“I’m sorry,” Brine said. “I didn’t see you come up.”

“It is a mystery, is it not? How this dashing figure seems to appear out of nowhere? You must be awestruck. Paralyzed with fear perhaps?”

Brine looked at the withered little man in the rumpled flannel suit and silly red hat. “Very close to paralyzed,” he said. “I am Augustus Brine.” He extended his hand to the little man.

“Are you not afraid that by touching me you will burst into flames?”

“Is that a danger?”

“No, but you know how superstitious fishermen are. Perhaps you believe that you will be transformed into a toad. You hide your fear well, Augustus Brine.”

Brine smiled. He was baffled and amused; it didn’t occur to him to be afraid.

The Arab drained his cup and dipped it into the surf to refill it.

“Please call me Gus,” Brine said, his hand still extended. “And you are?”

The Arab drained his cup again, then took Brine’s hand. His skin had the feel of parchment.

“I am Gian Hen Gian, King of the Djinn, Ruler of the Netherworld. Do not tremble, I wish you no harm.”

“I am not trembling,” Brine said. “You might go easy on that seawater — it works hell on your blood pressure.”

“Do not fall to your knees; there is no need to prostrate yourself before my greatness. I am here in your service.”

“Thank you. I am honored,” Brine said. Despite the strange happenings in the store, he was having a hard time taking this pompous little man seriously. The Arab was obviously a nuthouse Napoleon. He’d seen hundreds of them, living in cardboard castles and feasting from dumpsters all over America. But this one had some credentials: he could curse in blue swirls.

“It is good that you are not afraid, Augustus Brine. Terrible evil is at hand. You will have to call upon your courage. It is a good sign that you have kept your wits in the presence of the great Gian Hen Gian. The grandeur is sometimes too much for weaker men.”

“May I offer you some wine?” Brine extended the bottle of cabernet he had brought from the store.

“No, I have a great thirst for this.” He sloshed the cup of seawater. “From a time when it was all I could drink.”

“As you wish.” Brine sipped from the bottle.

“There is little time, Augustus Brine, and what I am to tell you may overwhelm your tiny mind. Please prepare yourself.”

“My tiny mind is steeled for anything, O King. But first, tell me, did I see you curse blue swirls this morning?”

“A minor loss of temper. Nothing really. Would you have had me turn the clumsy dolt into a snake who forever gnaws his own tail?”

“No, the cursing was fine. Although in Vance’s case the snake might be an improvement. Your curses were in Arabic, though, right?”

“A language I prefer for its music.”

“But I don’t speak Arabic. Yet I understood you. You did say, ‘May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense,’ didn’t you?”

“I can be most colorful and inventive when I am angry.” The Arab flashed a bright grin of pride. His teeth were pointed and saw-edged like a shark’s. “You have been chosen, Augustus Brine.”

“Why me?” Somehow Brine had suspended his disbelief and denied the absurdity of the situation. If there was no order in the universe, then why should it be out of order to be sitting on the beach talking to an Arab dwarf who claimed to be king of the Djinn, whatever the hell that was? Strangely enough, Brine took comfort in the fact that this experience was invalidating every assumption he had ever made about the nature of the world. He had tapped into the Zen of ignorance, the enlightenment of absurdity.

Gian Hen Gian laughed. “I have chosen you because you are a fisherman who catches no fish. I have had an affinity for such men since I was fished from the sea a thousand years ago and released from Solomon’s jar. One gets ever so cramped passing the centuries inside a jar.”

“And ever so wrinkled, it would seem,” Brine said.

Gian Hen Gian ignored Brine’s comment. “I found you here, Augustus Brine, listening to the noise of the universe, holding in your heart a spark of hope, like all fishermen, but resolved to be disappointed. You have no love, no faith, and no purpose. You shall be my instrument, and in return, you shall gain the things you lack.”

Brine wanted to protest the Arab’s judgment, but he realized that it was true. He’d been enlightened for exactly thirty seconds and already he was back on the path of desire and karma. Postenlightenment depression, he thought.

Brine said, “Excuse me, O King, but what exactly is a Djinn?”

Gian Hen Gian spit into the surf and cursed, but this time Brine did not understand the language and no blue swirls cut the air.

“I am Djinn. The Djinn were the first people. This was our world long before the first human. Have you not read the tales of Scheherazade?”

“I thought those were just stories.”

“By Aladdin’s lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth. The Djinn knew this. We had power over our own stories. We shaped our world as we wished it to be. It was our glory. We were created by Jehovah as a race of creators, and he became jealous of us.

“He sent Satan and an army of angels against us. We were banished to the netherworld, where we could not make our stories. Then he created a race who could not create and so would stand in awe of the Creator.”

“Man?” Brine asked.

The Djinn nodded. “When Satan drove us into the netherworld, he saw our power. He saw that he was no more than a servant, while Jehovah had given the Djinn the power of gods. He returned to Jehovah demanding the same power. He proclaimed that he and his army would not serve until they were given the power to create.

“Jehovah was sorely angered. He banished Satan to hell, where the angel might have the power he wished, but only over his own army of rebels. To further humiliate Satan, Jehovah created a new race of beings and gave them control over their own destinies, made them masters of their own world. And he made Satan watch it all from hell.

“These beings were parodies of the angels, resembling them physically, but with none of the angels’ grace or intelligence. And because he had made two mistakes before, Jehovah made these creatures mortal to keep them humble.”

“Are you saying,” Brine interrupted, “that the human race was created to irritate Satan?”

“That is correct. Jehovah is infinite in his snottiness.”

Brine reflected on this for a moment and regretted that he had not become a criminal at an early age. “And what happened to the Djinn?”

“We were left without form, purpose, or power. The netherworld is timeless and unchanging, and boring — much like a doctor’s waiting room.”

“But you’re here, you’re not in the netherworld.”

“Be patient, Augustus Brine. I will tell you how I came here. You see, many years passed on Earth and we remained undisturbed. Then was born Solomon the thief.”

“You mean King Solomon? Son of David?”

“The thief!” The Djinn spat. “He asked for wisdom from Jehovah that he might build a great temple. To assist him, Jehovah gave him a great silver seal, which he carried in a scepter, and the power to call the Djinn from the netherworld to act as slaves. Solomon was given power over the Djinn on Earth that by all rights belonged to me. And as if that was not enough, the seal also gave him the power to call up the deposed angels from hell. Satan was furious that such power be given to a mortal, which, of course, was Jehovah’s plan.

“Solomon called first upon me to help him build his temple. He spread the temple plans before me and I laughed in his face. It was little more than a shack of stone. His imagination was as limited as his intelligence. Nevertheless, I began work on his temple, building it stone by stone as he instructed. I could have built it in an instant had he commanded it, but the thief could only imagine a temple being built as it might be built by men.