English Days in Arabia: Tales To Tease The Mind

In a coma, in a tiny Moroccan hospital, a very dear but estranged brother needs help. Perhaps stories told at his bedside will somehow stimulate and wake him. Each day a new story is told, each one looking hard at something which has fascinated the patient in the past. But everything must entertain and stimulate, and therefore - the consequences of seeing into the future becomes a story about birds on a spring morning; concern about the nature of the Human Will becomes a story about the reincarnation of Robert Hooke of the Royal Society; thoughts about mortality become a story about the collapse of a giant machine; possibilities in the perception of reality become a light-hearted story about mice in tiny hob nail boots; questions about mental illness become a story about entrapment in a dilapidated hotel; the value of ambition becomes a story about a tragic young music student; management of the end of life becomes a story about affection between the elderly Ronald and Judith; and thoughts on the possibility of time travel take the form of a story about a disconcerting schoolfriend Eggy and his crazy invention. Eventually, after a tale about darkness sought by Steggy, a tiny Negev Desert spider, the patient begins to recover. He wakes, reveals what has happened to him, and the estranged brothers are re-united.