Free Throwing Sparks by Abdo Khal

his situation, Sheikh Omar did not feel he had a shred of self-respect left. On any given day, he found himself tolerating things he would never have dreamed of putting up with even hours earlier. He blamed Issa Radini for the humiliation he now endured and no words were vulgar enough to curse that man.
    Another guest asked him when they would set sail.
    ‘Just as soon as I get my instructions,’ he repeated, sighing with exasperation.
    ‘And when do you get your instructions?’ persisted the guest.
    Sheikh Omar detected a hint of insolence. ‘If the Master heard you talk like that, he’d soon make sure you never asked another question.’
    He left the deck and returned to the captain’s cabin, closing the door behind him and shutting out the sound of the tinkling laughter and bubbling conversations of men and women mingling together as light music played in the background.
    It was hard to believe that the scene on the boat was taking place. Women without abayas or modesty revealed their alabaster endowments with such nonchalance. Servants scurried with bottles of every shape and colour to fill glasses with liquor, while dancers swayed provocatively to lessen the boredom of the long wait. The dancers stopped only after being told to conserve their energy for the long night ahead.
    This display of flesh and decadence upset Sheikh Omar intensely. He muttered under his breath as he moved among the mingling guests with his head down and his eyes averted. At times he even stopped up his ears with his fingers and barricaded himself inside the captain’s cabin. His demeanour was openly disapproving except when the Master was on board. Sheikh Omar would then feign enjoyment and sway to the tunes of old favourites played by the musical ensembles that animated Palace parties.
    He had recently been promoted to captain of The Dazzling Beauty and also supervised game-fishing expeditions. This was as a result of the successful hunting trip in the Guinean jungle that he had organised the previous summer and for which he could thank his old friend, Uthman Kabashi. After cancelling the contracts to supply the fishermen with boats and before setting sail for Port Sudan, Uthman had commended him highly to the Master, planting the idea that Sheikh Omar should be given the responsibility of organising hunting exped­itions in and around Sudan.
    The submissive life he now led daily had all but destroyed the man of his youth. Sheikh Omar found solace only in people who, like him, had deep roots in a purer and simpler past and with whom he could share the shame of being sullied, at the end of their lives, with such dishonourable tasks.
    Given the security hiccup with the would-be gate-crashers at the previous New Year’s Eve party, this year’s venue had shifted from dry land to the open sea aboard The Dazzling Beauty . Guests, screened in the Palace lobby to avoid letting on board anyone deemed undesirable by the Master, gathered on the yacht early to secure the best spots.
    The yacht was anchored across from the recently built golf course that covered an entire islet.
    Before the Palace was ever built, there were many such islets. In our teens, we would head to them to catch our breath after a long swim or to fish from their rocky reefs. Every evening as the last rays of the dying sun cast their shadowy beams on the islets, we hurried to end our games and head back to shore, guided by the feeble light from our homes. We stashed freshwater and tinned food on the islets so that there was always something to eat and drink for whoever swam there next. We did this in a spontaneous and uncoordin­ated way; it was like an unspoken agreement among us. Unwittingly, we were perpetuating the ancient mariners’ practice of providing succour to anyone stranded at sea.
    Generally speaking, the islets were visited only by strong swimmers and fishermen. For the small group of us who were able to swim to them, the islets became the markers by which we