Over The Tightrope by Asif Ismael

Author:Asif Ismael [Ismael, Asif]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.R. Sarmoun
Published: 2015-11-03T23:00:00+00:00

My dreams were a disjointed mess; too fragmented and hazy to piece together or hope to remember. I woke up around noon, my throat feeling like sandpaper. I drank water, a lot of it, and then fell asleep again.

The room was sunk in total darkness when I opened my eyes. I jerked upright, not sure where I was when I felt Ghulam Rasool’s hand on my shoulder nudging me awake. I got up and he turned the lights on and showed me the tray of steaming tea and hot snacks he’d made for me. I looked at my watch. It was 9:00 pm. The day was Wednesday, and the year 2050; that would be 12:00 noon in New York. I had slept for 17 hours straight. It felt as if my circadian rhythm had been permanently damaged due to the surreal events of the past day.

“Saab, just to let you know, the electricity will go off in twenty minutes,” he said, setting the tray on my bed.

“Oh, great! They used to have generators. What happened?”

“They have been banned, saab, for both residential and commercial use. Only mosques are allowed to have them. For one thing, the noise—you could hardly hear the call to prayer when they were running. And they prevented people from practicing their deen, their religion in its true spirit according to the natural times of day decreed by Allah.”

I understood the first reason well enough. I had my doubts about that second one though, but it seemed awkward to ask for an explanation.

“Your father called—he told me to wake you. Saab, you’ve been sleeping all day without any food or drink in your stomach. It’s not good for your health,” he said, putting the morning paper, The Daily Khalifaa e Waqt, in front of me beside the tray.

“This country has been inviting the wrath of Allah for a long time—I’m glad you left,” he added, pressing the folded paper flat with his hand and smiling to himself. “I'm really happy to see you, saab, but you should have stayed abroad, if I may say so.”

I rubbed my eyes, looked at the headline, and almost fell from the bed. Blast At Shah Jamal.

With a surge of panic, I picked up the paper, my hands shaking, and scrolled through the details. Someone had martyred himself at the shrine of Shah Jamal killing seventeen people. The explosion had occurred around 2:00 am, according to eyewitnesses.

My lips trembled as I stared at the picture under the headline; the severed head of the suicide bomber nestled within a wreath made of red roses. I’d seen that face before, but where?

And then it came to me like a flash flood racing down a mountain gorge. I knew where I’d seen that face! It was that of the man who’d been standing behind Tarzan outside the shrine, one of the two armed guards who’d escorted us to Wali’s car. And in another flash, I realized that it was also the same bloody face I’d seen being thrashed against the rock by Hell’s winged minion; the face of Fida Muhammad.

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