‘Huh,’ thought Mahmoud. ‘If I somehow managed to put one over there in the corner. Let me just try to make my way round the sofa here… no, it’s too narrow.’ Not that he was fat or anything. Quite to the contrary, Mahmoud was a tiny man whose shoulders seemed to shrink into his stomach, and his khaki shorts looked like a tent looming over his matchstick-sized legs.

He abandoned his project for a bit — he was trying to find a spot for one of the 450+ 40-inch domino blocks he had ordered a couple of months back — and he started jumping up and down the sofa, trying to think clearer. He had this notion that if he was moving around, his brain cells would be more active and subsequently he would make better judgments, which was very important. Not just to him, mind you. After all, he was the head of state, and anything he could do to keep his mind sharp was required, even if it looked kind of funny. He used to remove light bulbs from lamps and stick his finger in the bulb hole for the same purpose, but he had to stop doing that after a couple of unfortunate experiences.

A couple of minutes later he had forgotten all about what he was supposed to think about, and he went into the kitchen to relieve himself and to have a bite of lettuce.

(A text based on a writing exercise generated by WriteThis -20.06.2009 12:46:25)