by Hadi Atallah
“I do like adventures,” Rosemary called out from underneath an identical looking umbrella. “Look—I know it is incumbent on you to take great care of me and I hope that Wisteria’s ominous prophecy soon mitigates.”
“Incumbent? Ominous? Mitigates? Who taught you how to speak like that?” Clove said jokingly.
“My mother taught me how to read and write,” Rosemary replied with a wicked grin. “Poetry is my favorite.”
“Say something poetic then,” Clove requested.
“Love is in the air and like a torch, I devour it to feed my flare,” Rosemary said eloquently.
“Your flare?”
“Yes, my flare, my soul, they are one and the same. Which brings us back to the uncertain.”
“The unattempted,” Clove said. “I guess your flare may yield to courage.”
“Why is that?”
“One who is surrounded by constant admiration is blessed with radiance and courage. Besides that point—if I were you I would be venturing into the unknown to become more self-aware.”
“My mother told me that one’s life must be full of true devotion that must be coordinated with bravery,” Rosemary said. “I left home because deep down inside of me I imagine a greater joy—greater than anything Pandemville can offer.”
“I hope you did not imagine something beyond your capabilities, Rosemary. Keep in mind that everything in this world is in perfect equilibrium except for a human being—we tend to become overambitious at times.”
“You are in perfect equilibrium with our long journey, right?” Rosemary said with an ordinary voice, leveling it between question and statement. At that moment, she believed that making out what was and what was not achievable was the solution to her achieving happiness. She also thought that only her courage had the ability to guide her to such an understanding.
“I just want to get to Kunal as soon as possible,” Clove said. “I hope that something will finally reveal itself there, something that includes the end picture of your grotesque actions.”
There was a great probability that Rosemary may have been doing something grotesque, as Clove liked to describe it. Even so, the world had witnessed an infinite number of impulsive actions that later became fabled tales. Was the world fond of discovering the previously uninhabited parts of itself? Perhaps. One thing for sure was that Rosemary’s genius was about to become a wonder to many.
In the meantime, Rosemary and Clove crossed the desert’s rises accompanied by the silence, dry grass and the heat. Just beyond the horizon, Rosemary noticed a camel caravan heading towards a watch tower that had appeared from among the high sand dunes that fringed the sea. Minutes later, Rosemary started hearing chanting soaring over the whooshing of the waves and whispering palm trees. She examined the water only to find fishermen’s boats closing in towards the shore where their loved ones waited to greet them. The fishermen’s safe voyage back home was definitely something to cherish because of their invaluable productivity.
Both Rosemary and Clove edged closer to where several tribesmen were looking after their livestock and then coursed their way past the date gardens that were diligently cultivated. A rope maker was busily spinning palm fiber between his legs and hands, and another tested a rope harness as he climbed one of the many palm trees. Boat builders and traditional weavers making fish traps flanked the beach. Rectangular lodging places with wooden frames from palm trunks and flat roofs lined the coastline. In them, Rosemary spotted several partially completed small rowing boats and a group of people busily working.
A blacksmith and a pottery maker treated their raw materials with great craftsmanship on the other side of the dusty road. Spices, sweets and coffee beans were displayed on wooden boxes that were situated outside a shop, while a variety of fish preserved in salt was displayed inside and away from the dense heat. Children rushed past Rosemary’s and Clove’s horses, and grown-ups sauntered gently by them without paying them any mind.
Rosemary shared her keen interest when she came near to several women weaving attires with foliage designs. She even noticed others making female face masks. She caught a whiff of incense as she coursed her way past a rectangular lodging place with women exercising the use of henna on the hands of young girls, while others implemented a mixture of herbs on their clients’ hair.
Just around the corner, several members of the forces of law and order were busy taming camels and engaging themselves in a discussion with the owner for the price of camel milk. Goats and horses were confined behind a rickety looking wooden fence. A restaurant was located next to a zoo, where a man stood by the entrance with a falcon perched on his arm. The falcon was ivory colored with a crimson red tail; it also wore a hood over its head.
“Come closer and see my one of a kind falcon, its name is Eternal,” the man, with a bronzed aquiline face and tanned complexion, wearing a plain burnous over a blood red robe, said enthusiastically.
“That’s a wonderful name,” Rosemary said, stopping her nameless horse with a gentle tug on its reins. An odor of coffee, dust and livestock pervaded the quarter.
“It’s the flint of an eternal flare,” the man said, encouraging Rosemary’s interest and spirit of enquiry, holding his falcon closer so that she could reach down to pet it.
“By flare, you mean the soul, right?” Rosemary asked, rubbing the sand out of her eyes and brushing the falcon’s back with the tips of her fingers. She felt like the falcon keeper exuded a sublime sense of peacefulness.
“By flare, I mean the spirit,” the man replied.
“What’s the difference?” Rosemary asked.
“The soul is a mere creation, whereas the spirit is the creation,” the man replied with a huge smile as he stepped backwards, allowing Rosemary to proceed.
Basket makers utilizing palm fronds and a date trader appeared from behind Clove, who was watching the falcon keeper and Rosemary exchanging words from a close distance. Rosemary noticed the date trader’s facial muscles relaxing as she and Clove got closer to where he was situated.
“There should be something that attracts you or is associated with you here,” the date trader said approaching them with a whole-hearted smile. He was a tall and broad, strikingly handsome man with wisps of greying hair and a short salt and pepper beard. “Remember that the source of all things is revealed in humankind,” he added adjusting his plain white loose, ankle-length robe and a leather satchel.
“Calendula, my friend,” Clove said good-naturedly as he closed his umbrella and painfully got down from his horse. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s so good to see you too,” Calendula said as he embraced Clove once and then again for good measure. “Who do you bring with you?”
“This is Rosemary,” Clove replied, helping Rosemary to get down from her horse.
“Does she trust that she’s really Rosemary?” Calendula said mischievously.
“Of course I do!” Rosemary exclaimed and giggled.
“To trust your reflection, and to trust that it is true to everyone you meet,” Calendula said. “That is genuinely what a genius truly is.”
“True words, my friend,” Clove said with a broad smile.
“I’m Calendula, and I welcome you to The Tribe of Sand and Mirrors,” Calendula said to Rosemary with a quiet earnestness, placing his arm across his chest. “I really want you to meet my son, Bay. But before we head home, I want to announce your presence to everyone here.”
“He was the town crier back in Dona Hill,” Clove whispered to Rosemary.
“Suppose a star and a quill were asked which one would like to be on top of the other,” Calendula began by saying. “Which one would succumb to the other?” His words immediately halted everyone and they turned around to face him.
“Neither one,” a man replied succinctly. “The star would say it should be me because I light up the sky, and the quill would say me because the sky feeds me wisdom.”
Calendula smiled plucking his beard, and Rosemary tacitly u
nderstood that this was not a spur-of-the-moment dialogue, but an effortless and fluid parable that was popularly shared within the tribe.
“Then suppose Light and Wisdom were asked which one would like to be on top of the other,” Calendula said. “Which one would want to outgrow the other?”
“Light would definitely say I, because I am the reason everyone’s got eyes, and Wisdom would obviously say I, because I am the reason everyone’s got a mind,” a woman replied with obvious enthusiasm.
“If the Eyes and the Mind were asked which one would like to be on top of the other, on the other hand,” a little boy said. “Then both of them would appreciate the pleasurable equality of one another.”
“And this is why our eyes are oriented with our brains,” Calendula said heartily as he brushed his fingers against the little boy’s cinnamon coppery hair. “My great big friend Clove and my little friend Rosemary just arrived here. I want everyone to be aware of their presence among our dignified tribe.”
Everyone examined the two guests; their eyes, some above veils with which they masked their faces, silently welcomed them before they continued to make headway.
“You must be tired,” Calendula said, grasping Clove’s shoulder. “Let’s head home.”
“I want Rosemary to have some rest,” Clove said, as both he and Calendula seized the two horses by their reins.
“Very well,” Calendula said.
The three of them strolled passed several rectangular lodging places with flat roofs and a number of tents made out of weaved fabric. The same weaved fabric was used for horse and camel saddles. Small groups of people were shaking yoghurt into butter under one of the tents, while another group busily made the thread out of goat wool. The rectangular lodging places were of different sizes; Rosemary also noticed that their interiors were dissimilar. Some had open spaces such as the one where a handful of people were rehearsing a dance, while others had many wooden walls to respect the personal spaces of the inhabitants.
Every corner of the nomad’s encampment stirred Rosemary’s feelings. She had only known of their existence in books and tales. Calendula’s lodging place was the very last. A campfire was set and the fire shook steadily tripping over its peak. A band of men, wearing scarf-like turbans over their bonfire colored hair, gathered around it, listening to the Rababa music. They saluted Calendula as he tied the horses and entered his dwelling with Clove and Rosemary behind him. Rosemary quickly examined the group of men and thought of how many stories a flame can tell if one only had the capability to sketch each of its shakings and swings.
“Come, Rosemary,” Calendula whispered, ushering her to come forth. The room was adorned with floor couches and cushions; they were all aligned along three walls that were made from split palm trunks. Also, red and black rugs hung on the walls. “My son isn’t exactly an extrovert, he prefers to spend his time alone, and regardless he is a very nice person.”
“Where is he?” Rosemary asked.
“He’s inside,” Calendula replied. “Go on and meet him. Introduce yourself and be a good friend to him.”
“Rosemary,” Clove called out. “I’ll come back to get you tomorrow.”
“Where will you be?” Rosemary asked.
“I have to arrange our trip to Butterwort,” Clove replied. “I won’t be long.”
“I’ll come with you,” Calendula said.
The two men took their leave allowing Rosemary to contemplate whether to enter the second expanse in the house. Nothing could clear her mind for that little while, but the positive result of meeting Calendula’s son. She pitched forward but held the edge of the door to stop herself from falling as she got to the hatch and poked her head inside. Only to find a small boy with pitch black hair that covered one of his eyes as he stood still with a collection of paper in his hands.
“Draw one,” Bay said and Rosemary complied by setting her umbrella aside and picking a single paper.
“Read it out to me,” he said, as Rosemary’s eyes remained magnetized to the piece of paper she had just plucked out of Bay’s hands.
“To the madness in you break your vows and to the integrity in you say this out loud,” Rosemary read aloud. “I am at peace.” The only thing that crossed her mind, at that point, was the promise that she had made to Sorrel regarding her magic for growing flowers.
“That’s a very special card you picked,” Bay said stuffing the remaining papers in his coal black robe. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Rosemary Bluebell. What is yours?”
“Bay,” the little boy replied, heading over to his mattress.
“I know it’s Bay, your father already mentioned your first name to me,” Rosemary said, poking fun. “I want to know your full name.”
“It’s just Bay,” the little boy said lethargically as he pulled out a small sized guitar. “We don’t have family names in our tribe.”
“Why not?” Rosemary questioned.
“Beats me,” he replied plucking his guitar. “We all go by one name around here.”
“Where’s your mother?” Rosemary asked.
“She’s gone,” Bay replied tuning his guitar.
“Mine too,” Rosemary said. “Her name was Camellia.”
“My mother’s name was Camellia too!” Bay exclaimed.
“That’s the first thing that we’ve got in common,” Rosemary said smiling as she went over to where Bay lay and seated her self next to him.
“Wait,” Bay said. “I think you’re sitting on my drawings.”
“Am I?” Rosemary said, getting back to her feet. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Bay said grasping a small pile of paper from underneath his covers. “I have a bad memory, and each of my drawings helps me remember my frame of mind at each point.”
“You draw flowers!” Rosemary exclaimed seating herself again. “How wonderful, do these flowers exist?” She flipped through Bay’s drawings.
“We don’t really have flowers here,” Bay replied. “Most of them come from my imagination.”
“I have quite the experience with flowers,” Rosemary said. “But I guess my imagination is as bad as your memory.”
“Imagination is the simplest thing, Rosemary,” Bay said. “All you have to do is close your eyes and exercise your Love-Feel connection.”
“Love-Feel connection?” Rosemary asked while setting Bay’s drawings aside.
“Yes, love is full of peace and enthusiasm. Whereas feel is full of thought and expression. Give it a try.”
“The Love-Feel connection,” Rosemary whispered as she closed her eyes and slowly breathed out. “I see a flower with tens of petals and three pollen stems that glow in the dark.”
“What is the color of its petals?”
“The color of its petals is royal purple. The same color as my favorite flower—the peony.”
“Go on.”
“Oh—and its petals are not like those of a daffodil’s where they are all spread apart.”
“They overlap each other?”
“Yes, and its stem is as yellow as the sun with an inverted heart in the middle pointing towards the heavens, whereas its leaves are as blue as the sea.”
“I like it,” Bay said decidedly. “You’re not so bad.”
“That’s the first time I imagine something!” Rosemary exclaimed. “Thank you Bay—I bet your father urges you to improve your talent everyday.”
“No, he doesn’t. He just checks up on me every now and then.”
“You mean to tell me that you work at your own pace with no one telling you what and when to do something?” Bay nodded his head. “I wish I were you.” She rose to her feet and faced the wall with her arms folded together. Bay stood up with his guitar across his lower abdomen and began to melodically sing:
If I were you
Then I won’t be
Because you are you
And I am me
Rosemary scoffed good-naturedly.
“As a matter of fact,
I tell my father to watch me and my other Father to watch over me,” Bay said, setting his guitar aside.
“Why do people call our Father a scam?”
“Sometimes we should stop questioning and just believe,” Bay replied, grasping Rosemary’s shoulder. “Some tell me that our Father is a scam, so I tell them that He is not only a scam. He is everything. He might scam me into thinking that I am alone when I am really not. This is His welcoming wisdom, and if I were to believe in Him, then I certainly have the courage to believe in everything.”
“That’s lovely, Bay,” Rosemary said swinging round, spinning on her heel to face her new friend, who was barely visible due to the grey dim-light of dusk. “You’ve got the power to devise your own way. My mother always said that the world guides the steps of such people.”
“You obviously carry your mother’s words with you,” Bay said. “All my mother and my world have given me is something that withers away day by day.”
Bay had a book in his hand, and he instantly opened it to the pages that contained a dead flower. “This is—or what is left of—a Camellia flower,” Bay said lifting the decaying flower with his fingertips. “This flower came from a distant land in the Far East.”
“Both our mothers were named after this flower,” Rosemary whispered.
The sky was filled with a lustrous whitish-grey light as if it was forgiving itself for the burning hours of sunlight. Self-justness, after all, was the most profound of justness.
“Ahhhh,” Bay said yawning. “I need to get some sleep.” He sluggishly scratched his bottom. “I mean you need to get some sleep,” he said, as Rosemary watched him place the book on the shelf among other books.
