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The beginning part of the plot implicates perplexity of the narrator after returning to his hometown. He studied abroad for seven years in London, England. After returning to his hometown, he noticed many changes; he felt a distance between the villagers and himself. He learns there is an unfamiliar man named Mustafa Sa'eed reside in the village. He found out that Mustafa was from Khartoum, and met him briefly when Mustafa visited him at his house. The narrator has a lot of confusion about the environments, the people. The writer described the feeling of confusion as a gap in something rather like fog rose up between them and me. The narrator later explains that the fog cleared and I awake, and everything seemed more familiar the second day after his arrival. The narrator expressed an immediate connection, something that he has yearned for from his people, the villagers and the family. He described it as I experienced a feeling of assurance. I felt not like a storm-swept feather but like that palm tree, being with a background, with roots, with a purpose. The narrator gives a metaphorical indication of his life in Europe as a storm-swept feather an unfounded existence. After he returned home, he felt that the unpalatable memory no longer existed. What was left was a rooted feeling of being home, which he defines as a palm tree, being with a background, with roots, with a purpose. He feels that life is good and the world as unchanged as ever. The narrator was able to feel this way until the villagers began to ask him about the European life style, with the questions like: Were the people there like us or were they different?, Was life expensive or cheap?, They dont marry, but does a man live with a woman in sin? or Are there any farmers among them? He managed to answer all such questions, but these queries from the people increased the dissociation between the narrator and the villagers. More thoughts came to

his mind, which he preferred not to disclose, as he felt that the people in Europe are just like us; they are born and die, and in the journey from the cradle to the grave they dream dreams, some