Abraham still walked the earth when those immemorial hands began to shape the desert earth into hearth and home.
In every darkened corner of the ruined dream, djinns and memories abide in equal measure.
An old man walks the dusty sighing street and disappears into a barely standing house. His ghostly form ethereal and not quite of this time.
The ancient door is emblazoned with the graffiti of ages, tales of love and loss cut into the unforgiving wood with Moorish blade.
In seeming defiance of this uncaring decay, the mosque stretches into the desert sky, maintained by loving and devotional souls.
From its minaret, the call to prayer lays a beneficent hand upon its timeworn ward.
A last vestige of hope perhaps, strewn across the casbah of Bounou.
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Photos courtesy of the author.