The year is 602 when war erupts between the Sasanians and the Byzantines. The cursed city of Jerusalem is under siege, and inside its cursed walls an equally cursed stonemason gathers the last of his wares. Mortachai, our mason, hails the last caravan out of the city and finds himself eastward bound towards sandier yet safer pastures. Those who remain suffer inglorious, impersonal deaths that history will not remember. ⁣
⁣
Mortachai sets up shop in a dingy corner of a rundown medina in a backwater town. His Bedouin neighbor, Saffah, welcomes him with open arms, and in turn he gifts him a fist-ful of luscious blue turquoise.⁣
⁣
The year is 1258 when the Mongol horde marches on Baghdad. The last caliph of this cursed caliphate clutches the turquoise-studded hilt of his scimitar. Al-Mustas’im Billah, our caliph, will generously receive an arrow to the skull tomorrow. Then, as we all know by now, the walls will be breached, the city will be sacked, the libraries will be burned, and the charred skulls of its citizens will be used to build the biggest pyramid East of Egypt. ⁣
⁣
⁣

The year is 1991 when a semi-literate Texan oligarch declares war on Baghdad once more. In a cursed convoy on a cursed highway at the cursed border of this cursed land, a nameless man clutches a turquoise necklace and prays to his God in the sky. Somewhere between him and his God, however, is an A-6 Intruder Attack Jet, which has just released an MK-20 Rockeye II Cluster Bomb from its load. Our nameless man, and his necklace, are vaporized. ⁣
⁣
The year is 5823 when two souls collide in the ephemeral depths of hyperspace. One soul stops to admire the other’s avatar:⁣
⁣
“That is a beautiful piece of turquoise you have there”, says the first soul.⁣
⁣
“Shukraan” says the second soul, “a friend gifted it to me many lifetimes ago.”⁣
⁣
“Saffah?” says the first soul.⁣
⁣
“Mortachai?” says the second, “how’ve you been?”⁣
⁣
“You know”, says Mortachai, “it's been a real schlep.”