A red and wild life night went away, no one knew what was going on but for sure Afellan was expecting a moment when he could pry open with his mother amicably or aggressively the Secret of the Hoggar. The sun rose timidly behind the rocky Mountains. She was unwilling to show up, to unveil its deep-seated mystery to the public ear for the sake of being heard, sifted through and most bewilderingly being learned from. We do usually need the unknown as well as the extraordinary to reach the harbor of the known and the ordinary. LONG LIVE THE UNKOWN.
Fortunately for Afellan, the appointment with his mother was organized and planned to be on Friday evening after the prayer. Two days to go before being decisive and crystal-clear once for all. Everything deserves some wait except the Secret of the Hoggar. Whatever the cost would be! Afellan was all readiness to encounter his mother, the coming and even the unescapable horizon.
Friday evening came. Entered Afellan the sitting-room brimming with flourish as much as with colossal apprehension, followed his mother Fatima whose eyes were gazing skywards perhaps to convey that nothing could reach her, or nobody could know the least about her and about the secret she carried all alone. In effect, Touareg womanhood distances itself from Algerian womanhood. While T.W. stands out to be the very epitome of leadership, supremacy and self-autonomy, A.W. persists in lagging behind the false galaxies of dependence and vulnerability.
'Despite the altercation between us, you still insist to know about the Secret of the Hoggar, don't you? demanded the mother.
'I'm determined to know the very truth, for my dream never lies to me,' added Afellan with a determined voice.
'All right son, I think my own life is drawing pretty near to its end now.'
'What do you mean, exactly?
'None knows about the Secret of the Hoggar but me and the chief of the Touareg tribe in Tamanrasset. So, as long as the secret is kept, my life is kept likewise, however as soon as the secret is divulgated I will be experiencing death throes in the very near future".
'What I understand is that your life is inextricably intertwined with the Secret, which could pose a real threat to your existence.'
'Absolutely, then you will badly need to choose either the secret and your mother"
'It is a dilemma indeed,' pondered Afellan.
'It is up to you", suggested the mother.
'Excuse me who will prompt your death in case you reveal the secret to me?"
'I don't know, genuinely I don't know, it is a secret not yet revealed", tried Fatima to redeem the lacuna.
'Secret within secret!!' exclaimed Afellan.
'We need to be decisive and definite….today…or rather tonight…!! What will you choose; the secret or your mother?'
'If you divulgate the secret and nothing catastrophic will happen, why do we always expect the worst?'
'Never attempt to underestimate the matter; it is worth our earth, isn't it?
Shapeless thoughts started rolling on in Afellan's head, at times preaching the end of ambiguity and heralding instead the age of transparency, challenge and sacrifice. Such sacrifice is as much awful as it carries within itself the grains of new death along with a vacant element.
'Don't you have an answer yet ?' asked the mother regretfully.
'Burdensome is the answer, especially when I feel torn between a compelling secret and an amorphous mother.'
'What I can comprehend is that you would opt for the secret of the Hoggar at the expense of my life.'
'Sorry mum for the bitter truth. Unlike you, the Secret of the Hoggar will give birth to me as many times as the summit could hold', Afellan's deep pitch of voice was followed by a muzzled sigh.
'I see what you mean because we have never felt that we belong to each other, unfortunately.'
'I have got a piercing yet inexplicable heartburn for many days.'
'You can take some ginger to alleviate the pain, it is recommended,' proposed Afellan nonchalantly.
'It is too late. Too late, indeed,' sighed Fatima.
'Everything can be late except the Secret. Please I can't wait anymore"
'Of course I will unfold much, as my days are drawing in.'
As the conversation between Fatima and Afellan started to get climactic and crucial, Zayen came in crestfallen, ultra-laden with skepticism and dread. He interrupted Afellan abruptly as if he had been eavesdropping on them to try to understand something within such unrelenting chaos.
'Don't rush her, son… things require time to ripen and fall. How heavy that fall would be!'
'The secret is that….is that….is…', paused Fatima discreetly while she coughed expectedly.
Conversely, her son and her husband were gazing at her, whose gaze suggested a lot in terms of ungratefulness tinged with aloofness, already perceived and conceived by the vanquished mother.
'The fatal secret is that there is a box…,'intermittent coughs interrupted the flow of Fatima's speech, yet the message was about to be expelled from the human dismal depths.
'There is a box on the summit of Atakor Mountain.'
'What does that damn box hold?' shouted Afellan.
'Something really horrible,' added the mother with anguish.
'We are waiting for you, dear!', Zayen's soothing pitch just to contain his dismembered wife.
'In the box there are an embalmed child, a watch and Red Mercury.'
'What…?' bursted out Afellan.
'Let me proceed, please.'
'It is all horror, as it sounds. However, I'm still into it to know further.'
'Things are not as they seem.'
The provocative question that keeps imposing itself is that who had ever thought of depositing the box and its contents there.
'It was Tin Hinan the queen of the Touareg tribes, who had deposited her secret on the summit of the Atakor Mountain. It dates back to the fifth century A.C.'
'What are they for? Tell me about that embalmed child because it is a secret in the horrendous sense of the term.'
'It is Aminkol, Tin Hinan's little child.'
'Did she embalm her child?' asked Afellan.
'Yes, she did'
'But why she did so…?'
'Only to be perpetuated as a female emblem of matriarchy, uniqueness. Despite being her only son, she had done all she could just to prevent males from getting power one day. She believed that the age of woman came to reign and dominate."
"But you didn't tell me why she had laid her child on the summit of the mountain, inanimate and embalmed.'
'But you didn't ask me how she embalmed him!?' interrogated the mother hesitantly.
'Absolutely! The tidings have slipped my memory. It is high time to fathom the unfathomable.'
With a vibrating voice continued Fatima. At dawn, Tin Hinan strangled her five-year old son with her scarf, and then she injected Formaldehyde in his blood vessels to preserve him from decaying. In her belief that her son would remain alive since his innocent childhood would stay intact and changeless despite the vicissitudes of time.
'Significant stuff needs to be delved into!'
'Beware!!' whispered Fatima.
'You have to go even further to lay bare the mystery of the Red Mercury and the watch.' 'What are they for!?'
'As for the Red Mercury and the watch, no much information of them. But what I know is that Red Mercury is used to protect the embalmed child from human evil deeds.'
'Why is the Red Mercury? why not something else?'
'Because the planet Mars supplies Aminkol with Red Mercury every year so as to shield him from casual excavation or deliberate spoil.'
'My head is going to explode. Stop! Stop! I can't take in anymore. I'm trembling. I'm….please…'
'Many things will get much worse, son. You ought to stiffen up, as the Secret of the Hoggar is being disclosed to you ? a tone went as much threatening as potentially dense.
'What do you mean?' demanded Afellan furiously.
'Nothing…nothing… or rather something…!!' responded the mother ambiguously.
'A Secret, an embalmed child, or killed child, Atakor summit, Tin Hinan, ephemeral majesty, buried box, Red Mercury, Red Mars, protection and shield, evil deeds, watch, future and fear, Touareg tribes, I'm not Touareg, Tazrouk labyrinth, oh crazy Afellan!!", bursted out Afellan with a lot of terror, mystery and intrepidity.
'You choose, you decide, you insist… you step in…'
'I'm determined to go ahead, regardless…'
'To go ahead, to do what?'
'To dig up the embalmed child so as to restore life to him once again. Why not to reign the Touareg tribes!?' boasted off Afellan.
'Have you gone mad?'
'Yes I have…I shall be a lot madder…'
"But I'm going to die'
'What relates this to that!?'
'Because….because I have disclosed to you the very intimate details of the Secret of the Hoggar,' spoke out she apprehensively.
'Every single secret is inevitably designed to be shown and divulgated sooner or later…don't ever worry…'
'Only few days to go for my age….and you are the leading cause of my impending death, Afellan.'
'A secret is worth a human life…'
'Even though…your mother…!'
'We are impelled to…mum…such embalmed child has inspired in me the majesty, the awe and the delve', answered he enthusiastically.'
'Mars, however, will hinder your mission and will kill me as I showed you the way to the chest.'
'How come…!'
'Aminkol has been at the auspices of the power of Mars for centuries and centuries. Notably the Red Mercury in the chest is the most flagrant proof of its protection.'
'Do you want to say that the planet Mars will neutralize everything and everybody meant to offend the chest, or even approaching it?'
'Effectively true…!!'
'But why…?!'
'According to Rabinas the god of Mars, He considers that the Hoggar Mountain is part and parcel of Olympus Mons. So, the Hoggar Mountain has never belonged to the earth, for this reason He endeavours hard to extend his sovereignty over it as a zone of influence on earth.', Uttered she pieces of information as bizarre as the plot of the novel.'
'It seems that I can't ravel out this tangle…..it is knotty…. Realistically knotty….my brain is on the edge of…..on the ed….ge….' buried Afellan his face in the palm of his hands; perhaps he tried to hide his challenging fear from any eyewitness passing by.'
'You choose….you decide….you insist….you step in…'
'By the end of the day, I'm a human, subject to fear, reservation and disappointment, yet these shackles will never endure much for my immune system will resist the very irresistible.'
'Beware of Rabinas. He will have no mercy on you…'
'Why….?!'
'Because you defy him, namely his absolute power and areas of influence, and whosoever encroaches on his territories, perdition along with ruin shall be around your corner.'
'I'm pretty sure that Tin Hinan did know that the Hoggar Mountain had belonged to Rabinas' spheres of influence , that's why she laid the chest there on the summit of the mountain as a guarantee of eternal safety.'
'She was as clever as a vixen.'
'That's for sure, lucky her!'
'What are you planning to do now?'
'Excuse me, you didn't tell me about the watch in the chest.'
'It is the strangest watch ever!!'
'Why does it look strange?!'
'Its strangeness lies in the fact that it records all the evil deeds that man has ever done throughout history in every age, year ,month, and day.'
'Ah I see now!! for this reason Tin Hinan buried the watch in the chest to conceal her crime against her innocent child.'
'Things have cleared up, while others are going to embrace the mesh. May God bless my soul!! Amin…'
Gorgeous is the mesh when potentially designed to embroider items odd enough to hardly cover two bared spots. A spot in the left-part of the brain, the other spot is still nowhere. How thrill was the youth ? As it engaged itself with the impossible, with the hard softness. It enters in conflict with the dead, with the godly idiosyncrasy that never oscillates between good and evil, between the ordinary and the sublime. All the manifestations of conflict share the same features of guaranteeing the correspondence between two rival partners: one asking for settlement, the other countervailing the-from-scratch dealers. Whatever gets in the way, either visible or invisible, maternal or paternal would never dampen the spirits of a ladder-like heart, that climbs up the heights despite acrophobia. The age of mystery came to combat the terrestrial whose shallowness hampers all the rolling wheels, to combat the extraterrestrial whose profundity articulates much, however, the élan is yet to come more convincingly, pleasurably and futuristically.