The back of a man climbing an old ladder, and the other side of a closed wall that makes you want to peek inside

I was wandering aimlessly through the dim, shadowy back alleys of Fez, Morocco’s labyrinthine ancient heart. The medina here is a living relic of a millennium ago, holding its title as one of the world's largest car-free urban areas. Because the paths are too narrow and convoluted for automobiles, donkeys remain the lifeblood of transit, carrying goods over cobblestones worn smooth by time. As I drifted through these pre-modern passages, my eyes were drawn to an old, weathered wooden ladder propped against a crumbling plaster wall. Atop its rungs, a man wearing a cap shaped like an inverted white bowl was climbing upward with effortless grace.

The cap perched on his head was a taqiyah, the brimless, dome-shaped skullcap worn by Muslim men. Designed to allow the forehead to touch the prayer rug during prostration, it also serves the very practical purpose of shielding the crown from the relentless North African sun. Under this arid sky, it is as much a necessity of daily life as it is a symbol of faith. Clad in this simple cap, the man appeared to be doing some masonry or repair work on the wall. The ladder beneath him was far from the sterile, silver aluminum of the modern world; it was a rustic, fragile-looking thing, lashed together from uneven logs that seemed to groan under his weight.

Watching his back as he balanced on those precarious rungs, my mind drifted to the unique architecture of Fez. Traditional homes here, known as riads, turn their backs to the outside world. Their exterior walls are sheer, fortress-like barriers with almost no windows facing the public alleys, keeping the domestic lives of their inhabitants strictly private. Inside, however, they open up to reveal breathtaking, sun-drenched central courtyards. This means that from the top of that ladder, the hidden world behind those silent walls would be laid bare. Looking at the man ascending, a mischievous, slightly inappropriate impulse bloomed within me: I wanted to climb up behind him, step by step, and steal a forbidden glance at the secret sanctuary on the other side.

Of course, reality quickly intervened. A foreign traveler suddenly scaling a local’s ladder would surely end with me being dragged away by the authorities as a suspicious intruder. The man continued his work with quiet devotion, entirely oblivious to the intense gaze fixed on his back. Leaving my lingering curiosity suspended there, wrapped in the smooth white curve of his taqiyah, I turned away. I stepped back into the shadows and let myself be swallowed once more by the endless, winding puzzle of the city.