Apex Magazine November 2010 (Issue 18) by Jason B. Sizemore

Author:Jason B. Sizemore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-10-27T23:43:39.668000+00:00

There was foot traffic on the road now, not just the occasional hover-cluster zipping overhead. He was finally nearing the city. He had to hurry. If he was gone too long, Ali could count on the Fatman to provide a few days of coverage for Lubna. But Fahrad was as poor as Ali. Time was short.

Running out of time without knowing what I’m chasing. Ali blocked out the mocking words his own mind threw at him. He took a long sip from his canteen and quickened his pace.

Eventually, the road crested a dune and Old Cairo lay spread before him. The bustling hover-dock of Nile River Station. The silvery spires of Al-Azhar 2.0. The massive moisture pits, like aquamarine jewels against the city’s sand-brown skin. Lubna had been here once on a university trip, Ali recalled. His thoughts went to her again, to his house behind the jade-and-grey marble fountain, but he herded them back to the here-and-now. Focus. Find the Western Mosque.

The gate guards took his rifle and eyed him suspiciously, but they let him pass. As he made his way through the city, people pressed in on every side. Ali had always thought of himself as a city man. He’d laughed at various village-bumpkin-turned-soldier types back when he’d been in the army. But Old Cairo made him feel like a bumpkin. He’d never seen so many people, not even in the vibrant Free Beirut of his childhood. He blocked them out as best he could.

He walked for two hours, asking directions of a smelly fruit-seller and two different students. Finally, when dusk was dissipating into dark, he stood before the Western Mosque. It was old, and looked it. The top half of the thick red minaret had long ago been blown away by some army that hadn’t feared God. Ali passed through the high wall’s open gate into the mosque’s charity-yard, which was curiously free of paupers.

God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will remember to always travel with a squad mate when leaving the caravansarai.

“Peace and prosperity, brother. Can I help you?” The brown, jowly man that had snuck up on Ali’s flank was obviously one of the Imams of the Western Mosque. His middle-aged face was furrowed in scrutiny.

Ali stood there, unable to speak. He had made it to Old Cairo, to the charity-yard of the Western Mosque as the prompt had said, and now... Ali didn’t know what he hoped to find. A vial of serum, suspended in a pillar of light? The sky splitting and a great hand passing down cure-money? He was exhausted. He’d faced sandstorms and a tiger to get here. Had nearly died beneath the rot-blackened claws of toxighuls. He’d traveled for two weeks, surviving on little food and an hour’s sleep here and there. He started to wobble on his feet.

Why had he come here? Lubna was going to die and he wouldn’t even be there to hold her.

The Imam stared at Ali, still waiting for an explanation.

Ali swallowed, his cracked throat burning.

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