Time ran out when the night faded and dawn crept into the bedchamber, slicing across the bride’s ashen face.
“Take her!” the king shouts, though he need not, the story the same. Today the king will marry again. Tomorrow the bride will die. The only story he knows: a woman’s betrayal—vengeance.
In the village, Shahrazad quells her father’s cry. “Unless I go, more women will die.” She clasps her sister’s hand. “Carry my clothes to the bedchamber. Ask for a story.”
The king reclines on plush cushions, breath heavy with blood-red wine, a wedding feast omen. Another bride beheaded, another virgin wedded. Time always runs out when the night ends. Past the filmy curtains, the moon hangs, a silver blade.
“Before I bid farewell—” Her sister’s voice trembles.
“If my husband permits…”
Shahrazad begins, the night a harp she plays into dawn.
“Sinbad lay as dead, his ship wrecked upon the rocks—.” Across the bed a sunbeam falls, touches a finger to her lips.
“And then?”
“But it is morning. My sister is long gone.”
“Tonight, then?”
“If my husband permits…”
The moon rises, lingers, retreats, returns with dusk, again and again, blade to alabaster bowl to hammered coin. One thousand and one nights. And then the endless night ends.
“Aladdin praised Allah for such a wise wife and covered her with kisses.” The moon is a dangling scythe.
“Take her!” the king shouts, throwing wide the curtains. At his command, the day swallows the moon.