You hope to blame it on the barking dog, not the one you saw in the afterboon gnawing a bone or sleeping even though it was in the same location from where the miserable 3 am sound comes. No, not that dog. There are exactly as many Alis as there are dogs and times of the day in this particular village. Not a town which is another class of things with specific characteristics like running water, stop signs and its own school bus. Yes, Jesus did walk here and it ought to come to mind at least once or twice a day but it doesn't, not to anyoneAs lost as everyone is in their current troubles be it an overturned car on the way or lack of an egg, each particular hardship a little worse or a little better, each one marking a path to a greater apathy. This Ali always sits in the last chair near the edge of the balcony and never looks directly at anyone or anything else. His cigarette is always nearly finished,smoked clear down to the tiups of his finger. Not a single one ever needs be stubbed. He leans outward as if made that way in his mother's womb, anxious to travel but not the sort one does for petty enjoyment. His own mother prays for his departure and you hope to blame this sleeplessness on the barking dog whose image doubles and triples through a cone-shaped prism the kind a child struggles to reach and buried in a box of other useless but interesting things yet forgets as soon as they get it, forgetting the struggle almost at once in the mystery of weath