MUSIC MASON

--The Khazars had masons who cut and mounted enormous pieces of rock salt on the paths of the winds (half of which were fresh, half sweet) an arrangement of saline marble was built, and when the annual seasonal winds reappeared, people would gather at these sites to hear which of the masons had composed the most beautiful song. For, as they caressed the rocks, slipped through their crevices, and skirted their tops, the winds always played a different tune, until the marble and the masons disappeared forever, washed away by the rains, whipped by the glances of passers-by, and licked by the tongues of rams and bulls.

One of these music masons, an Arab, set off with a Jew and a Khazar to hear how his stone would sing with the coming spring. At a temple where common dreams are dreamed in a group, the Jew and the Khazar came to blows and perished in the fight. The Arab, who had been sleeping in the temple, was accused of killing the Jew, because it was known that he was the Jew's neighbor and that they could not stand each other. And so the Jews sought his death. The Arab thought: "Whoever causes offence on three sides will not escape on the fourth. Because in the Khazar state Greeks are protected by Christian law, Jews by Jewish, and Arabs by Islamic, by laws that are much mightier than the Khazar state . . ." Therefore, the Arab defended himself by claiming (here the text is damaged). And so, instead of receiving the death sentence, he was put to work as a galley slave, and he lived long enough to hear the music of the marbles before they collapsed in a silence so solid is could smash your forehead.