My eyes are fixed on the beauty who is dancing with the shadows, under the lights. She is flying with the music and the colors, and I can see the shadows holding her and moving her from place to place, in time to the music. When I reach the ground floor, the shadows disappear, as they did last year. She is dancing alone; I wonder if she remembers me.
Finally, the same incident happens—she bumps into me and collapses on me. But this time, she holds me by the shoulders. I look around to search for Rania, wondering why she would call me here. The music stops and the lights go out. There is one light, coming from behind me, throwing a spotlight on her face. She is breathing hard, and my heart starts beating faster to keep up with her. She looks into my eyes, as if she is sneaking directly into my soul. She’s the same girl who took my heart the first time. She is wearing the same clothes, the same mask—and I can scent the same fragrance coming from her.
I look around again for Rania, wondering what she would think if she saw me standing like this, with this girl. I touch her face, but she doesn’t back off. I pull off the mask and my knees go weak as soon as I look at her. I fall down on my knees and she follows me and holds onto my shoulders.
“Rania?” I can’t breathe properly, trying to absorb the fact that the girl I searched for, for a year, is right by my side. It is none other than Rania.
“Yes, Adam. It was me.” She holds my face and looks deeply into my eyes. “It was always me, Adam. I was the girl you saw and fell in love with.”
“You knew it all the time?”
“No, Adam. I didn’t know it was you. I remember someone, but it was all dark. I didn’t know, until you told me that day what you experienced. I couldn’t believe it. You said you saw me under different-colored lights. Look around you, Adam, there are no lights. I don’t know what you saw and how you saw me. I thought I would never find out. I remember someone holding me tightly last year, after my dance, but I thought it would be one of them. I was told that the person who could find me here would be my soul mate. That night, I didn’t see your face, Adam, so I didn’t know where to look for you. Somehow, you came to me so many times in their world, pulling me back into reality, but I still couldn’t understand it.” She pulls me closer to her, still cupping my face in her hands. My mind is too stunned to think about anything.
“Adam Gibson, you are my soul mate. God has made you for me and no one else.” Her eyes are clouded with tears, but she is smiling with happiness. “My curse is over, Adam. I have found my soul mate. I have found you.” She kisses me passionately for the first time.
My body is completely stiff. Somehow, I am too numb to feel anything. And I guess she reads my body. She pulls away and looks at me with confusion.
“Who are you?” I look into her eyes blankly.
“It’s me, Adam. The woman you love. The woman you fantasized about for a whole year. Your Rania.”
I touch her face and look around. “Are you one of them?”
“No, Adam. I am not a Jinni. I am your Rania. Please, look at me.” My eyes are still wandering in the dark. Fuck! Where am I? “Adam, please look at me. I want to tell him you are here for me. I want to prove to him that I have found my soul mate. He just doesn’t believe me.”
“Is…” My voice is breaking with fear. “Is he here, too?” Shit!! I’m so fucking scared.
“Khaldun is standing just next to me, Adam. You are in his world. The shadows you saw are not shadows. It was Khaldun and his companions.” She moves my face to grab my attention, but somehow, I can’t look into her eyes.
“Please, Adam, tell him I belong to you. Tell him you are my soul mate, and no matter what he tries to do, you will be there to pull me out of his world. Please tell him you are not like Jibran. Please tell him your soul is not weak, to be manipulated by him. Please tell him I am not his wife.” She raises her voice; she is almost yelling.
“Adam, look at me. Tell him I belong to you. Please, say something.”
My heart is pounding like a drum. I am unable to speak, as if all the blood has been sucked from my body, making it hollow. She is kneeling before me, begging, but there is nothing I can do. I don’t even have enough strength to stand on my feet. I have to admit, I’m frightened. I can’t see them, but I believe her totally that they are here, watching us. The truth is not getting inside my head. I’m unable to endure the surroundings. I am getting breathless.
“I…” I’m at loss for words, but I manage to look into her eyes. “I’m scared, Rania.” The thought that she can truly communicate with these spirits terrifies me.
“No no no, Adam, you don’t need to be scared. They can’t harm you.” Tears start coming out of her pleading eyes.
“I want to go.”
“Adam, please don’t leave me in the middle of this. I have given my life to you. Please tell him I am not his Kiya. Tell him no matter how hard he tries, he cannot harm us. Tell him you are here to protect me. Tell him I belong to you only.” She is pointing somewhere in the darkness, but I can’t see anyone. I know she isn’t lying. She can see them, because this place doesn’t exist in my world. “I have built my world around you, Adam. Please don’t destroy it.”
I have waited for so long to confess her love to me and now when she has, I can’t do anything about it. I keep staring at her, silence creeping over me. She’s begging me for my love and trust and I am failing. I’m failing to support her. I am failing to love her back. I don’t know what is happening to me, but I feel my heart is sinking somewhere in the darkness.
“I can’t breathe. I have to get out of here.” I look around to find the passage that can take me out into the open air. I am suffocating.
“No, Adam!” she yells at me. “You can’t leave me like this. You said you love me, Adam. You vowed under the stars. They were all watching you, when you promised me. You can’t just back out like this.”
She’s holding the collar of my jacket tightly. “Say something, dammit.” Shit! I need to get out right now. I keep my hands on hers over the collar, and draw in my breath to tell the bitterest lie ever.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, Rania.” I look at her, poker-faced. “Stop imagining. You are sick.” Oh crap! I know she’s not sick. I’m such a bastard to say this to her. I am such a coward to fail her.
“What I see is what I believe. There’s nothing here. Grow up.” I pull her hand away from my collar and shrug it off.
She looks at me in shock—her jaw dropped in a catatonic stupor, baffled by my reaction. I can only see Rania, helpless, falling at my feet to beg me to take away her curse. I am speechless and stunned. I can’t find the strength to pick her up. I keep looking at her, crying at my feet, but I stay here dumbfounded.
My gaze wanders around the building, but I can’t see anything except the darkness. In reality, there is no one except us in this illusory world, but the truth is, we are stuck in the world of the Jinn. It is their damn place, which never existed physically.
I take a few steps back. She looks at me with her pained appealing eyes. There’s nothing I can do. I feel like someone has taken the soul from my body. All my words, all my promises of trust that I made to her, have failed in this moment. I have lost her once again with my own cowardice. I’m not strong enough to stand beside her. I can fight against the whole world for her, but I can’t fight with creatures I can’t see.
I start walking backwards. Her eyes never leave mine. She doesn’t say anything after that. She doesn’t stop me. Somehow, she acknowledges the fear in my eyes.
Without saying another word, I escape.
THE CURSE
♀
I hear him laughing at me.
“Well well…what do we have here?” He chuckles. “Why are you crying, Kiya?” He steps closer to me. “Why were you deluding yourself that he was your soul mate? Did you see how you frightened him? Is that what you call true love?”
“I am not your Kiya!” I yell at him.
“Just remember, your body and soul belong to me
and no one else. We are married to each other for eternity. This man has a mortal life. He is going to die one day or another.”
“I am going to die too, Khaldun. I am mortal too. I will die, just like Kiya did. You will never get the love you want if you keep hating everyone,” I cry in pain.
“I won’t let you die if you leave him, my wife. I gave you a choice. You chose to surrender yours. So why are you crying? You chose to stay away from him. Now that he has walked out of your life, what are you grieving for?” He looks directly into my watery eyes and lifts my chin to make me to look up. “There was never a human soul mate for you, Kiya. Humans don’t have the courage to love so deeply. It’s about time for you to realize that our spirits are meant for each other. Just try to feel me once.”
“We can never be one, Khaldun. Why don’t you understand? You are not human, and I am not your Kiya. I am not your wife.”
“Fine then!” he yells at me. “I will see if you can get your soul mate. You think if he can sneak into my world, he is meant for you? Did you see how he ran away? He is not the one. My brother has misled you. Just the mere thought that he felt me freaked him out. You think he would survive if he sees me? He is a bloody coward.”
I hide my face and cry frantically, “Spare me. Spare my life. I am not Kiya...I am not Kiya.”
I see him walking away in anger. I keep crying in the darkness. All the faith I had in Adam, that we would prove all of them wrong, failed in a second.
Last year, the man who met me in the darkest of the darkness was none other than Adam. Never, in my wildest dreams, had I imagined Adam to be the guy who could sneak into their world and hold me in his arms. I wonder why God picked him for this task. I wonder why He chose Adam, the man who didn’t even believe in Him—and He wants Adam to believe in them.
“You okay?” I hear Fadil’s voice as he wraps his arms around me. “I am so sorry, Rania. I never wanted to mislead you.”
“It’s not your fault, Fadil. Maybe he is not meant for this purpose. I always thought of him as a forbidden fruit. And I knew the consequences of tasting it. I thought maybe this time, God changed His laws and would allow me to savor this fruit…” I shake my head in sorrow. “But no…I was so wrong. He hasn’t changed anything since He created mankind. The punishment is still the same. Maybe Khaldun is right. There is no soul mate for me. I will also die without love, just like all the other women in the past.” I look toward the darkness.
“No, I still don’t believe it. The angels don’t lie, Rania. They told me he is born to be yours. He was never a forbidden fruit for you. I wish I could see your future. But only Allah holds all the powers. We are only His creatures.”
“You know, Fadil, when he touched me the first time, in this same place, I never thought I could find that man again—who could pass me strings of desire with his mere touch. Every nerve of my body responded that night. But then I never met him. For months, I kept wondering if he was part of my fantasy or my reality. But, one day when he held me again, in his office, I couldn’t believe it.” I look at him. “I know you kept telling me that he could be the one whom God has appointed to end my curse, but I never listened to you. All the time I kept wondering, if a man has no belief in God, how could he be appointed for this task? But then he found me in your world. I was still skeptical about it. That night, under the stars, when he confessed his love and told me about his experience of meeting me in the lights, it was like a dream come true.” I wipe my tears, but my eyes don’t stop shedding them. “He told me that woman was his fantasy. I was his fantasy. For months, he kept dreaming and fantasizing about me in his mind, just like I did for him.” I can’t stop crying. “I don’t know what lights he saw that I couldn’t see that night.”
“They were the lights from his angels. The ones who are guarding him. They showed him that path.” He adds blankly.
“When he kissed me under the stars, I had never felt so complete. The way he touched my body last night, I can never feel that for any man again. He was in me, running in my bloodstream.” I try to clear my eyes. “After what Jibran did to me, I never thought I could feel anyone, physically. I never imagined a man could hunt me down with only single touch. I never thought there was a woman still alive in me. I thought she had been brutally murdered with my baby’s death.” I cry and cry.
Why did he ever come into my life? Why did God even send him? Why did I fall in love with Adam? He has split me into two different worlds. One in which he is purely mine, and I would just imagine him but never be his, and the other one in which he is actually with me, but not mine. It is so oppressive that I have to live in both worlds. How effortlessly he made me believe he loves me. How conveniently he held my heart in his hand and shook it hard. How seamlessly he has ripped and scraped me to helpless shreds. “I don’t want to live anymore, Fadil. Can you take my life?”
“I am not an angel of death. That’s not my job.”
“Can’t you convince him, and call him for me?”
“No, never.” He looks into my eyes. “Only God holds the power of life and death. Even the angel of death works at His command. You know that, don’t you?”
“Can you rewind time for me, Fadil? Bring it back to the day when I saw him outside his office? I want to delete that day from my life.”
He smiles at me. “Why are you asking me for all these things that are not possible? You know I can’t do that. I have a longer life and the power to go anywhere in the world in seconds, but that doesn’t mean I hold the power to take anyone’s life or rewind time. You have never asked me anything like that before.”
I sigh. “Sometimes I feel there is a shield between the sky and Heaven. My prayers are not going beyond that shield. It seems like a layer that stops all my requests to Him. They are stuck in limbo, waiting for their fate, to be either accepted or rejected.” I chuckle with sarcasm. “I kept trying to convince Adam that prayers do get accepted sooner or later, they are never abandoned, but I don’t think it’s true anymore. I fooled myself and I fooled him.”
“You know you were not fooling. You know it’s true. Your prayers are not abandoned, Rania. I am certain they are not. It’s just that Adam does not realize what powers he holds.” I look at him in surprise.
“I wish I could have died in the fire in my apartment.”
He chuckles. “That fire?” He looks at me. “You know Adam tried very hard to find the origin of that fire, but I know he will never find it.” I look at him, baffled. “Khaldun tried to burn you, in order to weaken Adam, but his angels saved you. I know you don’t remember how you escaped from that building. His angels saved you because Adam begged God for your life.”
I still don’t get him.
“Yes, he has immense powers that can blow away Khaldun or anyone like him. There is no Jinni who could come close to him, to manipulate his demon or his mind. He and only he controls his own demon. No one from outside can communicate with it.” I blink at him. “Khaldun lied to you, Rania. He was just trying to scare you last night. He can never harm Adam. You should have stayed there in his arms. You should have felt Adam’s love and rebelled. That would have been his defeat.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t know until last night, when he pulled you out of the water. You don’t know, but you were dead—drowned in the pool. His prayer brought you back. His love brought you back. God wanted him to beg, and that’s what Adam did. He kept pleading until the angel of death returned your soul to your body on His command.”
I laugh hideously. “What’s the point, Fadil? He only believes what he sees.” I look at him. “Remember, that’s what he told me before he left?” I take a deep breath. “He would never believe me. He was right. As far as he can tell, I’m just a sick girl. If he has not seen any of you, I can’t make him ever believe me. And if he is not going to believe me, I can never belong to him.”
“He will, Rania. He will see and he will believe.” He says it with utter confidence. “He wil
l.”
ANOTHER WORLD
♂
God—what should I call Him? A divine power? An omnipotent? A supremacy Who holds everything in His hands? He rules all the games. He decides the players—who wins and who loses. He decides how we play and when we need to drop off. Just like a puppet show where one puppeteer holds all the puppets. He is hidden from us and the rest of the audience, as He operates us and enjoys our game of misery. It’s just that we don’t see any strings attached to us. He controls us through our minds.
Humankind is considered to be the greatest and noblest of His creations, but I wonder, where is their power? He gave light to angels, gave them a life which is free from taking their own decisions, free from falling in love with anyone. They just obey Him, whatever He commands. How convenient!
On the other hand, He gave immense powers to the Jinn, who could appear in any form if they wanted us to see them. They can rule anybody’s mind if they want to. I just don’t understand on what basis we are called the best of His creations, when we don’t have any power.
My powers failed when Rania begged me to stay with her. God controlled my mind, and I ran away like a freak. Or should I say, my Jinni controlled my mind? God put me on a path to meet her, and then He showed me a path to run away from her. There are actually no words for me to describe Him. All my life, He bestowed on me His goodness, power and blessing. He provided me enough wealth to fulfill all my dreams. He chose me to help others. He answered almost all my silent prayers.
All my life, I denied His existence, but He kept me under His eye. I don’t doubt His judgment, and I know why He watched over me even though I denied Him publicly.
People generally recognize God through a miracle. I never imagined acknowledging Him through demons. Yes, I know Rania was not lying. The Jinn truly exist. After Ali said that their existence is revealed in the word of God, I actually searched on the Internet. Still, I have no courage to face her. It has been almost a month since I’ve seen her. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing these days. I didn’t have the courage to ask anyone what happened when she saw my interview. I don’t know how her father reacted or treated her after I declared my love to her nationwide.
A Prayer Heeded Page 16