New Rockets for Old!

Translated From the Arabo-Perso-Turkic Collection of Fantasy Stories, Alf Layla Wallahi By Sir Richard Wannabe Bottom-Pincher, on his secret tour of Mecca, wherein he disguised himself as a Circassian axe-thrower, and managed to get on the VIP list for the Hajj, and uses that to pick up all the smarmy British women at hostels in all four corners.

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate, the Compassionizer, the Compassionzee!

Verily verily, the works and words of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may peruse the annals of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and may thereby, you know, betide themselves with good betidings and all that that entails. Praise, therefore, be to Him who hath made the histories of the past an admonition unto the present! Now of such instances is a tale called "New Rockets for Old!" together with its far-famed legends and wonders.

But first, a frame tale, y'all:

In the city of Baghdad (pre- "Shock and Awe"), a man named Jabbar the Juggler once owed a pitcher of Date Wine to a one-eyed man with a chic beard and cloak ensemble. This man had purchased a pitcher for Jabbar the night before, as the sand-people tell it. Well, as it happens, this night, Ras as-Sanah al-Hijriyah, the night of Hijri new year, Jabbar had had no luck with his “monkey and yak-testicle” routine, and so was strapped for coin.

“Alas the day of my birth! Know, oh stranger, that this miserable tribesman of the Banu-Sasan cannot afford to pay you, in wine or dates or the fine olives of the Seven Snake Valley. I forfeit to you now my head, and rely solely on your mercy not to make with the choppy-choppy.”

The stranger merely smiled – for he was no ordinary vagabond, but the royal Abbasid princeling, potentate, and general fuck-up Haroun Al-Rashid.

“Oh stranger, do you not realize that this is the very position in which I had hoped to find you? For now I may demand, instead of your head, a rip-roaring good story, of which a man in your station must know many a good’un.”

“Indeed, Oh weird dude, I knoweth my fair amount. But allow me to kick us out of this annoying frame tale with this apolitical and inapplicable story, entitled:"

New Rockets for Old!

Once, in Gaza, land of Ibrahim and the Philistines, there lived two brothers, lovers of peace, an elder, and a younger. This elder brother was also a lover of the sea, and left in his youth for far distant lands in order to trade the delicious screaming pickle pears of his homeland for the doubtful but fashionable hat and glove combinations of the Occident. The younger, a lover of books, Aristotle, and husbandry, remained at home and tended to the family lands with all the due diligence and sweat that comes with whipping a century of slaves.

One day the elder brother returned from his travels. The younger brother fell to his knees and said, “by Allah, my father’s own son, my grandfather’s own grandson, my aunt’s nephew, my poodle's favourite masseuse, my very eldest of an elder brother is returned from the West!” and crying the tears of the powdered Chinaman, he embraced his brother and welcomed him to the family plot.

The very next day the brothers divided their lands according to the law of the land, namely one beardless ape-goat per square Jihad-sector, and thereby lived by the land of the law. But the very very next day, while the younger brother, whose name was Abu Dammit, was out purchasing a new foot-stool (whose name was Bilal the Comfortable), the elder brother, whose name was Ben Gonzalez, told his men to casually waltz over to the screaming pickle pear orchards of his brother, and, you know, to occupy them, the name for which move was a bitch.

On returning, Abu Dammit was very upset to see his lands had been agrope-priated. Furiously he harangued his brother:

“D’ouble-you-tee-eff! Is this how a brother, brother of his brother, treats his brother? Stealing his lands and his screaming pickle pears?”

“Brother of your brother!” said Ben Gonzalez, “I am a man of peace, as you are! Well, in the West, they teach that peace is unity, unity is safety, and safety is a pin that holds the bullets back from the head of prying siblings.” And saying this, he saw his brother to the door with a friendly gesture and an uzi.

Abu Dammit was less than convinced, but more than pissed. Tearing his hair, he made his way into the desert, where he found a genie, son of fire, demon of the sandy whirlwind whose mighty capacity for fury and mischief knows no bounds in heaven, earth, or sea, casually lounging, like you do, by an oasis.

“Son of Adam!” the Genie bellowed, “willst a pint? Verily, thou seemst as thou couldst useth one. Why doth look so down, al-chumly?”

“Alack and alas, by Allah and all that! Can you imagine a man is betrayed by his own brother? And what’s worse, a lover of peace like me. But this newfangled western peace is something I do not understand. If only I had an uzi like my brother!”

“Uzi!?” laughed the Genie, “why, man, take thee a rocket! With this wonderful machine, thou canst negotiate peace with thy brother from two cities away!”

The very very very next day, Abu Dammit began negotiations with his brother by firing his prized rocket at Ben Gonzalez’s orchards.

That same hour, Ben Gonzalez replied with a peace offering aimed squarely at the King Goat of Abu Dammit's flock. He then summoned his magic messenger pigeon, and told him to proclaim to all the animals, men, and Djinn of the land:

“See how a brother loves his brother! Peace be upon him. #Shalom”

With the next rocket, Abu Dammit replied to the magic pigeon:

“See how a brother sends a gift! #Salaam”

And so again:

“My brother sends me an old rocket as a gift – I send him a new one! #KaBoom”

And so once more:

“Peace be upon him! And this. #TheBestPillarOfDefenseIsAGoodPillarOfOffense”

And lastly:

“Enjoying the lovely music coming from your warning sirens! #FallOutFriday”

And so, after much exchanging of love, gifts, negotiations, and genie supplied peace offerings, the Western style peace finally settled upon the brothers of Gaza. Extended peace is said to be the happiest of human states - and such a stable and uncompromising one was Allah's blessing upon these two siblings! Think how much they will come to profit from the posturing of each other, how many friends and enemies they will enlist, how much sponsorship and funding they can purloin, how joyful the sweet game of power can be played with the cheaply carved pieces of tenant farmers and naive locals. A wellspring of hope, this perpetual peace between two loving and democratic brothers! A filial lesson for all of humanity.

“But, as this peace raged, it happened that one of Ben Gonzalez’s camels was engaged in a fierce debate with one of the goats of Abu Dammit. They had, from a debate about the Aristotelian categories as presented by Averroes, fallen into a quandary about which of the two species had the longest and most pleasing member. The story of this debate goes something like this…"

The Tale of the Master Debater...