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21 " And she didn’t know what she would do without them. Without hope, without dreams. "
― , Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
22 " It was as if she existed solely to care for her brother and a house. Afterwards, she would similarly look after her husband. Her hands smelling of cow dung cakes. Her own dreams were inconsequential. It seemed to her that no one could see the ambition that thrummed in her. No one imagined her becoming someone. "
23 " Our house is full of bad dreams. "
24 " Tomorrow is exam day. Exams seem unreal, like they belong to another world. In our world we are doing daily battle with djinns and kidnappers and buffalo-killers and we don‘t know when we will vanish. "
25 " „You shouldn‘t be trying to sow divisions in this community,“ Papa says, which sounds like something a good newsperson would say on TV. "
26 " We believe djinns moved into this palace around the time our las kings died, their hearts broken by the crooked victories of white men who claimed to be our rulers. No one knows where the djinns came from, if Allah-Ta'ala sent them, or if they were summoned here by the feverish utterances of the devout. They have been here for so long, they must watched the walls of this palace crumble, the pillars soften with moss and creepers, and pythons slither over cracked stones like dreams wavering in the light of dawn. Every year they must feel the wind trembling the champa trees in the garden, shearing flowers as fragrant as vials of attar. "
27 " This isn't happening. This is happening. God is twisting a screwdriver under my skin, not stopping for a break. "