The Night Watch

Riyazat happened to stop by a mosque on the way back home. The sun had already set and the time for prayers was already past. But he heard the azaan and walked in. there was another man offering prayers inside, and he quickly went and knelt next to him. While offering his prayers, Riz noticed that the man next to him suddenly seemed a whole lot larger, then suddenly, a whole lot smaller. His hair turned from white to black to red and his eyes turned into holes and his skin turned from light brown to chalk white. Riyazat continued his prayers, despite the horror. When the prayers were done, the man suddenly seemed to be normal again. As he got up to leave, the other held his hand and requested him to be in time for prayers the next time. 'This is our time', he said.

Djinns are known to frequent areas that have fallen i.e. were once populated but are now abandoned. the common insight that empty houses fall to bits faster than those where people live is attributed to djinns playing about the place. They're like children and have an incredibly poor sense of organisation, mostly given to mischief. however, they're still beings of incredible power and posess a remarkable indifference to pain and suffering. For instance, a group of Djinns once came upon some college kids partying in this wooded area called the ridge, close to North Campus. the kids, lush and in the thick of the experience, playfully asked them how they got to be as white as they were. the kids were found the next morning, chalk white and drained dry. It's not that djinns are evil, it's just that they don't give a damn.

Therefore, the need for a night watch. We found one of the night watchmen, Sufi preachers who double up as ghostbusters, on a back route to NFC. We found him in a dark alley blowing a whistle.

'We can't monitor places like the ridge and Peer Gayab. If you go there at the wrong time, you're asking for it', says, Baba Chisti, who roams about NFC at night. He's dressed in black and sports a black Morocco Mole cap on his frazzled grey hair. You can hardly see his lips move behind that thick grey beard.

'This here is my whistle', he says pointing to a piece of bone with a plastic whistle fused into it, 'djinns hate whistles.'