Slowly, consciousness returned. Light began to fill the space around him. Awake but delirious, he tried to open his eyes, but they were swollen from the tears, dust, and dirt. Waking up from his dreams had never been this painful. Sometimes, he would use that fog of morning time to make sense of his more confusing or complicated dreams. That was part of the magic.
If he needed to, he would pull the cool silk blanket over his face and use the darkness to rearrange things so that the dream ended properly. But this dream wouldn’t cooperate. The grit on his hands burned his eyes, and that never happened in his dreams. The gut-wrenching images still pounded in his head. He tried again to restart this “dream” and change the ending.
In his dreams, Arish was always the hero; there were no bad endings. He was certain he could stop this madness and rescue his precious sister. The image of Jasmine being brutally stabbed by the Imam couldn’t possibly be real. Arish stiffened his tiny body as he searched his mind for new images to replace those of the bloody Jasmine lying motionless on the dirt floor.
Barely conscious and still lost somewhere in a dream, Arish was searching his tortured mind to recall an image of Jasmine’s sweet and gentle face. His memories of her seemed to have been erased. A lifetime of images had been replaced with one horrible collage of a blood-spattered girl. His fragile young mind could not find a single image of her.
Arish didn’t yet understand the twisted, medieval horror he witnessed. Jasmine had fallen victim to the Muslim ritual of “ghasalat al-arr,” having failed a virginity examination; Sharia law required a “washing away of the shame.”
Jasmine’s 16th birthday should have been part of her passage to becoming a woman, but instead brought a swift and brutal death. This stubborn dream he was in seemed to have a powerful hold on him. Arish placed his arms at his side and made two tiny fists. He demanded the dream to end, but his hands were full of a sandy mix of dirt and sweat, and the grit brought a horrible feeling of helplessness.
Arish rolled over in the dirty street and pulled himself up onto his knees. His tears mixed with the mud. Dark brown streaks covered his face. Kneeling on the ground and a couple from the grimy window, his tightly closed eyes could not end the images of a lifeless Jasmine. He opened his eyes and crawled to the window to find that her limp body was still lying in a pool of blood. Some of the red streaks were turning dark as they mixed with the dirt and dust. Arish screamed uncontrollably through the window and pounded his tiny fists on the dirty glass. The two women had begun methodically wrapping Jasmine’s body with the bloody sheet but were obviously startled by Arish. All movement in the room stopped, and they turned deliberately, almost serenely, at the window.
Arish put his face back against the window and saw people darting around the room. Suddenly, he locked eyes with the Imam’s cold, black stare. At once, Arish’s body went cold and limp. He wanted to run but stumbled as he tried to stand. He fell backward against the basement window. His legs and arms were so, so heavy. His head was light, and his world was spinning out of control. He tried to get back on his feet but stumbled again and fell back onto his knees. This time, his face landed again against the window, now smeared with swirls of dirt and sweat. He was delirious, lost, and beginning to faint again.
The Imam reached up toward the ceiling of the small room and calmly grabbed the lantern overhead. He tilted it, trying to shine more light at the window. Arish wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t move. He couldn’t even look away. Without warning, the light splashed hot oil on the Imam’s hand, and he suddenly recoiled, sending the lantern crashing to the floor. The lamp’s oil turned into flames that filled the room with flashes of light. The light pulled Arish back to the window, and he could see that there were more women in the room. Two others had been standing motionless in a dark corner of the room. With the burning oil throwing more light into the room, a flash of bright green jumped out of the darkness.
It was the bright green shock of color that caught his attention. He mostly ignored the women’s presence, but the familiar green flash of color pulled him closer to the window. Arish pressed his face back against the muddy window. He squinted as the flames quieted some and splashed light randomly around the room.
His eyes darted around, trying to find that splash of green again. He found it, but the image made no sense. The bitter reality of what he thought he saw would be too much. A stunned Arish was now by the faces of the two women that had been standing motionless in the corner. One of them appeared to be wiping her eyes as she cradled her face in her hands.
Arish squeezed his eyes tight and then tried to force his swollen eyes open wider. The truth was there, but he didn’t want to see it. The woman had moved closer to the window, and he instead found the tearful face of his mother. She lowered her head to the floor to avoid Arish. He felt a dull pain course through his tiny body. His head swiveled, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed onto the ground. It was all simply too much to process, and his young mind shut down to protect it from the trauma.
Arish didn’t know if he was awake or not, but he was shaking uncontrollably. He tried to hold his head in his hands, but he couldn’t feel anything. He collapsed into a ball, pulled his knees to his chest, and squeezed himself in desperation.
He wanted desperately to wake up, but only so he could see that this was only a dream. A sound from inside the room startled him, and he returned to the window. A burka-covered woman appeared and then pressed her face against the window. His tears were flowing, and his hands grabbed at the dirt. He lifted his head toward the sharp tapping coming from the window, but when he finally managed to focus, the woman was gone.
The room still had some smoke lingering from the lantern’s smoldering fire. Arish could see the body of his sister was still lying on the bloody table. The white sheet that was to shroud her was in a bloody heap on the floor. He could see the Imam standing triumphantly beside the table.
He was meticulously cleaning the dagger and methodically placing it into a brightly decorated wooden case. It was the look on his face that finally moved Arish from despair to raw anger. That look of satisfaction on his face was pure evil. Arish was still mostly numb but somehow felt he had to run. He had to run home as fast as he could. He stumbled and struggled to his feet and finally wobbled down the alley.
His eyes were burning each time he tried to clear the muddy tears with his arms. He was barely conscious, but he could hear people moving into the alley. He reached the end of the alley and looked up and down the main street. He tried to wipe the tears from his face again, but his hands were so dirty that he only made it worse. Turning toward the road home, his arms were hanging limp at his side. As he ran stumbling toward home, his arms barely moved. Streams oftears helped to clear his eyes a bit, but he stumbled and fell repeatedly. Rising after each fall, he kept moving, but he was in a daze.
Somewhere into his torturous exodus, the horrors he had witnessed came into focus. As he finally reached the farm, the first thing he saw was reflected light bouncing off the watering trough. He plunged his face and most of his shoulders into the watering trough. A motionless cow lifted her head from the shaded green grass to watch the commotion as Arish plunged his head repeatedly into the cool water. After a final, longer plunge, he suddenly popped from the water. He pushed back his mop of long black hair with his hands. Arish took a long, deep breath and then exhaled even longer. It felt as if he had been holding his breath the entire way home.
He turned and circled the front of the house a few times, confirming that he was alone. After a few more steps, he floated toward the door with his hands at his side and head pounding as he navigated the single stone step. He stumbled in, crawled into his corner, and placed his head in his hands. The relentless images of his mother, aunt, and sister had him lost. He couldn’t dismiss the crimson red that flowed nor the terrified screams. In complete surrender, he laid down motionless on his once beautiful blanket of silk. Arish’s life was crumbling as if it never existed at all.
He lay there motionless. Slumped into a heap with his head pressed against the cool silk, Arish was completely lost. For the first time, he had no purpose, no focus, and no future. He was not thinking at all.
He was simply lost in the horror of the day. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. Time seemed to have stopped. He collapsed into the world of the unconscious. There was an unfamiliar stillness, a stillness he didn’t know he craved until he experienced it.
The stillness didn’t last long. The heavy, wooden door burst open and bounced against the hard wall with a serious thud. Arish’s mother was standing in the doorway. He was somehow prepared for it, but it still surprised him.
After a day of thinking of nothing BUT her return, he somehow expected he would never see her again. With his head still buried in his hands, he could hear her calling to him. The tortured light show and pounding sounds that had been playing in Arish’s head returned in a flash. His mother, the one person he needed to help him make sense of it all, was finally home and could set his shattered world right. But how? At the mosque, she stood motionless in the corner while his precious Jasmine had her life ripped from her. How could the emotionless, cold-blooded murder of a child make sense? How could that ever be explained?
Before he could find the strength to turn and face his mother, she had moved back outside and stood next to his aunt. Arish moved to the door, somehow dragging his body with him. His eyes were still swollen and red but open enough to face his mother. He was desperate for help. He moved closer and looked up to her, but she could only manage half a glance at Arish.
It was evident that she was at a loss for words, too. She had no words for him and simply could not look him in the eyes. Azaria took a few steps forward as his mother slid sheepishly behind her. The evil aunt moved closer, and Arish had to strain his neck to keep his eyes on his mother, who was shuffling behind the much larger Azaria.
Suddenly, his aunt’s haunting and booming voice broke the silence. They were not the words he wanted to hear. He needed to make some sense of it all, but instead of a soft voice from his mother, he heard a heavy bark spewing a steady stream of harsh, condemning words. “Arish, you must go to the Imam and beg his forgiveness,” she boomed, leaving him completely lost.
Of all the words he hoped to hear, this seemed absolutely preposterous to Arish. For the first time since laying eyes on Jasmine’s tortured face through the window, Arish was becoming more angry than distraught. Looking past his aunt, he failed at an attempt to say something coherent to his mother. Before he could comprehend it, Azaria pushed him with a firm shove toward the road, and Arish stumbled outside.
He managed to spin around, right himself on both feet and face her. In the time since his father died, there had always been several terse exchanges with his aunt, but she had never laid her hands on him before. Her cold and lifeless touch was like an electric shock to him. It brought back vivid images of how she would cower in a corner whenever his father scolded her.
During the regular clashes between the two women, Arish’s father often sided with his wife and limited Azaria’s involvement in family decisions, especially with regard to Arish. Still standing directly between Arish and his mother, Azaria motioned toward the road and the waiting Imam. Arish desperately wanted to find his way to his mother’s comforting arms.
However, as he moved forward, he was poked in the chest by a craggy, blackened finger. Once again, her touch set off a visceral reaction within Arish, and he instinctively smacked her heavy hand away with his arm. Azaria recoiled in horror at Arish striking her. Her eyes grew wide, and a growl emanated from deep within her as she lunged forward. After a minute of a very tense face-off between the diminutive boy and the giant of a woman, Arish’s mother finally stepped between them. She dropped to her knees in front of Arish and pleaded with him in a whisper, “The Imam is waiting for you at the mosque; please go now…”
Azaria pushed her sister-in-law aside and grabbed Arish by the ear. Looking directly into his tortured face and taking his head firmly in both hands. She dragged the tiny boy’s head to the edge of their farm and pushed him toward the road with a shove that left him in a heap on the ground. The dust covered him, and he slowly slid his knees under him. He collected himself and gathered some strength.
He wanted so desperately for it all to be a dream, for him to wake up with Jasmine’s voice echoing along with her mother’s. Alas, none of it will be true… ever again. Now, he embraced the silence. With his head in his hands, he breathed deeply for a minute and finally picked himself up and moved a few feet toward the road. After a couple of steps, he turned to look back at the scene of the two women standing motionless in front of the house. The heavy, dark cloth they wore was fluttering as the wind passed over them.
Hoping for one last time that this entire day had been a dream, he dropped his head, fell to his knees, and prayed to Allah to let this day somehow end. Would he wake to the smell of warm bread and fresh coffee? Slowly, Arish lifted himself up and turned towards the road.
His feet were heavy, much like his head. At first, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Somehow, he moved onto the road and began the long walk. Within seconds, he was alone on the road. Not long before a setting sun, he would need to repeat today’s walk quickly, and he managed to put one foot in front of the other.
Arish watched his feet as they raised small puffs of dust with each step. Focusing on this bit of rhythm and concentrating, he repeated his walk to the center of the town. Images of the Imam consumed him. He was walking in a trance now. The horrible images were impossible to suppress. Arish was suffering the day’s events over and over as he moved faster towards the mosque. The image of his motionless mother, standing quietly in that room’s dark corner, stung him over and over again like a wasp.
Arish had no idea how long he had been walking, but the lights of the town were finally in sight. He rounded one more bend in the road, then another. At some point, he could see the shiny dome of the mosque in the distance. The silhouette of the building gave him a chill and made him physically ill. He choked back the impulse to throw up, but the fowl, acidic taste washed over his mouth, igniting his emotions. Suddenly, something snapped inside him, and the expression on his face turned dark.
He was still lost but no longer sad. Despair and confusion had turned to anger and determination. Arish’s back straightened, and he pushed back his hair and shook off some beads of sweat. He began walking the last hundred meters to the mosque with an odd sense of purpose but had no idea what lay ahead of him. But what he did know was that he was no longer afraid of anything.
He saw the mosque directly in front of him and took a deep breath. As he entered the square in front of the mosque, he spied a shovel leaning against a horse stall and vividly imagined bludgeoning the Imam to death with it. It was an image that brought him instant satisfaction.
He contemplated exactly where and how he would strike the tall man first in order to bring him to his knees. He counted the strokes he would need. He knew he was too small to reach the Imam’s head for a deadly blow, so many swings of the shovel would be needed to bring him down to the ground first.
However, the one spark of joy was quickly dismissed as he realized the shovel was twice his size. Shaking his head in anguish, he left the shovel behind and continued moving along the road. Every stick or stone was examined for its potential as a weapon, but nothing seemed right. The stones were either too small or too big. Anything large enough to do the job was too big for him to lift.
His frustration grew, but his desire to destroy the Imam was now compelling. He was so engaged in finding the proper weapon that he failed to notice that he had finished the walk to the mosque. Separated from the Imam now by only a dozen or so steps, Arish instantly went cold with the reality of it all. Carrying a stone in each hand, he tried to clench his tiny fists around them and girded his tiny body for battle with this monster. He stood in front of him, starkly tall and evil.
The Imam examined the fearless scowl on Arish’s tiny face and produced a sneer laced with laughter. Seeing this response and scanning the man’s body from jewel-covered shoes to an elaborate, golden hood, Arish finally understood he was powerless against the Imam.
He lowered his head in submission. His hands fell open, and the two stones rolled a few feet toward the steps. He stood still but then lifted his head and looked at the giant man directly. He had lost. He watched as the Imam motioned for Arish to follow him into the mosque, and the towering figure turned and walked through the large open doors.
Arish raised his shoeless right foot and placed it on the first smooth, well-worn stone steps. He stood motionless for a moment with his foot resting on the cool stone, then scanned the well-worn marble slabs, one by one. But his body refused to take another step. Suddenly, he spun around and circled wildly through the town square as he hurled vicious Sicilian insults at the Imam, who had already disappeared into the mosque.
Arish soon suspended his insults and stood motionless in the middle of the square. He stared at the road leading back to this farm, turned back around, and his eyes, once again, found their way back to the open doors of the mosque. A little bit of him still hoped to see the evil murderer of his beautiful sister one more time. He looked toward the other end of the small public square, which led to Tripoli and the Mediterranean.
Arish stood in stillness for some time, but suddenly, he was running. He didn’t remember making an actual decision to head to Tripoli, but Arish found himself running steadily toward the Mediterranean coast. All the day’s fear was gone. There was no panic, only a methodical desire to get where he was going.
His panic and fear had been replaced with the memories of his father overcoming adversity wherever he found it. Often, Arish found himself hoping he had his father’s fearlessness, and right now, he needed it more than ever. The endless days and hours they spent together were always teaching moments for Arish, and he learned his father’s lessons well. When lack of rain, brutal heat, or dying animals threatened his family, his father’s response was always to doubledown on the adversity and rise to its challenges. Fear and hesitation were not options.
Arish felt the wind crashing against his bare skin; he allowed himself to feel his memories and his father’s resilience to life. He was no longer trying to make sense of Jasmine’s tragic death. Now, the barefooted boy continued toward the warehouses and docks of Tripoli.
A welcome full moon softened the black of the night. Arish’s journey took on a calmer, more serene tempo. He was now no longer questioning his decision. Slowly, the panic he felt just mere moments ago was replaced by survival instincts. The thoughts of his mother’s daily stories, where great men did impossible things, replaced his despair. He was moving steadily now and concentrating on his breathing. To occupy his mind, he began to count his steps.
Hours might have passed by now, and his goal of reaching the coast was driving him on. The memories of the day’s horrible reality were never far below the surface. He knew he was running away from the only life he had known, but the goal of reaching Tripoli kept him focused. His goal-oriented way of looking at things always made for light work on the farm. Set a goal for the day, and do it! This is how the daily grind of living on a farm was made tolerable.
It was a simple life. Arish understood they were poor but always considered himself a fortunate soul. Even when he lost his father, his loving family was there to fill the gaps, the hole in his heart. It was a good life, a happy life, a life filled with plans for tomorrow. Arish began the day full of hopes and dreams for the future. Without a tomorrow morning to look forward to on the farm, nothing made sense to him.
The endless day dragged on with Arish in a fog. With his precious sister gone forever and his loving mother now lost to him, there was no future, no nothing. It’s as if there simply was no reason to sleep. What kind of dreams could possibly be left for him now? Running away toward a new life seemed the obvious solution. Running away at least made some sense to him. There was nothing left for him here.
Arish looked ahead down the road. He and his mother had walked the road to Tripoli many times, but now so physically exhausted, and with only moonlight to guide him, the journey was infinitely more challenging. He could only put one foot in front of the other.
When it seemed as though exhaustion would finally win the day, he would stop, look up, and ask the moon if he should end this foolish run toward nothing. His mind contemplated his options. Should he return to the Imam to receive his punishment? But that meant he would suffer his sister’s fate as well. “Never!” he shouted at the moon.
For now – for this night – he only wanted to escape. He tried to imagine what life might be like now on his once-peaceful farm, but the insanity of the day always brought him back to putting one foot in front of the other.
Clouds had blanketed some of the moonlight, but the glow of the harbor lights and the ship’s cranes were now providing a beacon to follow. The smell of the sea told him he was very close. He dragged himself forward, being led now by the sound of the ships in the distance.
Like a beaten dog dragging his hind legs behind him, he was almost crawling now, but he could soon see the outlines of the ship’s rigging. He rested, but for only a moment, afraid he would fall asleep. He dragged himself to the docks and along the water’s edge. Immediately, he identified his new challenge: getting on board one of those great ships.
A plan for stowing away onto a tall ship would require some thought. Surely, any of these great ships would take him to someplace wonderful, but which one? He needed to find the one leaving port as soon as possible, hopefully in the morning when the departing ships normally left for trips across the Mediterranean.
Now resting against a giant wooden crate, he scanned the ships tied to the dock. He drifted off for a moment, and his head was immediately filled with bits and pieces of past dreams. Not the normal coherent and detailed tales, but enough to get his mind weaving a plan. The smell of the sea woke him and sharpened his focus. A great adventure is within his reach, and the idea of slipping aboard one of the ships revives his weary body. He would need a plan.
Leaving the relative safety of the wooden crates, Arish moved quietly onto the busy dock. There was steady activity around two of the wooden cargo ships, but the hum of the cranes and men moving about made the tiny Arish virtually invisible.
He examined the first ship from stem to stern. It was riding high in the water, with the faded paint of the sailing waterline a full two meters above the water. Arish knew this ship was empty. It had just delivered its cargo or was waiting for a load of Libyan fruits and vegetables destined for Europe. Either way, it would not be leaving port tomorrow.
Ships from Tripoli normally went to Palermo or Morocco, and Arish had been to both places several times in his dreams. Visiting them for real seemed a very natural idea. Arish’s excitement was building. This was fortunate because adrenalin was the only thing keeping him awake.
He made his way to the next ship. It was riding low, with the sea gently slapping at the ship’s freshly painted red water line. A heavy, full ship was a good sign, but Arish needed to know if it was recently loaded and heading to sea or recently arrived and waiting to be unloaded. Stowing aboard the wrong ship would be a disaster. As he looked down the length of this dock section, there were two more ships to examine. A labyrinth of crates and barrels along the dock provided Arish a safe passage to the next ship.
Suddenly, from the darkness, Arish heard two men speaking in Italian. They were discussing the shipper’s special instructions for a final crate yet to be loaded. Standing in the corner, Arish strained to translate the Seaman’s heavy Sicilian dialect.
“Queste casse di porcellana sono ultimo” --“Ultimo and porcellana” were the only words Arish managed to pick from the Sicilian’s battered Italian. “Ultimo”, meant that they must be loaded last. The delicate “porcellana” pieces would be placed on top of the cargo hold and not buried deep into the hold.
As the two men disappeared up the ship’s gangway, this section of the dock was left empty. The Palermo-bound ship was fully loaded, save for the crate of fine porcelain. The gears of his mind were turning now. Arish had a plan to use the crate of porcelain to carry him onto the ship, and if he were lucky, that crate of soft straw would be his bed tonight.
Palermo was one of the world’s great cities, and the crate would be his private stateroom. Alone in the moonlight with the massive crate, Arish poked his hand in between the wooden slats and noticed that it was packed with thick layers of straw. He began circling the crate, looking for a way inside. The crate was bound on all sides by four leather straps.
Arish clawed his way up the first leather band and then the next one. Even as tiny as he was, none of the narrow spaces between the wooden slats were quite wide enough to squeeze through. He decided that his only chance was the top of the crate.
Without a second thought, he navigated the last two rungs of the makeshift ladder of leather. Having pulled himself over the top strap, he spotted an opening. With a few twists and turns, he had slipped inside the crate. Arish tugged on a few chunks of straw and created a space for himself. He gathered the straw around him, and after some pushing and tugging, he fashioned a very workable bed. Between the wooden slats of the crate, he could see the night sky full of stars.
Resting comfortably in his bed of straw, Arish breathed a well-deserved sigh of relief and accomplishment. Somehow, through the day’s insanity, he managed to experience the calm and pride in making it to the ship. If only he had his silk blanket with him. But this was no time to think of the many things he had left behind. The adrenalin had faded. As he lay there with a modest grin of satisfaction, he drifted quietly into the night and fell sound asleep.
