The stars were up when Ali Baba reached the threshold of their small house. The door swung open the moment his fingers brushed its surface.
" Mama," he called softly as he crossed the yard to one of the just two rooms there. As he pushed the door open, he saw by the light of the dying candle the thin figure of their neighbor, Aisha, bending down on his pale-faced mother lying in her bed. As she looked his way, he noticed how her face was shining with sweat.
" Where have you been?" In her better days, that would have mostly sounded like a threatening rumble. Yet with hunger, fatigue, and illness, it was reduced to a hoarse whisper.
" Just begging here and there…" He fetched another candle from his bag and lit it.
" Begging or stealing!?" She shot up, only to haunch over and cough into her hand.
" Calm down, Jawaher. You shouldn't be moving so abruptly." Aisha tried to coax her back down. She gave Ali Baba a known look. " Your mother is tired, you better let her rest."
He gave her a nod, a sign that he understood, and left. Aisha heaved a sigh as she wiped away the older woman's sweat. " You shouldn't be so tough on him, he is just trying to help."
" By stealing…" The woman coughed, her ash-black hair falling off from her messy bun with every vibration. " They will chop his hands if he gets caught!"
" He's just a kid, they won't do that."
Another fit of coughing erupted just as she was about to protest. Aisha took it as a sign and decided to end the conversation there.
When she left the room, she was met with a worried Ali Baba pacing the yard. " She will be fine," she assured him, " she just needs lots of rest, and to eat well."
Ali Baba slung his bag off his shoulder and gave it to her. " This is all I could get today."
Aisha hesitated before taking the bag, she looked broken and uncertain. " This is wrong."
" We don't have another choice. We won't survive if we wait for others to feed us. She won't make it."
Aisha looked over her shoulder, at Jawaher's room, and then back to Ali Baba's brown eyes. " Your mother is really worried about you."
" It's fine, I've never-"
" There is no 'never'," she crouched, holding Ali Baba by the shoulders. " If they catch you, they may cut your hands for the crime of stealing. Then what would happen to your mother? Please, think of her." Ali Baba looked down, letting those words slide, burying them deep beneath a thousand excuses and reasons why he just couldn't stop.
He wouldn't have her worrying over him if he could.
Aisha stood up and opened the bag, and when her eyes laid on what was inside, her stomach rumbled involuntarily. She seemed as though she was about to burst into tears with the slightest touch.
" You take some," Ali Baba told her. " Salma is sick too right? You both need food. And that's a token of gratitude for always looking after my mother."
She shook her head. " You risked everything to get this for your mother. I can't possibly take it." She returned the bag to him. " Jawaher helped me out in my direst moments, and I'm returning her favor. As for Salma, I'm sure we can get by just fine." She smiled at him and he immediately hated that smile.
He knew it too well. The smile of a fibbing mother. Of a mother trying to convince her kids everything was fine while it wasn't. Of a mother taking the brunt of everything on her own. His mother always made that face in the past, and there was where it had led her, lying down with a thin weak body as death and life fought over her.
" I need to go now. Make sure to check on her every now and then. And if anything happens, just knock on the kitchen wall thrice and I'll be at your doorstep." With one last nod, she left into the darkness of the night.
Ali Baba lumped down his bag in the kitchen and went back to check on his mother. He could swear that every time he saw her, she was getting paler.
She barely moved her head to the side to glimpse him closing the door and with a weak, skeleton-like hand waved him over. Ali Baba closed on her, holding her cold hand in his. " You should rest. Everything will be fine in the morning."
She shook her head weakly. " You're not doing anything bad are you?"
" No, not at all. Please don't concern yourself with me and get better soon."
She searched his eyes for the truth and he let go of her hand. He knew he could never beat her when she did that, and if he looked away it was just a giveaway. So he always busied himself with the nearest thing he could find. " You're not tucked in properly. Let me help you with it."
Jawaher looked longingly at her son and then spook up, her voice hoarse and cracked. "... Today… at the village…"
" What?"
" We heard the great bell. What happened?"
" Nothing." He assured her once she was well tucked.
" The great bell doesn't chime for nothing, Ali Baba."
" It's really nothing. The girl just had a heat stroke, nothing more."
" What? What happened to Zarqa?"
" She says she is seeing a forest advancing on us? Can you believe that? Must be a mirage or she was too sick from standing in the sun. That's what everyone is saying."
" Zarqa never mistook a mirage before." She attempted to sit up only to be thwarted by Ali Baba.
" There are no forests in the desert. Much a forest that can advance! Mama, she is delusional."
" If that girl says she saw something then she had seen it. She had never lied once, never failed her duties."
Ali Baba's look softened as he pulled the covers over her. " You don't have to worry about it now. You just rest well for tonight."
He blew out the candle on the table and left her to rest. When he was once more under the starry sky, he nimbly climbed over the ledge and onto the roof. He laid down on a fading old carpet, facing the sky with his arms acting as his pillows.
As soon as he was settled, the sound of wings flapping through the air ambushed him and a weight landed on his arm. " Morjana."
The crow had settled down too, mending her feathers and glancing at him every now and then. " Here, that's all I've got now." He fetched a piece of bread from the depth of his pocket and offered it to her. The crow looked disgruntled at the small dinner but swallowed it nonetheless.
" A forest huh?" He mumbled as he stroked Morjana's feathers, recalling the racket at the market. With that thought in mind, he laid on his side and drifted to sleep beneath the night sky…
━━━━━━━༺ *** ༻━━━━━━━
Malik knocked twice on Zarqa's door, but there was no answer. After a few moments, he let himself in, holding in hand a bowl of soup. " You haven't eaten your dinner yet."
" I don't feel like eating tonight," she mumbled looking out her window. Malik's demeanor went soft. He placed the bowl on the chair and slowly settled down by her side.
" Are you crying?"
" No." The girl sniffed, facing away from her father as possible.
Malik gently framed her face with his two wrinkled hands and turned it so he was looking into her Sapphire eyes. " It's about earlier right?"
" It's nothing." She shook her head, wanting to look away, willing her tears to stop. But as if they were refuting her, they continued to fall even more profusely.
Malik slowly wiped away the falling tears, yet said nothing. He didn't need to, for he knew the girl better than anyone, and he knew too well that when her feelings overflow, she ends up telling him everything.
" I just relayed what I've seen… You know I would never lie, Baba…" Malik gave a small smile as he nodded his head.
" You're a girl as pure as crystal. You would never. I believe you." He held her hands in his. Zarqa's were soft and small compared to those hands that were roughened with time and hard work. " Just so your mind rest at ease, this forest you saw, I'm sending someone to investigate it first thing in the morning. So don't be sad. Even if the whole world doesn't believe you, Zarqa, I'll always do."
" Thank you, Baba, I love you." With a renewed smile, Zarqa hugged her father tightly, almost squeezing the air out of his lungs.
" You would be eating your dinner if you do. You know what they say, should a girl sleep on an empty stomach, her parents would be punished."
" That's a myth, Baba!"
" You want to take chances?" The girl laughed as she fetched her bowl and nuzzled closer to her father…
━━━━━━━༺ *** ༻━━━━━━━
Malik grew sick not long after, the sky was still holding back any drop of water it might have had, and Zarqa was still insisting she was seeing a forest advancing on them.
Needless to say, no one believed her. The few men Malik had sent to investigate it, all came up with the same answer. Nothing but sand as far as the eye can see.
That night, by the light of the oil lantern, Zarqa was tending to a sweating Malik who had fallen for a fever. The old man became bedridden shortly after his wife's passing, many believed it wouldn't take him long to reunite with her.
As she wiped the sweat off his brow, she was revisited with the memories of tending to her late mother.
" Zarqa…" A weak mumble prompted her to take notice of the old man facing her.
" Do you need anything, Baba?"
" You should rest…"
She gently pushed away the tufts of hair from his eyes. " I will Baba, you should go back to sleep."
Malik hardly shifted around under his covers to reach a hand to her face. " You should take care of yourself, unlike me, you're still needed."
" You shouldn't worry, Baba. You just get better. The village needs you."
Whether convinced or he was just too tired to converse anymore, Malik closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep while Zarqa's eyes watched over him. She was reminded again, by the light of that lantern, of how old her father was.
Despite his age, Malik was rather energetic, and always wandering about, that his age was never apparent. But now that he was bedridden, the aftereffect of time on him was visible.
With her small fingers, she softly traced the wrinkles on his face, her head leaning on the mattress.
' Please, get better soon… I don't want to say another goodbye.' Zarqa didn't want to imagine her life if he was to go too. A tear escaped her eye. " Don't leave me on my own…"
Her vision grew hazy, the shadows on the walls grew longer, and the light of the lantern danced around them, growing brighter, swirling, and flickering… the darkened sky earned an orange hue, and smoke rose up and covered the stars. Flames licked away at everything in its wake, engulfing people and houses alike. The loud cries of horror permeated the silence, and cut her ears like sharp knives.
Zarqa stood amidst the chaos, watching with terrified eyes as her village was burned to the ground and the people slaughtered with no mercy, their blood dyeing it red. What happened? How did it come to all of this?
As she asked herself those questions, she snapped back, taking in her house and her sleeping father. The calmness enveloped her, nothing but the slow breathing of Malik.
Cold sweat ran down her face as she pushed away the locks of hair falling before her eyes, her heart rapping against her chest, and with a weak trembling voice she asked. " Why… It has been years... Why now of all times…"
━━━━━━━༺ *** ༻━━━━━━━
" Attacked you say?" The villagers looked among each other as Zarqa spoke to them the next morning.
" Please believe me!" Zarqa begged vehemently. " In the near future, the village will be attacked and every single one of you all killed!"
" How do you know that?" A man asked.
" You claim to know the future? What blasphemy!"
" Last time a moving forest, now this!"
" I'm not lying!" Zarqa cried indignantly at being accused.
" This is a waste of time. You've certainly become delusional, Zarqa." With those words said, the villagers walked away from her.
" Wait, come back!" Zarqa called after them but was ignored.
" I told you, she's gone mad!" A man declared.
" A moving forest, in the middle of the desert. And seeing the future… she must have suffered under the draught's sun."
" Maybe it's just shock from losing her mother."
" I kind of pity her," the women whispered among themselves.
Zarqa pursed her lips and clenched her fists tightly, swelling with bitterness her eyes almost watered.
From around a corner, Ali Baba was watching as the rest of the village turned their backs on Zarqa. " That girl lost her mind, I tell you Morjana," he told the crow resting on his shoulder while munching on an apple.
" Thief! Stop that kid he stole my apples!" Ali Baba turned around to see the owner of the stand he had just passed by running in his direction, brandishing a long stick.
" Ops, gotta take my leave!" With a nimble summersault, Ali Baba mounted on the nearest house's roof and away from the stick's reach. He glanced one last time at the merchant, stuck out his tongue, and was off…
━━━━━━━༺ *** ༻━━━━━━━
Not too far from Al-yamama, among the swirling and swelling clouds of sand egged on by the dry wind, a caravan was advancing.
The man riding his horse at the very front raised two golden eyes as soon as the Northern gate loomed before them. " At long last…"...