Alibaba was an old man and his memory was not what it once was. In fact, he had more hair than memories now, bald as he was. He stood, bowed under the weight of years, as it were, outside his old cave.
“Open,” he said more to himself than to the cave. “Open something. I’m sure it began with an ‘s’. Seesaw? Seahorse? Sesame? Nah…something else. Maybe even something.”
He cleared his throat. “Er…Open…Something!” he shouted at the cave in his weak, quavery voice. He waved a shaking hand at it for good measure.
The rock guarding the entrance to the cave was unmoved.
Alibaba tried again. “Open…Salaam!”
And again. “Open…Scheherazade!” Now why had he said Scheherazade?
But something appeared to have happened. There was a tremor, and the cave spoke, in its rumbling, gravelly voice.
“Have you forgotten your password?” it said.
Alibaba stared vacuously with rheumy eyes at the cave while a few old neurons misfired. “Ah…yes,” he said finally. “I think that is…correct.”
“What is your mother’s maiden name?” said the cave.
Alibaba processed this question.
“What has that got to do with anything?” he asked querulously. Anyway, he muttered to himself, how could he be expected to remember that?
“What was the name of your first pet?” said the cave now.
“I never had a pet,” said Alibaba.
“What was your wife wearing on your first date?”
“Date? I can’t remember, it was so long ago. It may have been a Tuesday. Look, what is the point of all this?”
“What did you have for breakfast?”
“Bollocks!” said Alibaba.
“You password has been mailed to your registered e-mail account,” said the cave.
Alibaba made coarse noises. The e-mail password. It had been years since he’d forgotten that one.