I heard a noise and went to the spare room, opening the door. To my shock there was a random guy laying there on the bed.

He had a turban on, and the most magnificent set of silk house robes with these shiny, ornate golden stitches.

I said “hello” and he stirred into a confused wakefulness and said “where am I?” to which I replied “you are in my house in Seville sir. Now would you mind telling me who you are and what you are doing here?”

“Sir! I am Sultan Mangogul and I will not be questioned in such a manner, now please tell me where I am!”

This back and forth continued until me and this so called Sultan guy established who he was. After a Google search it turns out that he is from some old novel and had woken up in my spare room.

So I resolved to help him cope for as long as he stayed around and decided to take him for a tapas after giving him some normal clothes to wear.

I pleaded with him to take his beautiful gold, amber stoned ring off lest he be tempted to use it. He wouldn’t be convinced so eventually we decided to head out. He looked around at everything in wondrous amazement like a small child. Often commenting on how impressive the horseless carriages were and that the women here had no shame. That he would not even need his ring in this place.

Hopefully not, I prayed silently to myself. This man, this character really was a man of his time and I fear he’d cause chaos in short order.

We sat down for tapas outside in the sun, at a beautiful cafe by the river. The Sultan was happily satisfied with all of the new things around him and he was very happy with the food, though he did remark that these modern vegetables lacked natural flavour and the fruits seemed incredibly sweet. An accurate observation of our modern strains of familiar foods.

As we waited for our coffees a couple sat down next to us and I thought nothing of it. After all our afternoon had been fine and we were about getting ready to leave.

But we noticed some discomfort between them and I saw the Sultan perk up. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

She had come to break up with him in a public place, to keep his reaction tempered, but he was quickly losing composure already. “I don’t understand, is there someone else?” to which she replied “of course not”, she just wanted to figure things out and perhaps to move somewhere else for a while.

The Sultan gave a mischievous smile and said, let us see what her toy says, and he pointed the ring beneath the table to her ‘discreet parts’. I said ‘No’ as loudly as possible under my breath but it was too late.

Her lady parts started to spill her secrets without the the diplomatic tact she had used to try and spare his feelings.

“Ever since you lost your job Miguel, you have been laying around the house losing hope by the day, for months! I look at you and feel nothing and I’m repulsed by your touch. So is there someone else? Not at first, but recently yes and there’s no shame in it”.

He sat there in open mouthed disbelief with tears streaming. “Lila please!” to which she replied with a roll of her eyes after her secrets were already dropped, “Miguel”. Her lady parts spoke up again without the compassion that was coming from her mouth, even if her body language was disagreeable.

‘I didn’t sign up to be your mother so needed a man again. What can I say. I have to leave you because you have already left me and you have left yourself. I’m sorry. You’ll find someone else once things are better’. She patted his arm and he pulled away with pain and disgust flashing across his face.

I dragged the Sultan away and left the awful scene, getting him back to the apartment and admonishing him for doing what he had done. I pleaded with him again to take the genie’s ring off before we’d go out ever again.

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Sultan Mangogul of Congo is a character from The Indiscreet Jewels (1748) by Denis Diderot