OUT OF EDEN WALK

The exurbs at last. We plod through thousands of acres of construction spoil. Dump truck loads of debris stipple the desert, in places, as far as the eye can see. These obstacles are surprisingly difficult to navigate. Fences, walls, roads — an entire taxonomy of barriers slice the open space into squares, into rectangles, dividing nothing from nothing. We trudge from minaret to distant minaret. Banounah pulls out his monocular. He scans the urban frontier for a mini-mart, for a cold bottle of lemonade.