"Blind Fate"Mustafa awoke hearing the last verse of the muezzin's adzan emanating from the mosque two blocks away. “La-ila-ha-il-lallah.” There is no God but God.
His frail body stiff and deeply scarred from injuries he suffered as an Iraqi infantryman, Mustafa stooped up to his feet with painstaking effort. Blind, he reached for his walking stick, a crooked branch of fragrant hardwood smoothened by years of use.
"Be careful, Mus," his wife's soft, mournful voice implored to him as he hobbled to the front opening of their tenement. She would never stop him from keeping his regular appointment. "There is trouble outside."
Mus hummed back in response as he stepped out into the alleyway. A cool breeze caressed his face and tussled his robe as he shuffled along the same path he took five times each day, every day.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Habitually, Mus swung his walking stick side to side ahead of him, testing the pavement for holes and obstacles as he ambled onwards.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Over raspy breaths from lungs scarred by poison gas during the war with the Iranians, Mus heard an approaching cacophony of footfalls echoing from boots, sandals, and bare feet. Without word, they skidded around him in irregular beats, eventually receding behind him.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
As silence fell, another sound revealed itself - the throbbing whisper of a sinister machine hovering overhead.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Mus felt it before he heard it. A wall of compressed, scorched air smacked his into backside, grabbing his tunic and nearly flinging him over as a shrieking hiss and painful roar pierced his ears.
Hee-ish-ssh-ssh, BBRRAAMM!
The blast sucked out his breath, refilling it with acrid smoke. Debris clattered onto nearby rooftops as gritty dust rained on his shoulders and into his hair. Mus bent over and retched a dry cough tainted with the metallic taste of blood. He soon realized that his tenement just been demolished by rocket fire.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
"Alhamdu-illah,” Mus intoned thanks to God, certain his wife had just been taken from this world. She would be free from suffering over his death even as she had still grieved for years over their two sons namelessly buried somewhere in the Kuwaiti desert.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Would God be so merciful to take him together with his wife? Or would they meet in shukur another day?
Brrrakkk-kow! Brak-brak! Thunk, zit, zing, wang!
Gunfire. Fragments of walls and pavement wailed in complaint all around him, then hushed. Mustafa stopped, listened and then resumed his steps toward the nearby house of worship, the straight path to his destiny.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Tap-
Email this topic to a friend
Printer-friendly version of this topic
Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)
