The Goat-Spy Letters II

On a far-off undiscovered isle the true False Messiah, the End-of-Times Deceiver, the One-Eyed, Dajjal aka Antichrist awaits his foretold advent before Doomsday to declare his kingdom on Earth and convert men to his evil faith . But his agent, the goat-spy Jassasa, on the mission to stage-manage his master’s advent finds the designated land rife with anti-Dajjal conspiracies

Dateline: Pakistan
To the Original One-Eyed Beholder of Dark Knowledge and Future Majesty

Dear Master,

I will begin this missive with some good news and I recommend that you, in the meanwhile, secure a sturdy chair, lest a rush of alarm should topple Master as the report unfolds.

Hear then that your name is celebrated in this land. It is the first word that children utter when they learn to speak. Open any newspaper and you’re mentioned in the bold. FM and talk shows are devoted to your discussions. How did it come about without your ever setting foot on these shores? Well, Master, it is because your advent is a frequent occurrence in this land. It has been declared in falsehood many a time, and bodily materialized here in as many forms. To use a vulgar expression, it comes and goes.

I know it must sound confounding to your ears. It did to mine when I first heard it. It was my good luck that at that very moment one of the seven qutubs, Lords of the Holy Establishment whose benign power holds this land together and safeguards it from rot, came flying by. Noticing the distraught look on my face, the kindly man descended, stroked my head and explained it all to me.

I learned that there is such a thing as eschatology - a highly politicised science of belief. Those who fashion it control the ‘narrative’. One must guard its content continuously or it’s quickly changed to one’s detriment by one’s opponents. Unfortunately, with Master’s long abstinence from public life, his narrative was hijacked. By whom it is not known. The qutubs now closely guard it against any untoward or accidental rewriting.

Master had often told me that after the advent he would rule the world for all Eternity. Well, that was before. The qutub warned of a grievous injury to Master some years after the coronation. Recent history, too, poses an empirical threat. The other Dajjals (the impostors, the false False Messiahs) came also to messy ends. Well, a curse upon their pates, and serves them right I say, but I’m afraid it’s now become a tradition of sorts, and traditions have a way of overriding fate. This is the conspiracy of which I earlier warned you. Master has to come prepared for violence against his person.

The qutub hinted at thirty false Dajjals presenting their suit to mankind before my Master. He was silent on the number of False Dajjal claims processed so far by his team. But going by the folk traditions, thus far between ten and twenty-five false Dajjals have appeared on the political scene. I have obtained a copy of the eschatology. I have to do some quick occult forensics to separate the false false False Messiahs from the false False Messiahs and arrive at the right number: we must make sure that Master is the thirty-first in line, or the qutubs would become upset and deny Master recognition.

I know another small delay seems imminent, but Master should not think that all is lost. I have wonderful, heartening news: In the eschatology is written that before Master’s advent his chosen people will rise in rebellion as a body and declare themselves for Master. They would signal their faith by flying small black flags from the rear ends of their cars. Well, I stood at a busy thoroughfare this morning and counted a large number of these fluttering signals. By the law of averages, half of the city is already converted to Master’s cause. And one thing I know. The eschatology does not lie: the edition in hand correctly foretold my purely accidental meeting with the qutub to the exact date, hour and minute.

Wink Wink
Jassasa

Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author and translator. This is the second column in a new series from Pakistan