by B Latif
The day when I will rule.
My last day on Earth.
The death I will die.
I didn’t say any of the words above. No. I simply turned around and stood, looking at her with the Koran closed in her lap.
She had finished it.
And what a question she had asked among the zillions that must have been stirring in her mind.
“Doomsday,” I replied seriously. I knew her eyes demanded an explanation. For me to go and sit there with her. And so, I did.
Her eyes fell on me as I sat beside her, not uttering a word. The thing she loved most in the world: words.
“Once upon a time,” I began my story, “God decided that He should create something. Something that wouldn’t completely be as obsequious as angels. Something that would have the power to disobey Him. So, He might test his creation. And for that, he made man. You remember Henry and his fellows? They are men. And you are a woman. But when God sent man on earth, the devil didn’t want man to obey God because he thought his worship was enough for God. So, he made man stray from the right path and men started hurting God by disobeying Him. God wanted His creation to be good and created paradise for the good ones and hell for the evil ones. They would enter either one, depending on their acts on earth. God promised man that one day he must come back and tell Him what he did on the earth. That day, everything will turn to dust. You see those distant blue mountains? They will turn to dust. The earth will shake, and the sky will split in two. The sun will be blazing hot and man will return to his God.... and that day is doomsday.”
Silence.
Rose not only looked interested but fearful as well.
She whispered, “Is it now?”
I smiled, putting my arm around her shoulders, “No... nobody knows when it will happen.”
She didn’t say anything, just kept looking at the wristwatch that Henry had tossed towards her. I knew she was worried.
“I returned your book, Rose. Do you want to give him his thing back?”
“No,” she said without looking at me, “No need.”
“You want to keep it?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Rose looked at me, “He will come back for it.”
I didn’t reply. Obviously, he wasn’t coming back for a cheap watch.
“Won’t he, Mama?”
“Why do you want him to come back?”
“I want to warn him about doomsday. I want him to obey God. Right?”
“Hmm.”
I kissed her cheek and she put her arms around me.
“So how was the Koran?”
“It was the best of all books!”
I laughed, “How many books have you read?”
“I haven’t... but I know it’s the best of them all. I’ll never get tired of reading it. Thank you, Mama.”
“For what?”
She beamed, “For being with me.”
Most of the time, I was at my duty and we met only at night. By morning, I would leave a rose at her chest. At night, we would lay down on the grass and look at the stars for a while. The cosmos was incredibly beautiful. She would ask me small things and I would explain it to her. Except one.
“Mama, what is death?”
I became serious. How rude. Couldn’t she ask who is Death?
“Rose, please don’t ask me that question ever again. It’s the only question I won’t be able to answer.”
I tried so hard not to appear inscrutable.
“But…”
“Please.”
She buried her head in my neck and wrapped me in her arms. She understood it. She never asked me again.
“Okay, I won’t.”
Nothing that night.
But in the days to come, I understood Rose well, and the she was constructing something in her mind. One meets God after dying and she was creating a link between death, man, doomsday, and God.
Thank the Lord that she didn’t know how to kill herself or she would have done it in an instant because of her desire to meet God.
After reading the Koran once, she started it again, carrying it to the forest and standing on a hilltop or sitting on a tree branch, narrating it aloud to the nature that surrounded her.
And it was such music to my ears, the like of which is unknown to mankind.
When a shooting star would run away from our sight, we would both join hands and pray to God and then afterwards guess each other’s wish.
One night, as we lay down, Rose quoted the Koran to me.
“Have they not observed the sky above them, how We constructed it, and beautified it, and how there are no rifts therein?”
And we stared at the stars in silence.
“Rose?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
I smiled, “For being with me.”
***
Before we knew it, a year was gone, and Henry Cavills was back.
I don’t remember what she was saving that day, pink river dolphin, I guess, when out of nowhere the piranhas attacked her. She yelped for help and I heard her, and followed her screams, “MAMA! MAMA!”
I hadn’t even reached the river when I heard voices and discovered we weren’t alone in the forest. There were humans there as well, and Rose had drawn their attention too. The poor girl was being bitten by sharp teeth and the water was turning claret. I had to reach her before them, but then the yelling faded.
She was drowning.
Oh, Lord, I had never felt so helpless and instead of helping, I shouted back, “ROSE! I’M COMING!”
If I had a heart, I know it would have been racing as fast as my feet were. Rose didn’t reply and it made me more anxious.
The humans had already reached the river. So, I just stood beside them knowing that if I were to save her, they would know something preternatural was around. So, I looked for the buffoons to help her.
Henry made me look like a loser. It was a shame for me to see my daughter drowning and being rescued by someone else.
I watched in horror as the water turned crimson pink. It was Henry whose instincts made him take off his jacket and shirt, and with a dagger in his hand, he jumped into the water.
After a minute or two of my impatient waiting, he emerged with the unconscious Rose in his arms. There were four or five bites on his muscular arm, but he seemed all right.
He carried Rose towards everyone and gently placed her on the ground.
Oh, Lord, it was dreadful. Rose had turned the color of a rose. There was blood everywhere on her body, only her face was safe.
Henry checked her pulse and Daniel brought his first aid kit, meanwhile, Henry pressed her chest with the heels of his hands.
I knew she wasn’t going to die but that stupid idiot didn’t. How could he? He was being human.
He only stopped when she coughed, exhaling, as if she had been holding it in forever.
Sometimes... I feel envy when humans breathe. Is life defined by sucking in air and letting it out? Is life that simple?
I often try to breathe, to feel life, but then again, I can’t even feel the air!
Rose stirred. She blinked several times and then… it was the first time she had felt pain. Physical pain.
Wincing, she slowly sat upright in front of Henry, not noticing him at all. I knew she wasn’t sure what to do with the unpleasant feeling of pain and how to get rid of it.
She looked straight at him.
What was it? The human figure? His naked upper body? Or the blood erupting from his arms? Or his face that made her shiver with panic feeling scared and wanting to run.
Run.
Henry stood up and muttered, “Stupid girl.”
He didn’t chase her, and I knew why. Rose’s legs were wounded, and Henry knew she wouldn’t be able to make but a few yards. He just strutted behind her as the other three men watched.
Rose fell, giving up, and began to cry.
OBSERVATION
No. 17
Tears are instinctive to pain, either physical, mental, or emotional. Sometimes... humans are unable to see them.
In her case, it was physical. This was the first time ever Rose had cried. International discovery day for her. Pain and tears. Lying on her back, she rolled over, curling her legs up and clutching them tightly.
Pitiable.
She was crying harder now. I was standing on the tree branch where I was well hidden from Rose and could also view everything.
Henry sat beside her and gave her a strange look. It wasn’t only the look of surprise that masked his face but also a tinge of recognition in his eyes.
“Rose?” he muttered tentatively. It’s weird the way humans remember a name after one meeting and a gap of a year.
Hearing her name, Rose looked at him while crying, trying to remember the face that had saved her life a year before as well.
She gripped the grass and began to yell, crying in pain. Henry scooped her up in his arms and she put hers around his neck, clutching him tightly and buried her head in his chest, weeping unstoppably.
“It’s...” Paulo uttered, “a girl...”
I guess he didn’t expect a girl in the wild.
Daniel and Paulo urgently attended to Rose, cleaning and bandaging her wounds, while Alex turned to Henry who kept looking at Rose. She had been given a sedative and had now passed out.
“Glad we have a doctor with us on our trip,” Alex acknowledged, referring to Paulo.
Henry didn’t respond. He was the kind of man who was reserved and the one whom his friends treated like their teacher.
He put on his shirt and jacket and dried his hair. I kept sitting on the branch, watching.
“We can’t spend the night here, let’s go back,” said Daniel.
“Yeah.” Alex was about to move but was interrupted by Paulo.
“What about her? We can’t just leave her.”
Unlike me, Paulo was all about saving lives as he was a doctor.
“Yeah, we can’t take her with us, right? Our tent is far away...” Alex kept saying, “Besides, who knows, maybe she is convicted criminal or something.”
“Yeah, she might stab you in the back and take your diamonds?” Paulo mocked.
“You want to spend night here? Good. Then stay!” Alex said in frustration.
The argument was heating up. Daniel was packing the kit while Henry was staring at Rose, his hands buried in his pants’ pockets. Daniel was neutral while Henry looked phlegmatic.
“Henry?” Daniel picked up his stuff.
Carrying his bow and arrows on his shoulder, Henry turned to go, “Let’s move.”
“What?” Daniel muttered in disappointment as everyone was ready to leave. Relief took over me, they were going to leave.
Vain hope.
They had not gone far when Henry’s eyes moved towards Alex’s hand.
A silver thing dangled from his hand.
He frowned.
“What’s that?” Henry asked with a high degree of friendliness in his voice.
“Oh this,” Alex held it up, “found it in her pocket. Looks like it’s precious... she surely doesn’t need it here... So, I took it as payment for our services.”
“Payment for help?”
“Of course.”
Henry stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Alex and then dropped his bow and arrows.
“When will she wake up, Paulo?”
“In six or seven hours,” Paulo looked confused.
“By midnight?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask? Hey, where are you going?”
“To get her,” he didn’t bother to look at his fellows as he walked back, taking the silver thing from Alex’s fingers, ‘By the way, this belongs to me.”
Alex looked bewildered while Daniel looked concerned, “Should we wait?”
“Suit yourself.”
By the time he got to Rose, she was just as he had left her. He stared at her with a frown, studying her, then picked her up and carried her away.
If I were human, I would have said, ‘Holy shit.’
Excuse my language but that’s how humans express anger.
Daniel and the others were still waiting by the time Henry returned. He didn’t stop or even glance at them as they stood with astonished looks on their faces. Daniel picked up Henry’s bow and arrows and they all followed dutifully.
The tents were a long way off and I knew even a strong man like Henry would tire from carrying Rose. He couldn’t ask anyone else to carry her as he had accepted her as his own responsibility. They didn’t know I was the sixth traveler in their group.
As they reached the tents, Henry took her to his own tent and came out quickly to join the others. Together, they lit the fire and sat around it, eating a cooked deer Henry had shot.
“This is the same girl...” Paulo didn’t finish.
“Same?” Alex questioned.
“Last year, we met her. Remember? The one we thought was Kellerman’s agent.”
“Oh.”
Henry didn’t participate.
“What’s she doing here?” Daniel seemed curious, “It means we’re not alone here...”
“Yeah, maybe some tourist party is still out in the forest, looking for her.” Alex told them.
Paulo grinned, “Whatever. She is pretty, right? If only we had met in Brazil…”
“Talk about something else.” Henry ordered.
Nobody spoke.
After four hours, they went to their own tents to sleep, but Henry looked uncomfortable. There was an unknown girl in his tent and Daniel hadn’t bothered to pack an extra one.
He changed his clothes and examined his wounds. Pretty nice bites from the piranha, I must say.
It wasn’t as if I was anti-Henry because I wasn’t only his foe. I’m everyone’s foe, even Rose’s.
Humans accuse me of separating them from their loved ones and that’s what foes do.
After that, Henry sat down, looking at Rose with the silver object still in his hand, the bow and arrows at his side.
I was surprised that he kept sitting there, despite how much he wanted to sleep. He accidently closed his eyes and fell asleep by her side.
Rose woke up at midnight. First, she kept laying there feeling the pain and probably believing that she was with her mother.
Until she rolled over on her side and came face to face with Henry. She sat upright immediately and stared at the slumbering man.
She didn’t even run this time. Then she stooped and looked closely at his face. A flash of familiarity passed in her eyes and then they went on the silver thing in his hand.
Carefully and quietly, she slipped the silver from his hand, as if it belonged to her and got up to leave.
“Going somewhere?” Henry held her wrist.
She seemed startled as she looked back, sitting down again with dilated pupils.
Henry opened his eyes wide and looked at her seriously. He didn’t let go of her wrist and just kept laying there. And Rose was now frozen in her place.
“Running away, are we?”
Rose blinked as if she had seen one of the wonders of the world, “You can…”
“I can talk and I’m not going to eat you, if that’s what you were going to say.”
Silence.
“And I’m not an animal.” He added.
“Where did you find me?” she whispered.
“Are you scared of me?”
Oh, she is terrified, I said to myself. Even though I was standing outside the tent, I could see behind the wall. Lucky me.
“No,” she gulped and sat up, releasing her wrist but flinched and squealed, “Please don’t hurt me!”
“You are scared of me,” Henry nodded.
Rose stared back at the human and then exploded in questions she occasionally asked me, “What is this place? Where am I? Who are you? What is this on my body? Why am I feeling so unpleasant? How long have I been here?”
Followed by a lon
g stare at him for answers. Henry was already watching her, studying her with his eyes.
Rose gasped, “Where is Mama? Did she come? Has she gone back to work? Was she here?”
“Shut up,” Henry said reticently, and Rose shut her mouth, “Answer, why do you still have my watch?”
Rose looked at it, the silver thing in her hand, and then back at him.
“I demand an explanation,” Henry ordered calmly.
“I...” she began reluctantly, “I wanted... to give it back!”
For a moment, he stared at her and then held out his hand toward her, “Well, give it back then.”
I knew she loved that watch. It was the only human invention she had, but now she must return it. She was staring at his palm.
Hastily, Rose put it there and locked her fingers in her lap. Henry kept holding it.
“What are you doing here in the forest?” he asked cynically.
Taking her eyes off the watch, she replied, “I live here.”
“Alone?” he raised his eyebrows.
“No, with my mother.”
Perhaps he thought she had fabricated the story, so he asked sarcastically, “Since when did your mother decide to abandon Brasilia and live here?”
Rose remained silent.
“Well?”
“I don’t know.”
Henry frowned, “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“I...” Rose began innocuously and it was as if she was thinking, Lord, who am I?
There was a long pause.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked finally.
Henry shrugged, “Just curious. Tell me from the beginning.”
“My name is Rose. I live…”
“Surname?”
“Just Rose,” she replied as I had never told her about surnames, “I live with my mother. I’m twenty... I sketch... write words in my book... and... and help animals.”
He waited for more but seemed utterly disappointed at this hiatus, “And?”
“And...” she thought hard, “And... I read the Koran”
“Really?”
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“No, I’m a Christian.”
“Did you read the Bible?” she asked excitedly.
“Once. When I was ten. Now I’m twenty-four and never touch it.”
There was an awkward silence. Henry kept staring at the wristwatch in his hand and so did Rose.
