Akvan Div is a div — a demon — from Ferdowsi’s epic Shahnameh. In the age of King Kay Khosrow it can vanish from sight, become a wild ass, or turn into a storm, and it hid among the onager herds with a body glowing like the sun. The king recognized it as a demon and ordered the hero Rostam to destroy it.
While Rostam slept, Akvan cut away the earth around him and lifted him into the sky, then asked whether to hurl him onto a mountain or into the sea. Knowing the demon’s mind was perverse and would do the opposite of any request, Rostam asked for the mountain — and so was thrown into the sea and survived. A twisted, finally unknowable intelligence that moves against whatever it is asked connects to our world’s observational ambiguity.