The desert can be a scary place at night. Darkness descends very quickly upon the barren landscape. The night brings with it a bone-tingling chill. But it is the silence that is most unnerving. The slightest noise is amplified tenfold as it echoes across the vast empty spaces. The wailing of a lonely jackal sounds menacing…’This is not a good place to be in. I have heard stories about this place…it’s haunted.’ The others hushed up, looking around nervously for any sign of the supernatural. The sudden sound of creaking metal startled all of them, making two of the men spill their tea.
-The Spinner’s Tale, Omar Shahid Hamid
Many times as we sat around the fire at night with the camels crowding in always closer, we talked about ghosts and demons, genies and specters. The wind often blew with strange effect along the sand, making it moan and sometimes almost laugh. The word we used most to describe these frights was ‘afreet. But what we heard most was the ‘afeet, farting, of the camels. They were all around us. They had us surrounded. We huddled closer to the fire. We could not get away, but we felt better about our miserable situation alone in the desert, short on sugar and firewood. The ‘afeet would protect us from the ‘afreet, someone said. All we had to do was to hold our noses and not spill our tea.