So, I'm back to working odd hours. Which is fine. I work in an office that has zero air circulation with an echo-y, highly trafficked hallway right outside my door. Having no air in my office, I like to work with the door open. Having the attention span of a two year-old I like to listen to music while I work or I get bored. Open doors and loud music next to the hallway frequented by elderly women that spend their days studying hundred year-old documents written in persian is never a good mix. Unless it's 2am and the elderly women are home, snug in their beds, dreaming of hundred year-old documents residing in silent, silent rooms. Shhhhhhhh.
Meanwhile, their hundred year-old documents are rocking out to Sonic Youth and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Cause now I can play my music as loud as I like.
The downside of this is that when I leave for home in the silent, spooky hours of the morning, I frequently see cute and furry animals running around the gardens outside of my office. Cute and furry animals that look a lot like Jackals. You see, my office is part of "The Arc" (all the Baha'is know what I'm talking about) which means that it has lots of gardens all around it. And beyond the gardens are large areas where the mountainside on which the arc is built, which is in the middle of the city of Haifa, has been left natural. And the Baha'is have done their best to encourage the growth and propagation of the natural flora and fauna. Like Jackals. The neighbours, I am sure, love this.
And speaking to one of the brave and dedicated security guards one night as I was leaving, I commented on the jackals. And he turned to me and said: "Oh, you don't need to worry about them, they're pretty timid and run off as soon as they see you," at this point he paused and gazed around the gardens and out over the city of Haifa before turning back to me and saying, "unless of course they're in a pack. I hear a pack of jackals can get pretty nasty."
"So what do you do if you come face to face with a pack of jackals?" I asked as he let me out of the main gate.
"Oh, it doesn't really matter...as long as you don't run." And then he walked off into the darkness.
Ha ha, silly security guards, always with the joking. Though it would explain the huge-ass flashlights they carry around at night...