... the concept of the garden must be so – different? or heightened? – in the desert world. Especially the fountains and ponds.
"Soon, nothing. Soon only desert. The two goats must choke on sand, nuzzling down to find the white clover. He, never to taste their soured milk again. The melons die beneath the sand. Never more can you give comfort in the summer, cool abdelawi, shaped like the angel's trumpet! The maize dies and there is no bread. The wife, the children grow sick and short-tempered. The man, he, runs one night out to where the wall was, begins to lift and toss imaginary rocks about, curses Allah, then begs forgiveness from the Prophet, then urinates on the desert, hoping to insult what cannot be insulted.
They find him in the morning a mile from the house, skin blued, shivering in a sleep which is almost death, tears turned to frost on the sand."