Reaction to the span of the Ramadan day was exactly
like the reaction of body and mind to the time-change
on arrival in a country whose hours are far behind
or ahead of the one departed from. The fuzzy intoxication
of being awake when you were used to being asleep
and to be sleeping when you were meant to be
awake wore off just as the internal clock resets itself
after a few days in a country across a date-line.
The devout Hanife rose in the cold for the pre-dawn
meal; hunger and thirst were a clamor only by sunset.
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Paraphrases from the novel The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer.