Fragments of Sobriquets

Victor Mosquera

He had it on good authority that the Sphinx’s nose had been destroyed by an outraged Sufi Muslim named Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr way back in the 1300’s leaving claims that the event had been caused by a Napoleonic cannonball as no more than imperialist propaganda.
As the caravan disappeared between dunes with the sunrise painting the monuments orange behind them, Porpentine watched from the the ruined city, his own shadow bulbous on the grit-littered plain, he wondered if perhaps he had framed the question too narrowly; limited the possibility of an answer that would solve the riddle and set him free of this godforsaken place; back to Blighty, back to roast dinners and boiled vegetables in mucus-thick gravy and blood warm red wine.
Incongruous in his dusty linen suit and pith helmet, he wiped the sweat from his brow with a once-white handkerchief and turned back to the dig where the cries of “Yalla, yalla” barked from the camel-toothed mouth of the pencil-thin foreman.

Tales for an attention deficit world

This story was initially inspired by reading What happened to the Sphinx's nose? and developed into and echo from Thomas Pynchon's V from where the character of Porpentine is lifted. The original title was going to be Riddle Me This, but that seemed a bit too obvious so I chose the preceding line from the Mars Volta's Televators, a song I go back to quite often.