they torture me, but what a bore, one day accused of been a terrorist the other a spy!

They where not bad, individually they all agreed that it was an injustice to treat a person like this, without any evidence whatsoever, one even took me to a restaurant, I paid…

Imagine, I’m a dangerous man for the security of the state, forbidden to communicate with my embassy, and then I go for a walk with only my interrogator and another guard, and everything I say is apparently believed, not even a phone call to Europe, poor chaps if I was really a spy or terrorist in Yemen live would be easy!

After about a month in the hands of the secret police I was given to the emigration police with order of expulsion. My Yemen friends and I have many, (10 guests a night) are making what is necessary to liberate me, canceling the expulsion order that I have pending like the sword of the Greek Damos-something over my head.

But perhaps this sword is not so bad; I start to desire other countries…

It is three o’clock in the night, soon I will sleep, I wait sleep like a missing friend, for some hours it will release me!

The first moment, I think I’m in a zoo, where else is possible to listen to the sound of elephants… but not so, I am not in a zoo and much less in jail! Even if men are sleeping around me but they sleep around fires, and they are many, and fires are everywhere, for hundreds of meters the surface of this earth is covered by men, most of them asleep even if some are sitting around the fires, and then horses, and not even 200 meters from where I am, there are unmistakably elephants.

I think I am dreaming and so I look at my watch, and it half past four, which means that at any moment I will be awaked up with the call for prayer coming from all the mosques in Sana’a.

Standing up I realize that if I had gone to sleep on a mattress, now the mattress is gone and there is only a rather harsh blanket, the missing mattress explains the aches I have all over my body?

Walking around, making sure were I put my feet, due to so many sleeping men, I realize that I am in a most vivid dream, the sensations are so strong, and with the first light of the day, I realize this is not a normal dream, the colours are not dream colours, and the call for prayer did not come.

I listen again to the elephants, deciding to have a look at them, I walk in that direction, a man calls me and offers me a clay cup, with a strong coffee, nothing special, just a normal Yemeni coffee, but what a pleasure, since I am in jail I drink only tea. I ask, “Thank you brother, what is happening?”

“We start today, foreign, finally we move”

“Move, where are you going?” I   asked.

“You must be the only man who does not know, we are going to conquer Mecca and destroy the infidels.”

If the man had told me he was a creature from outer space I would not be more surprised, for a moment I decided that perhaps I did not understood him, my Arab is not perfect, but no the meaning was clear, he use simple words which could not have another meaning!

I leave him, without another look, leaving also the light of the fire, but it does not make much difference, the sun is rising, and until now I did not see any one praying.

Finally I arrive at the elephants, they are many, and how they came to Yemen is a wonder for which I don’t have answers. And I don’t have sufficient knowledge to say if it is African or Asian elephant.

Finally I saw a container of water I suppose for the animals to drink; quickly I make my ritual ablutions and checking the direction by the first light of the sun, pray.

Around me the human movement increases, and when I finish praying and stand up I understood I’m in a military camp, and for what I know of military matters they are rather a discipline and hard working, the camels are being loaded with bags which the men had made ready the day before. I realize that at most in a few hours all this people will be on the road.

Walking, I see men working all over the place, carrying, packing the last tends, perhaps used by the officers, and I notice that the people giving orders are darker skin then the working folk. Africans, but not really Africans, perhaps Abyssinians.

If I remember well this country was once ruled by Abyssinians, That was about the time when the prophet of Islam was born. I stop and seen a box I sit down… where my brain is taking me disturbing to put it mildly… Concentrating, I remember that in the year of Mohammed birth the Yemenis attacked Mecca, with elephants… and they were massacred nearly up to the last man. This is not a dream it is a nightmare. But why I do not wakeup?

Men passing by look at me, but say nothing, perhaps because of my cloths, which are different, but if they are curious so am I. I need to know who is the leader of this army, standing and walking up to a young man, nicely dressed, and after the usual greetings, I ask who is our leader, and am informed that the commander is no less than the sovereign, Abraha Ashram.

I went back to my box, but it was gone, maybe it was loaded, in some camel. So I walked again and not caring where I was going, somehow I was in another dimension, or my dream was the most fantastic dream I ever had. For a moment I missed my cell, and fear, overtook me, I was far away from my 21^st century, and somehow connected to a military expedition which I knew it would be a complete disaster.

But even if I knew how to go back to my time, I would not have returned, and I just which if this was a dream not to cease quickly… I could remain in Sana’a betaking myself from Abraha army, but was I not feed up of Yemen, and Sana’a of the 6^th century, and Sana’a of 21^st what was different after a few days I would realize that there was no difference!     

What a opportunity, to see with my eyes Mecca, the Quareshi, perhaps even see with my eyes the prophet!

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