A Thousand Light Years Away

Tardiff and Muhsin came to a planet populated with Muslims in their search for Ohlendorf. What do you do? However, this planet had beaches where people sunbathed in the nude, à la Cannes. But there was a kind of modesty here, where everybody looked like everybody else, the women like the other women and the guys like the other guys. If somebody showed up at this beach of nudists wearing a veil or a scarf, all dressed in black down to the ankles, this is a crying lack of modesty. Such a woman is saying to the world, “Hey, look at me! See how modest I am!” This behaviour is not modest but provocative, isn’t it? But everybody wants to get laid.

The Muslims on this planet are not lacking in sophistication. They understand that young people do what’s natural. At this beach, they make dates au naturel, like it’s nothing to be completely naked before the other sex. Besides, there’s always some old grandma as a chaperon for an adolescent girl. They don’t have sex here; that would be uncool. They can’t make out with each other here either. In fact, on many nudist beaches on this planet, the guys sit apart from the women, on the other side of the beach, but in full view of each other. They come to this beach to look at each other, that’s all. They only come here to meet other people and make new friends. But that’s life a thousand years, maybe ten thousand years from now.

The Muslims on this planet believe in marriage. Most of them are Chinese Muslims, except that the women all dress in black but have slanted eyes. It’s to find a suitable spouse that the sexes meet on this beach in the raw. That’s the only reason why everybody is willing to be so vulnerable. Even with online dating across billions of planets in outer space, you still have to meet somewhere, don’t you? You have to make a date first. A nudist beach on a distant quadrant in the far reaches of the galaxy is as good a place as any. It all starts with a photo and a smile.

Now, Muslim women will never completely abandon the scarf or the veil. It won’t happen. Ten thousand years from now, some Muslim women will chose to cover her hair, no matter what. Give her the choice of covering her hair and saving the world, she will wear the scarf and let the world be damned. But if a Muslim girl dresses like Eve on a beach, there must be a reason for it. Besides, girls from strict Muslim families will wear a two-piece. This modesty is appropriate on a nudist beach.

There are billions of people living on this planet in tall high rises a hundred or two hundred stories tall. If you look outside your window during work hours, you might see an airplane outside your window. On the streets of this planet, Tardiff and Muhsin hear the cries from the muezzins in the minarets of the mosques: “Bismallah ihr-rahim ihr-rahman.” Every block has at least one mosque. But nobody knows what this means anymore. Like roosters in the morning, one after the other, they call the faithful to prayer. Of course, the guys and the girls on the beach don’t hear the call of the muezzins in the afternoon. It doesn’t matter. Once they have found the right shepherd, the right shepherdess, however, they will stop going to the beach. They will listen to the call of the muezzin better. They will pray five times a day like all good Muslims and try to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, though Mecca is on the planet Earth thousands of light years away. Fortunatlely, people can watch the Muslim faithful make their circumambulations around the Kaaba at Mecca on DVD.

Tardiff and Muhsin, who have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, go to a beach to sunbathe in the nude. On this beach, the guys sit on one side of the beach while the girls sit on the other. Of course, there are divorcees at this beach too, as well as single mothers and women past a certain age who have never married. Everybody wants to find love.

Then Tardiff sees a Muslim girl who’s wearing nothing but her pale skin. Of course, he sees the tits and ass, the thighs and hips. She’s absolutely gorgeous, tall, like a fashion model. She could be a movie star. She is the perfect woman, Tardiff thinks. Above all, he contemplates her long and flowing locks like the Nile, black like the morning sky before the muezzin sees the sliver of moon and the Morning Star on the first day of Ramadan. But she wears the scarf on the street so that nobody can contemplate her long and beautiful hair. For Tardiff, it’s the lightning bold. “How do I win her love?” he muses.

“First, you must become a Muslim,” replies Muhsin. “You must swear that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammed is his Prophet. Then you must talk to her father.”

Tardiff goes to the village where the girl lives with her parents. All of the people in this village live in a high rise at least a hundred stories tall. Her name is Turhan, he learns after he asks around, and she’s Turkish rather than Chinese or Arabic. Maybe her family no longer speaks Turkish, but they all know where they came from; they know that they came from Turkey, from Istanbul, many centuries ago.

Tardiff knocks on the door, and the girl’s old man answers it. “There’s no god but Allah,” says Tardiff, “and Muhammed is his Prophet.” He even says it in Arabic, though nobody speaks Arabic on this planet anymore, except when they read from the Koran.

The old man says nothing but awaits another reply.


“I want to talk to your daughter, effendi,” says Tardiff. “Her name is Turhan, isn’t it?”

“She’s already getting married,” the old man replies. Then he shuts the door.

A few weeks later, Tardiff and Muhsin see Turhan walking down the street, with a white scarf embroidered with gold thread in the seam and a black dress down to her ankles. Though she’s about seventeen or eighteen, she’s with a man in his forties, bald on top with hair to the sides of his head like Albert Einstein, like he’s a nuclear physicist deep in thought. Must be, this man is her husband, but Turhan doesn’t seem to be very happy to be with him.

“Maybe we should leave this planet,” says Muhsin, seeing the pain on Tardiff’s face.

But Tardiff doesn’t want to leave this planet yet. He and Muhsin go to the beach again. A few weeiks later, he sees another girl from across the divide that separates the sexes. She is not as beautiful as Turhan, but she has a certain allure, with curly light brown hair and a round face. Her tits are small and she has a belly. Maybe her ass is a little too fat when she sits on her beach towel and shakes her hair, but he likes her face when she laughs while talking to her friends; she has a cute face. What’s more, he likes her personality. She has a pretty smile and a ready laugh.

Tardiff learns by asking around that the girl’s name is Jamillah. When he finds out where she lives, he goes to her house. He says to her father, “There’s no god but Allah and Muhammed is his Prophet.” Then he asks to talk to his daughter; the father agrees.

Tardiff and Jamillah talk on the verandah of the house; they seem to like each other. Tardiff doubts that Jamillah is very attracted to him, but she knows that her father wants her to marry.Therefore, when Tardiff comes back, she will talk to him on the verandah like a good daughter. When Muhsin tells him that it’s time to make a marriage proposal to the father, Tardiff asks the father if he can marry his daughter; the father agrees.

Tardiff and Jamillah are married before hundreds of people, all of whom are members of Jamillah’s family. As on the beach, the women sit separately from the men, ullalating as the celebrate the marriage. When Tardiff and Jamillah consummate their marriage, it is somewhat of a disappointment for both of them, lacking in passion. Tardiff realizes that he’s still in love with Turhan. Who is Jamillah in love with? Tardiff knows that it isn’t him.

Jamillah conceives soon after their wedding night. Tardiff hopes that she will love him, and that he will love her. However, it doesn’t happen. After the baby is born, Jamillah tells him that she wants to go back to her family. “Why?” asks Tardiff. “I don’t love you,” replies Jamillah.

Tardiff divorces Jamillah by saying three times in front of witnesses: “I divorce you.” Then Jamillah and the baby go back to her family. Of course, her family is scandalized, but then they realize that it’s Jamillah who wants the divorce, not Tardiff.

A few weeks after the divorce, Tardiff and Muhsin see Turhan walking down the street with her husband. She is obviously pregnant, but she looks miserable. The situation is hopeless. Tardiff knows that Turhan doesn’t love her husband, but he can’t have her. Rather than stay on the same planet with her and obsess over her, he says to Muhsin, “Maybe we should leave this planet.

Tardiff and Muhsin leave the planet. They didn’t really come here to find women anyway. It’s just that there are women everywhere you go in this galaxy. Besides, they still have to find Ohlendorf.