Turning my back on all my books, I focused on rearranging my amulets, and then handed all of them over to my wife, saying, "Go forth, go forth and sell these charms, sell them in the port of Farashdanga."
My wife, she inserted slips of papers with scribbles in Persian, excerpts from scriptures in Arabic, Chakma, Hawaiian, and what not, into these amulets, these amulets of silver and bronze, amulets polished or gilded – she inserted these notes with God's and seventy thousand other deities' names on them into the amulets, for she did not know more names, and sealed the openings with wax. And then, yet again, more notes, more wax, more notes, ad infinitum, or to be more precise, seven times.
She then tied these amulets onto people's hands, tied them on their waists, and seemingly, I know for sure, for I made the amulets, all their troubles found other homes elsewhere, others to wreck – all their pregnant girls were getting married, to men of worth too – pumpkins turned into eggplants, pumpkins into slender unblemished eggplants, and all the original ones, I, of course, mean eggplants here, turned into local goons! People began to call me up at night, at noon, what have you done, you! And they said, from local newspapers to Chinatown, if you were to bury one of our amulets in your enemy's ground, forget that enemy of yours, even the land of his poker buddies would have a hard time bearing a fruit larger than a cucumber.
And then, as luck would have it, one day they take my wife away, for she had done one inexcusable crime, that of simultaneously being a woman and selling amulets with God's name within, so, yes, they take her away, seal her openings with themselves, and then abruptly fall asleep. And then, upon waking, seal her again, and fall asleep again, ad infinitum here too, or I think so, as I have lost my count of it.