Free Secret Skin by Frank Coles Page A

idiot and paying the weekly fines was the mark of a man. Those with the appropriate level of wusta, immune to the vagaries of point-free speeding tickets simply said ‘I don’t want to pay’ when presented with their fines, and they didn’t.
    Imagining that this localized power and influence carried over to their dealings with god they drove in writhing snake-like columns, four and five cars deep, each vehicle just inches away from the car in front. The cars in the body of the snake flashed their lights and tail-gated aggressively forcing the lead car to pull over. The snake’s new head then received the same treatment from the furious tail behind. This continued until they made it home, traffic slowed, or someone died.
    ‘Insha’allah,’ the drivers casually said – if god wills it – only then will you die. It was originally a phrase used to show humility to the almighty. Heaven forbid the driver with his eyes closed had anything to do with his own mortality.
    The speedometer crept relentlessly upward as I tried to prevent a white Mitsubishi Pajero a few feet off my rear bumper from crashing into me. The dishdashed driver flashed his headlights repeatedly demanding that I let him pass. Even if I had wanted to, the bumper to bumper lane on my right offered no gaps as we passed the Al Quoz industrial area and sped towards the city.
    I tried to put distance between us and hit 140. Instead of granting me the room to maneuver he sped up to maintain his lethal position behind me. My speedometer pinged wildly as I broke the speed limit, but if I slowed the aggressive retard would plough straight into the back of me.
    Statistically he had a better chance of survival in his 4x4. In my humble modern classic I had virtually none – a shoot out between a gun and a catapult – Insha’allah my arse.
    I caught the driver’s eye in my rear view mirror and raised my hand to the traffic around us. I shrugged my shoulders to indicate I had nowhere to go. The man in the red and white Kuwaiti style head dress showed me his middle finger.
    I laughed from the shock. As a foreigner if the police saw me doing the same thing I could be deported.
    I gave him the finger back.
    Hurt that I hadn’t kowtowed in abeyance to this obvious double standard, he swerved to the right without slowing, cut across three lanes of traffic and veered back into the fast lane ahead of me, narrowly avoiding more cars than I could count in a glance.
    The 4x4 pulled ahead to reveal a rear window filled with a smiling picture tint of Sheikh Zayed himself. Almost instantly a large black Mercedes roared up behind me flashing its headlights, the driver anonymous behind a blackened windscreen.
    I jammed my car into the next gap, slammed on the brakes to avoid shunting the car in front, and left the never ending car chase of Sheikh Zayed Road two junctions earlier than planned.
    The quiet back streets to Beach Road slowed me down, but better to arrive alive and late than become yet another sacrifice to such a blood thirsty god.

    ***

    The tissues Yasmin had torn to pieces during her wait lay neatly arranged in front of her, a small part of her life that she could control. She sat alone in the empty interior of the Icy Palm’s upper level, her back to a floor wide balcony window.
    Against the dark interior the balcony outside was lit like a stage. No sound penetrated the glass in between. Two middle aged housewives, Jumeirah Janes, sat opposite a young trio of Dubai divas in wraparound sunglasses, lenses the size of begging bowls. They ignored a token male with swollen hung over features hoping to give alms.
    Yasmin sat in silence as if waiting to deliver a dramatic monologue.
    ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said instead. ‘I was going to leave.’
    ‘I’m sorry. Too many psychopaths on the roads today, I’m here now,’ I said.
    She stared forlornly into the middle distance, not offering any words. Her shoulders heaved a sigh.
    ‘So tell