Tag: Borges

The Palimpsest Engine

The old man, who preferred the anonymity of shadows, sat at the head of the polished mahogany table. His eyes, still sharp beneath the cataract veil of age, studied the young man across from him, a temporal archaeologist by reputation, a skeptic by demeanor. In the room, the air was thick with the must of forgotten things, the scent of pages long unread, of dust clinging to artifacts whose provenance had been obscured.

“I will pay you well, of course,” the old man said, his voice like gravel dragged across a floor. “But you must understand, this is not the usual excavation. This is… different. The Palimpsest Engine is not a device, but a process—an invisible hand that alters the threads of time itself.”

The young man, whose name was Hector, nodded slowly. He had heard of the Engine, of course. Who hadn’t? In the underworld of time, where historians and philosophers of a certain stripe operated with as much devotion to preservation as criminals did to their craft, the Palimpsest Engine was infamous. It rewrote history in real-time within a localized zone, rewriting the past as though the present had always been its foundation. Entire cities could be erased and reborn with alternate histories. Buildings might gain or lose facades, people would emerge from the present with past lives they never lived, and objects would change their provenance and disappearances. All this was done quietly, without the perceptible intervention of any human hand.

It was the perfect crime, if crime was the right word, for it left no trace of its own doing. Only the perceptive, the learned in the ways of temporal archaeology, could discern the faint outlines of the original, the ghostly traces of the past that fought to return, even as the rewritten world tried to bury them.

“The Engine,” Hector ventured, his voice betraying no hint of doubt, “replaces reality. People, places, events—they all become like pages in a book that’s been rewritten too many times, their true meaning obfuscated.”

“Precisely,” the old man said, his lips curling into a slow, deliberate smile. “But some of us, Hector, are not content to let these layers of history disappear. Some of us wish to reclaim what has been lost.”

He leaned forward, his gnarled fingers resting on a map, an anachronistic thing of parchment and ink, despite the holographic projections that hovered around them. It showed the city of Portivo, a sprawling metropolis of the south, its tangled streets and crumbling buildings juxtaposed with images of a time long past—before the Palimpsest Engine had passed over it, rewriting it in its insidious fashion.

“I wish you to go there,” the old man continued. “I need you to unearth what was once Portivo, before it became this travesty of what it is now. It is said that the engine began its work fifty years ago, but no one can trace its origins. The people who lived through the transformation have all but forgotten the true Portivo. Their memories have been overwritten, replaced by a new timeline that feels more real than the one that preceded it.”

Hector’s brow furrowed. “And what am I supposed to find? A city that no longer exists, its past erased?”

“Not erased,” the old man corrected. “It is hidden, buried beneath the new surface. You, Hector, will uncover it. The Engine leaves traces, subtle ones. Small inconsistencies in the architecture, a slight change in the position of a statue, a word here or there that doesn’t quite fit. You must be the one to follow those traces and stitch the timeline back together, before it’s lost forever.”

Hector’s thoughts flickered to the many tales he had heard in the underworld, of rival archaeologists who sought to manipulate timelines for profit, of black markets where temporal relics—documents, photographs, even people—were bought and sold. And yet, the old man’s proposition was different. He was not simply interested in preserving history for the sake of nostalgia or financial gain; no, he seemed obsessed with something deeper, something more personal.

“And what of the people who live there now?” Hector asked. “The ones who’ve become part of this altered reality? How will they react when they learn the truth?”

“They won’t know,” the old man said coldly. “They will never know. The Engine has rewritten them, too. The ones who were there before have vanished. They are like ghosts, leaving no trace but their memories, which are nothing but echoes.”

Hector studied him carefully, sensing the urgency behind the old man’s words. There was something more to this mission, something that ran deeper than mere curiosity about the past. It was as though the old man’s very identity had been entangled with the changing timelines, as though his own past had been rewritten, and now he sought to reassert control over it.

“You think that by restoring the original timeline, you can restore something of yourself?” Hector asked, his voice soft but sharp.

The old man smiled again, but this time it seemed hollow. “Perhaps,” he said, his voice carrying a tremor that spoke of long-buried regret. “Perhaps I will find the version of myself that never ceased to exist. Or perhaps I will find nothing at all.”

Hector rose from the table, the weight of the task ahead settling like a stone in his stomach. He knew the price of meddling with time, the dangers that lay in tampering with history, even in the quietest of ways. But something in the old man’s eyes told him that this was not merely a contract for gold or glory—it was a quest for redemption, however misguided.

“How will I know when I’ve found it?” Hector asked.

“You will know,” the old man replied. “For the city will begin to resist you. The traces of the past will become clearer, like faces emerging from fog. And when the city begins to fight you, when the walls start to reject you, that is when you will know you are on the right path.”

And so Hector departed, his mind heavy with the burden of a task that could very well unravel the delicate fabric of reality itself. Behind him, the old man remained in his chair, staring into the dim corners of the room, as if waiting for the past to call him home.

<>

Hector returned to his small apartment overlooking the river, its wide, dark waters flowing with an indifference that mirrored the steady currents of time itself. The space was cluttered with maps, chronometers, and strange instruments of his trade: devices designed to detect temporal inconsistencies, faint echoes of erased histories. He moved through the room methodically, gathering what he would need for the journey—calibrating his devices, consulting old texts, and charting a route to Portivo.

The job felt heavy in his mind, not for its complexity but for the faint unease that had crept into the old man’s words. There had been something desperate in his tone, something personal that Hector couldn’t quite place. Still, the pay was generous, and curiosity had always been his master.

As he worked, the sound of the city faded into the background, a symphony of muted life. Then came the knock—a soft, hesitant rapping on the door. He frowned. It was late, and he wasn’t expecting anyone. Cautiously, he opened the door to reveal an unexpected figure.

There stood Victor, a friend from university, a fellow student of the obscure arts of time. Once inseparable, their paths had diverged sharply: Hector into the practical and often dangerous field of temporal archaeology, and Victor into the more esoteric, almost mystical study of premonitions and temporal consciousness. His presence was unusual—unsettling, even.

“Victor?” Hector said, surprised. “What are you doing here? It’s been years.”

Victor stepped inside without an invitation, his face pale, his eyes dark and shadowed. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days, his once-sharp features worn and gaunt. He turned to Hector with an urgency that bypassed any pleasantries.

“I dreamed of you,” Victor said simply.

Hector frowned, closing the door. “Dreamed? Or one of your premonitions?”

“It was clear as anything I’ve ever seen. You’ve taken a job—haven’t you?” Victor asked, his voice almost a whisper. “It’s about the Palimpsest Engine.”

Hector froze. “How could you possibly know that?”

Victor shook his head. “I don’t know. But in the dream, I saw you in Portivo, following traces, piecing together the past. I saw the old man too. I don’t know his name, but he was desperate, wasn’t he? Desperate enough to drag you into something you don’t understand.”

Hector set down the equipment he had been packing and leaned against the edge of his desk, arms crossed. “And what, exactly, did this dream tell you? That I’ll fail?”

“No,” Victor said. “Worse than failure. The Engine doesn’t just rewrite history—it consumes it. Every past it overwrites becomes fuel for its existence. The more you uncover, the more it resists. The old man didn’t tell you that, did he? He didn’t tell you that by peeling back the layers of time, you’ll feed it. You’ll make it stronger.”

Hector stared at him, a knot tightening in his stomach. “And what happens if I make it stronger?”

Victor’s expression darkened. “The traces you’re chasing—they’re not just echoes. They’re fractures. Each one you uncover makes the present less stable. If you dig too deep, Portivo won’t just change again. It’ll collapse entirely, dragging everyone in it into nonexistence.”

Hector let out a low breath, his skepticism warring with the unease Victor’s words had planted. “So what, Victor? You’re telling me to abandon the job? Walk away and leave the city to its fate?”

“Yes,” Victor said without hesitation. “If you care for your life—and for theirs—you’ll leave the Palimpsest Engine alone. It’s not your burden to carry. Whatever that old man lost, whatever version of himself he’s chasing, it’s gone. And if you chase it too, you’ll be lost with it.”

For a long moment, the two men stood in silence. The room felt smaller, the air thicker. Hector turned his back to Victor, staring at the instruments and maps he’d spent hours assembling. He didn’t believe in fate, but he believed in the weight of choices.

Hector opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak, a sharp gust of wind rushed through the room. The window, locked moments ago, burst open with a deafening crash. Papers scattered like startled birds, maps spiraled to the floor, and the instruments on Hector’s desk clattered noisily. Both men froze, their argument forgotten as an unmistakable chill filled the air. It was a presence—something neither entirely seen nor heard, but undeniably felt.

Hector’s eyes darted toward the window, where the curtains fluttered madly. For a brief moment, the shadow of a figure seemed to flicker there—indistinct and fleeting, as though caught between layers of reality. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the presence was gone, leaving only silence and the faint rustle of displaced paper.

Victor stepped back, his face pale and drawn. “You see?” he whispered, his voice trembling. “It’s already watching you. The Palimpsest Engine… or something worse. This isn’t just a job, Hector. It’s a trap.” He turned abruptly, his words trailing as he strode to the door. “I’ve said my piece. If you’re wise, you’ll listen. If not…” He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder, then shook his head. “Then may the traces of what you are be kind to you.”

Victor left without another word, the echo of the slamming door punctuating his warning. Hector stood alone in the disheveled room, his heart pounding. For the first time, the tools of his trade—the maps, the instruments, the neatly marked routes to Portivo—seemed insufficient, even absurd. Yet despite the unease that lingered in the air, he knew he wouldn’t stop. Whatever the presence had been, it only deepened his resolve. Some truths demanded to be uncovered, even if the cost was yet unknown.

<>

The journey to the other side of the city felt longer than usual. Hector walked through the narrow, rain-slicked streets, his hands deep in his coat pockets, the memory of Victor’s warning and the strange presence lingering like smoke. But this next step was unavoidable. If he was going to track the Palimpsest Engine’s workings, he needed a tool that could cut through its temporal distortions—something rare, powerful, and almost impossible to find.

He stopped outside a small shop wedged between crumbling tenements, its sign so faded it was nearly illegible. The window was cluttered with talismans, strange trinkets, and old books, their spines cracked and worn. Inside, a single lamp burned, casting long shadows over walls filled with maps of constellations and palmistry charts. It was her place. It had always smelled of sage and regret.

Hector pushed the door open, the bell above jingling sharply. At a small table in the corner, she sat with her back to him, shuffling an old deck of tarot cards. Her auburn hair, streaked with silver now, caught the dim light as she turned her head slightly, just enough to recognize him. Her hands froze, and for a moment, there was only silence between them.

“Of all the places to haunt,” she said finally, her voice low and sharp. “You show up here?” She turned fully, her green eyes flashing with something between anger and amusement. “What do you want, Hector?”

“You know why I’m here, Selene,” he replied, stepping closer but keeping his tone neutral. “I need the Compass of Ananke.”

At that, her expression hardened. She set the cards down deliberately, folding her arms. “The Compass? After all this time, you show up asking for that?” She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “You have some nerve.”

“Selene, listen—”

“No, you listen.” She stood now, pacing around the room like a caged animal. “That compass is mine, Hector. You don’t get to walk in here after… after everything and think you can just take it.”

“It’s not for me,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’ve taken a job. The Palimpsest Engine. You know what that means.”

Her steps faltered at the mention of the Engine, her back stiffening. “You’ve always been reckless, but this…” She turned to face him, her anger tempered by something softer—fear, maybe, or concern. “If you’re chasing the Engine, you’re already in over your head.”

“Maybe,” Hector admitted. “But I can’t do it without the Compass. You of all people should understand that.”

Selene’s eyes narrowed as Hector’s request hung in the air, thick with old grievances. For a moment, she said nothing, and then she laughed—a sharp, bitter sound that made him wince.

“The Compass of Ananke?” she repeated, pacing back toward the table and picking up her deck of cards. She shuffled them idly, refusing to meet his eyes. “Do you know how many years it took before you stopped haunting my doorstep? How many nights I spent waiting for you, convincing myself you’d come back, that you actually cared?” She glanced up then, her smile razor-sharp. “And now you show up, chasing some impossible machine, and expect me to just hand it over?”

“I had no choice!” Hector snapped, his frustration spilling over. “You think I wanted to leave? You think it didn’t tear me apart to—”

Hector’s jaw clenched, the sting of her words cutting deeper than he wanted to admit. “You could’ve waited,” he said quietly. “But you didn’t. For all your professions of love, you moved on pretty damn quickly. And don’t tell me it was just loneliness.”

Her eyes flared, a flush of anger rising in her cheeks. “You’re one to talk about loyalty, Hector. Don’t stand here and act like you’re some wounded saint. And anyway,” she added, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper, “you’re too late. The Compass is gone.”

He stared at her, the words landing like a blow. “What do you mean, gone?”

“I sold it,” she said flatly, crossing her arms. “Years ago. Out of spite, if you must know. Some collector was willing to pay handsomely for it, and frankly, I couldn’t bear to keep it. It was a relic of a man I didn’t want to remember anymore.”

The room fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the faint rattle of the wind outside. Hector took a step back, “You sold it,” he repeated, his voice thick with bitterness. “So that’s it? All those years I trusted you, and you just—”

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, her voice trembling with anger. “Don’t you dare act like I owe you anything. You left me behind, Hector. Don’t come crawling back now, pretending you’re the victim.”

He shook his head, his face hard. “You know what? Forget it. You’re right. You don’t owe me anything. I’ll find it myself.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode toward the door. As he reached for the handle, her voice stopped him, softer now, almost regretful. “Hector… you should leave this alone. That machine—whatever it is—it’ll eat you alive.”

He didn’t look back. “Then it’ll find me harder to swallow than most.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and Selene was left alone in the fading light, staring at the deck of cards in her hand as if they might offer her answers she didn’t want to hear.

<>

Summary

In this Borges-inspired fragment, an aging, wealthy man hires Hector, a temporal archaeologist, to uncover the lost original history of a city called Portivo, which has been rewritten by the Palimpsest Engine. This mysterious device alters reality in real-time, erasing and replacing histories while leaving faint traces for those who can perceive them. The old man, driven by a personal need to restore the city’s true past, asks Hector to trace these remnants and reclaim what was lost. The task is fraught with danger, as altering timelines can have profound consequences, but the old man is willing to pay any price, seeking a version of himself that might have been erased by the Engine. Hector faces a moral dilemma as he begins a journey that may unravel the very fabric of reality.

<>

Checkpoint

The agent crouched low in the alley, the flickering neon lights jerking like a mind caught in a seizure. Shadows danced on the walls, erratic as neurons firing in a dying brain. The Interzone hummed with the static of fractured realities, a buzz that bled through everything—glitching, fraying, as bits of half-thoughts and lost memories crawled up the spines of the unwary. He felt them out there, the watchers—ghosts in the machine, invisible, feeding off the surveillance lattice that crisscrossed the fabric of the world. The web never let anything go, and in the Interzone, detection was no longer just a risk—it was the final breath, a pinpoint incision cutting away the self.

Ahead, the checkpoint loomed—a jagged thing, an insect’s exoskeleton of glass and wire, twitching with sensors that sniffed the air for the smallest deviation. The agent was running out of time. His cover was a paper-thin mask, already peeling under the scrutiny of too many cross-references, too many eyes watching from the corners.

But he still had one last play, a filthy ace in the hole, a weapon so volatile it threatened to destroy not only him but the very bones of the Interzone itself.

From the folds of his coat, he pulled the artifact—dark and sleek, its surface gleaming with the ghost of something old, something dangerous. A relic whispered about in anarchist circles and corporate backrooms. A thing rumored to have been used in some forgotten neuro-war, its purpose lost in the undercurrents of time. It was no simple device; it was a scalpel for the mind, capable of slicing through consciousness with a precision that would unravel the threads of identity, of ego, of everything.

He turned it in his hands, the hum of it almost a heartbeat, an itch. The instructions had come in fragments—vague, cryptic: twist the dial, don’t hold it too long, and above all, don’t look back.

The agent pressed himself into the corner of the alley, his breath shallow, his pulse syncing with the low hum of the artifact. He twisted the dial.

The effect was immediate, as if the world itself had been punched in the gut. A sound—no, a sensation—rippled outward, inaudible to the physical ear but deafening to the psyche, a psychic tremor that knocked everything loose. His stomach churned, his vision warped, reality itself bending at the edges, a sickening distortion that made him feel like he was slipping through the cracks.

Around him, the air thickened—shimmered. The boundary between the real and the imagined began to bleed. The device had torn a hole, a fracture in the collective mind, and everything within a twenty-meter radius snapped loose like balloons with the strings cut. Ego and identity flung apart, scrambling, reassembling in wrong places, wrong bodies, wrong memories. It was chaos. Total, absolute chaos.

The superegos shattered first, like totalitarian regimes in an unplanned coup, their rigid structures dissolving into gibberish. The invisible judges—the ones that kept the Interzone in line—blinked out of existence, their roles vanished into the void. The ids, the raw, primal drives, burst free, wailing in ecstasy and horror, their desires spilling into the open, unchecked, uncontrolled.

The world trembled. It wasn’t just a tremor—it was a fracture in the very bones of reality. Buildings bent like rubber, walls quivered and undulated, breathing in and out as if the space itself were alive. The street, once a place of cold order, had become a fever dream. A man in a pinstripe suit staggered into view, his face slack, tears streaming down his cheeks. He clawed at his chest, mouthing words that would never be completed, a thought broken before it could even exist.

Nearby, a woman in an Interzone bureaucrat’s uniform collapsed, clutching her head. Her lips moved in frantic cycles, sentences folding over themselves—someone else’s guilt, her own prayers, advertisements from a life she couldn’t remember.

The guards at the checkpoint—once sharp, precise—had turned into parodies of themselves. One slumped against the monolith, helmet gone, his eyes staring into nothing, his lips trembling with a lullaby from some long-dead memory. Another stood, rifle in hand, twitching like an insect at the end of its life. His mind had locked onto a single phrase, a mantra that looped endlessly: not supposed to happen, not supposed to happen.

The artifact in the agent’s hand pulsed again, its glow soft but malevolent, a star long dead but still burning, refusing to go out. It was rewriting everything. The air itself cracked, reality itself torn apart at the seams. The ghosts of identities scrambled, tried to take shape, but failed, dissolving into vapor before they could solidify.

As he moved, the streets became unrecognizable—a warped tableau of madness. A businessman dropped to all fours, barking, sniffing at a woman’s skirt. She spun in place, singing in a child’s voice, a song that was more nightmare than nursery rhyme. A group of children spilled from a tenement, their laughter shrill and mechanical, a broken sound that didn’t belong in the world. One of them stopped, stared at the agent, and tilted its head. Eyes empty. Then it was gone, blinked out of existence.

The architecture was no better—melting, bending, warping. The checkpoint’s jagged monolith shivered, its surface bubbling, as if something underneath had been clawing its way out. The streetlights flickered, bending impossibly, their beams scattered across the ground like broken glass. The whole zone was glitching, fracturing under the pressure.

The agent pressed on, every step heavier than the last, the weight of the shattered minds pressing down on him. He could feel his own identity, his own mind, beginning to fray, foreign thoughts leaking in. A name—Theresa—slipped into his mind, a name that wasn’t his, a name that felt like it should be. The thought swam in the currents, too intense to ignore. He shoved it away, focusing on the threadbare remnant of his mission, the fragile construct of who he was.

He reached the checkpoint, and the guards didn’t even flinch. Their eyes were vacant, their bodies slack. One of them was staring at his reflection, mouthing soundless words, trying to put himself back together. Another laughed—a high, unnatural cackle that echoed across the empty street.

The agent stepped through the checkpoint without a glance backward. The scanners were blind, their systems overloaded, short-circuiting under the psychic onslaught. He moved through the chaos like a ghost, the echoes of a thousand shattered minds trailing him, their whispers tugging at the edges of his consciousness.

Behind him, the Interzone fractured, the remnants of its once-pristine control now slipping into the void. The agent didn’t look back. But something followed him, something nameless and hungry, born of the madness he’d unleashed. And it was closer than he realized.

The City of Ten Thousand Doors

The room has been thick with smoke, curling in lazy rings under the ceiling fans, the walls stained amber in the dim light. Tangiers has pulsed outside, the city flickering in neon, shadows shifting like restless ghosts. In the corner, beneath a cracked light, the boss has leaned back in his chair—Moroccan leather, worn with years, his fingers drumming on its arm. He has watched the young men across from him with a hard, steady gaze, reading them as if they’ve already confessed everything.

“You have thought I’m just another hustler,” he has said, a slow smirk pulling at his lips, “another man with hands in pockets, collecting my piece.” The men have been silent, their shoulders tight, but the boss has leaned forward, letting smoke drift from his cigarette. “You haven’t understood it yet, have you? What I do has gone far beyond money. Money has been only a shadow, an echo. What I have done here, it’s made something—call it order, call it peace, but it’s real.”

He has flicked his cigarette ash onto the floor, ignoring the tremor in the younger man’s hand. “If I hadn’t been here, things would have fallen to chaos. The souks, the ports, the whole rhythm of the Medina—everything would have unraveled. What I’ve built has kept this place together, ticked it forward like the gears in an old clock.” His voice has been quiet but sharp, cutting through the haze of the room like a blade.

“Now, maybe you’ve been thinking, if there’s no trouble, why would anyone need a man like me?” He has laughed, a low, rusty sound. “But that’s the trick, isn’t it? If I’m good at my job, then there’s nothing to see. No mess, no broken bones in the street, no blood on the walls. People start to believe there’s nothing wrong, that danger’s a myth.”

He has looked through the window, the lights of Tangiers spread below him like a map of possibilities. “But if something bad had happened? If I had let things slip even once?” His face has hardened, his jaw clenched. “Then they’d say I had failed, that I wasn’t worth the price. They’d forget the times I’ve stopped trouble before it had begun, the messes I’ve cleaned before they’ve spilled over.”

He has paused, smoke wreathing his face, an ancient calm in his eyes. “Do you understand the weight of that? To keep things balanced, never seen, never praised? To hold all the threads while people wonder if you’re even needed? That’s my trade. I’ve made sure that bad things haven’t happened. And that is my curse: the better I do my job, the less they see me, the less they understand what I’ve saved them from. But they come to me in the end, every time, because they have known—even if they forget in the daylight—how much worse it could be.”

The boss has shifted, leaning back as if to take in the whole room with one slow, sweeping look. The young men have sat tense, half-listening, half-staring at the haze of smoke. He has taken a deep breath, as though he’s about to let them in on some secret hidden in the foundations of the city itself.

“You see, people talk about technology as if it’s some kind of miracle, some guarantee of power,” he has murmured, voice like gravel rubbing against silk. “But I’ve seen the truth—no matter how powerful a technology becomes, it’s never more than an experiment. Always a test, always just a step out into the unknown. The fools in labs, the ones behind all those machines and wires, they don’t know what they’re playing with. They’re like children with matches, thinking they’ve mastered fire.”

He has laughed, cold and low, taking another drag from his cigarette. “Technologists think they’re gods, but they’re blind as anyone else. They can’t see the full picture, not until it’s too late. Every invention they’ve made, every so-called ‘solution’—it’s been nothing but a gamble. They’ve played with forces they haven’t understood, and by the time they’ve seen the consequences, it’s already out of their hands.”

He has looked each young man in the eye, holding them there as if weighing their souls. “Me? I’ve never had that luxury. I’ve had to see things for what they are, right from the start. Every move, every deal, every choice has had to be deliberate, no room for loose ends or blind experiments. The people out there,” he has gestured toward the city lights flickering through the window, “they think they’re safe because of some system, some clever design. But all of that, the order they take for granted—it’s only ever been real because I’ve made it so. Not machines, not technology, but flesh and blood, sweat and consequence.”

He has leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper, but with the weight of iron. “The men in labs can afford to fail. They learn after the fact, let their failures fall on others, make their adjustments. But here in Tangiers, in the streets, I don’t have that luxury. If I fail, the city burns. That’s the difference. Their power’s experimental; mine’s real.”

The smoke has lingered thick around them, the shadows pooling deeper as his words settled over the room like a warning. “So remember this,” he has said, a dark gleam in his eye, “whatever new marvels or toys they come up with, whatever promises they make—their games will always end in uncertainty. But what I’ve built, what I protect… that’s no experiment. That’s the line between order and chaos. And as long as I’m here, I keep that line.”

The boss has drawn a long, slow drag from his cigarette, and his eyes have softened, gazing out toward the window where Tangiers sprawled like a living tapestry. “This city,” he has said, voice a mix of reverence and resignation, “it isn’t some neat system, like those technologists dream about. No, this place… it’s like the wave and the electron. Infinite, changing, an experiment that’s always in motion, never fixed.”

He has looked back at the young men, holding them in the weight of his stare. “They think they can measure it, control it, like it’s some Western machine. But here? Tangiers is like the wind that rolls off the Rif Mountains, like the markets shifting each dawn, like the sea brushing at the rocks and changing a little each time. Everything here, it’s relationship, it’s the balance of people who’ve known each other’s families for generations. It’s not rules and systems; it’s baraka—the blessings, the weight of lineage, of blood and debt, of favors traded over tea, beneath the palm trees.”

He’s flicked his cigarette ash again, as though brushing off the technologists’ schemes, their neat little theories. “You see, in the North, they have their systems, their grids, their determinations. But here? Here, we have tajriba—a kind of knowing, a trust in the way things unfold, always close, never certain. And like the electron, everything depends on how you look at it, how you’re connected to it. You can’t hold Tangiers in your hand; you can only walk through it, move with it, be part of its rhythm.”

He’s paused, tapping his fingers on the table. “This place is indeterminate, like you said. It’s like the wave. One minute it’s a pulse of energy moving through the souks, the alleys; next moment, it’s gone, disappeared into the Medina’s hidden paths. It slips through your fingers like sand. And every day, every deal I make, every person I touch, it changes. Not in some simple, linear way—they don’t understand that. It’s like trying to catch a river in a cup. You only get a trickle, but the rest flows on, uncontained.”

He’s leaned back, letting his words settle over the young men, filling the room with a silence that has felt thick and heavy. “So they think they can impose their systems here? Control it from the outside? They’ll only ever see a shadow, a surface reflection, because they don’t have the connection, the roots. They don’t have the real understanding. You can’t build a city with formulas, with charts. This city’s made of whispers and debts, of hands clasped over coffee, of promises that outlast lifetimes.”

He’s taken another drag, and his eyes have drifted back to the cityscape beyond the window. “They don’t know Tangiers. They see the city, but not the experiment within it—the push and pull, the pulse beneath the stone, the spirits and ancestors, the ways that cross each other like the wind. And that’s why, in the end, this city is ours. Because we understand that it’s not a problem to be solved. It’s alive, like the ocean, like the mountain, like us. A living, breathing, shifting wave.”