“Not with us on this plane, but yes, we have the child. And yes, he does perform miracles at our command.”
Kashif nods. He knows the man who speaks for the other two is the most powerful terrorist on the planet now. A position he once held. He is the future. He is dressed in a business suit as well. There is an aura about him not requiring a formal introduction of names. His presence introduces and speaks on his behalf. He is special. He is not weakened by anything, most especially a conscience. His demeanour is razor sharp as are the creases of his suit and his jawline. The other two type feverishly on their computers. Their business is not his business.
“I will not thank you or praise you like the others, if you don’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t expect any different,” answers Kashif.
“I understand who you are, why you are valuable to the council, but your history is of no value to me. I create my own set apart from what you have created.”
Kashif is well aware of the man’s confidence, which may appear unappreciative, ungrateful or downright arrogant to The Messenger. He also deduces the angles this man is presenting him. He is invincible, just as he was one day in the past. He believes himself immortal, which gives him hierarchy over all human beings. He has convinced himself he is greater than his own imagination of himself.
Heavy silences seem to press the plane down to a lower elevation. Kashif doesn’t feel the need to talk. Neither does this leader. The others are working on their computers. In the reflection of the plane windows, and in this cocoon of tan leather upholstery, Kashif can see, hear and smell them creating stories via media. These are storytellers furthering the legend of power. Kashif knows what terrorist group this is. The young man was right. It is a group distinct from the concepts of terror he first created. This group prides itself on promotion, publicity, video—visual statements. This group creates fear with story, with film, with shock value. They stage executions as in days of old and then use such episodes to disseminate fear into online veins. Kashif considers his ways old in their new context. Yet, they are artists, just the same. They simply understand the theory of distribution.
The plane descends upon a city of ruins, an area of stone rubble, collapsed buildings and perpetual dust rising to cloud the air like a windstorm. When the plane lands in this deserted city, Kashif immediately recognizes the place. It was once a city of gold, worship and excess. Now it is deserted, destroyed, bombarded, abandoned, like a forlorn planet of rock and debris.
The landing is smooth and when the door floats open, Kashif and The Messenger are escorted through a former downtown area and into an unsuspecting building. They descend further down a flight of stairs, at which point there is a glimmering elevator door, stainless steel and too modern for its rustic surroundings.
The elevator descends further towards the center of the earth until it reaches a bunker. The bunker, like the plane, is centered by a crescent table. There are men sitting at the table. One of which is recognizable to Kashif as the father of the mother of his child, the unknowing grandfather of his dying daughter. When Kashif enters the room, the entire room rises to applaud his entrance. Kashif is embarrassed by this reception. The Young Man does not applaud. He is stoic and firm in the face. He leaves the room and motions to take The Messenger with him.
“Please, he is with me.”
“He will have to die, afterwards.”
“I will kill him myself.”
The Messenger seems like a lost child in this exchange and Kashif doesn’t assure him everything will be all right. The Young Man is correct. This type of conversation, this type of knowledge is forbidden. Only a few can live to tell.
A man with albedo skin begins the proceeding. He is sitting next to his lover’s father, his daughter’s grandfather. His ignorance makes Kashif stronger.
“We received your blood. You are.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Returned.”
“Yes.”
“We believed you dead.”
Her father is darker skinned and bearded grey. Each of the men is dressed formally. Everything appears uniform to Kashif, just as he expected. Blood will have blood. Business will have business.
“You want something,” the man with white hair on the panel asks.
“Yes.”
“And you will return?”
“Yes.”
“What is it you want?”
“The child.”
“The child is yours.”
“We want something as well.”
“My blood.”
Kashif knew they needed his blood for much more than identification. He can feel The Messenger’s curiosity behind him. Or perhaps The Messenger is reacting to the fact he will soon die. He must have persuaded himself it would never happen. The Young Man must have frightened him.
“My blood is yours.”
“We will use it to complete the final stage of terror. We will recreate your genius.”
His daughter’s grandfather introduces this concept. Kashif refutes it nonetheless to hide his ability to read their minds.
“My blood alone will not accomplish this.”
“Which is why you will join us. You will be the master teacher on this council. You will guide us into the supernatural future.”
After hearing this prognostication, Kashif knows the next step is scientific in nature. Creating terror from the root up. Not just replicating it from tradition. The Nazis were well on their way to cloning an Aryan race. Other operations had already experimented with the idea. Creation. Creating terror from a cell in order to immortalize it forever, just like God created life so that it could die and rise again in a more perfect form than when it began.
The miracle child must have increased their belief in the science of the supernatural. Absolute power was only achievable on one level up until the child’s discovery. Until the child arrived, they simply used faith and religion to justify violence and the assumption of power. But the arrival of the child introduced new and creative possibilities. The power to create. The fall of Lucifer. Greatness beyond The Great. The potential of their ideas and dreams.
And his blood was a link in this calculation. The evolution of his instincts needed to be a part of this new terror recipe. Supernatural terror.
“I will join you,” Kashif confirms. He sees a vacated seat on the council. He assumes this seat has been reserved for him.
The council is pleased. Her father is pleased, almost proud without knowing the real reason why. Kashif wonders if The Young Man will be as pleased with his promotion to the council. Perhaps he expected it for himself. There was envy in his mannerisms. Kashif’s resurrection from the dead might have interrupted his plans to achieve council status.
Kashif stands alone in the center of the bunker and he is instantly weakened by the fear that his daughter might have already perished. He doesn’t know where the thought comes from. He doesn’t see it coming like a bullet in the back. Perhaps this is so because he hasn’t seen her for quite some time. He grows desperate to see the child and to validate his miraculous powers. His faith is weakened. His instincts are confused where it concerns her.
“Where is the child?”
The council senses his impatience. He is a desperate man before them. He doesn’t resemble the man they remembered. Her unknowing grandfather is confused by this hint at weakness. Kashif wonders if they regret stealing his blood, although he didn’t put up much of a fight.
The Messenger is also shocked by this sudden panic in the room. It reeks of uncertainty. He has never seen a kink in the armour of Kashif’s resolve.
“He will be on the plane waiting for you. And then he will return with you.”
Kashif knows he has made a mistake. He has shown weakness and a dependency on finding this miracle child for an alternative agenda. The Young Man enters the bunker. He is smirking as if having li
stened in on the conversation.
Kashif knows that he knows. But this weakness is necessary, just as age is necessary to introduce the greater possibility of death on the horizon.
He attempts to reclaim the mistake he made, as subtle as it was.
“Do you have his blood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The Young Man escorts Kashif and The Messenger back to the plane. The other two are not present. A child is sitting on the seat. He is barefooted and his socks have been recently pulled off of his feet. There is a green bubble rising and shrinking from his nostril. His eyes are slanted, although not ethnically. He is disabled in a way even Kashif hadn’t anticipated.
The Messenger breathes relief when he realizes they are the only ones on the plane. Kashif approaches the child and the child embraces him softly. At once, Kashif understands he has met the council’s greatest enemy and the seed of its downfall.
DAY 41
“You made the miracle child like your own. Tobias.”
The Man is impressed by this little trick and he understands why it is significant that the miracle child has Down syndrome.
“The extra chromosome. It makes all of the difference in the blood, in the cloning of the race. It isn’t perfectly strong, which is why they value Kashif’s.”
I am anxious for the story to return to Bsharri, but I don’t want to rush it. The funnel is getting tighter near the bottom and the speed of the water in the drain is increasing too rapidly. I have passed the deadline I first set for myself before I began the story. But that doesn’t matter anymore. I understand now that my reader is far more patient with me than I ever imagined. That he or she listens in the room, often sharing the theatre with The Man. Unlike him, my reader doesn’t seek a spotlight on stage, in the story. Instead, my reader appreciates the silence in the act of writing, as it is reciprocated in the pleasure of reading. On that similar ground, I have come to realize with all humility that my service, where it concerns this story, applies to you and you alone, reader.
So I decide to write the last scene tomorrow. I need a day away to revive the juice. I want to come at the ending with a vengeance, like an arsonist possessed on burning an inhabited building. As I promised in the preface, the story hasn’t resolved itself and there is little hope it will. It is time to burn it down but the act doesn’t feel natural now that I’ve built it from the ground up from my idea. And what about the rewrite? It’s not like I could burn the story without giving it a chance at renovation? Is that what I’m becoming? Have I indeed grown more grey hairs as a result of writing this book, and with those hairs, a newfound wisdom?
I can honestly say I am not as angry as I was when I first started this novel. And like Kashif, I feel empowered by a new faith in my storytelling instincts.
So I have the matches in my pockets and I’m afraid I’m not ready to burn this story down to the ground just yet. I’m stalling, can you tell? I’m trying to find reason not to leave this story unresolved, or worse yet, unfinished.
An unlikely discovery, I feel like I am reading myself a story while I write it, in an out-of-body type of way. I am enjoying the act of listening as much as I am enjoying the creation of the voice.
The Messenger, Kashif and the miracle child are on their way to Bsharri. The place of the poet. And Kashif has already promised he will return to the council. He will sacrifice himself once again to save his daughter’s life and serve his own creation. He will perpetuate terror, personify fear (rather literally), and be the prophet of a new age of terror. It seems like the perfect scenario for him. Save his daughter, go back to creating his living art, become reclusive within the council.
Something doesn’t feel right in my gut. I am nervous about the ending. I don’t know why. I can’t figure it out either. Kashif will be heroic. He will save someone other than himself. He will sacrifice what he truly wants, which is to get to know his other creation, a beautiful daughter, for the sake of sustaining her life. He will contribute his blood against his own will to a cause he doesn’t believe in anymore, which makes his plight tragic. And best of all, this tragic hero of mine will continue to suffer for his sins in this choice, which will justify his penance for past sins. Who knows, I may be able to reunite Kashif and his daughter in a sequel. Or have them as characters who find themselves inadvertently in another novel’s world.
The possibilities are there and yet something still doesn’t feel right. I feel like I am working against my own fictional instincts.
I have heard nothing about my grievance at school. The board and my union representative have put it on the back burner as a result of our contract negotiations stalling. We have been working without a contract for two years now and the Board seems more interested in not making a deal approved by the province.
My wife and I have found a balance in our expectations. We struggle some days with the frustration of teaching Tobias to walk and talk and eat real food, but we are happy our other children are affectionate to him. There is a lot of love to go around, enough to convince me I don’t have to kill myself with work to forget the reality of disabilities.
I am also pleased in the classroom. I worry every day I will lose my ability to care, and as a result, lose my passion to teach, but it hasn’t happened yet. I continue to entertain, amuse and educate with energy, day in and day out, and sometimes I wonder if teaching is my destiny and writing my delusion.
Furthermore, I am not as angry as I used to be. This novel has fleshed it out brilliantly and therapeutically. I suppose I can attribute some of the therapy to my sessions with The Man, but even he doesn’t seem to mind not re-entering the story. I believe he understood this would happen in the end, and that he was only serviceable at the beginning in an intangible way.
It is peaceful on my walks in the dead of winter. The air is sharp and the silence is reticent. There is a belief in the air and a very serene calm to everything I do. I walk with no rush. I drive with no speed. I take my time explaining in class and I don’t hurry anything anymore.
I look forward to the next day when I go to sleep and I pray when I end this novel tomorrow, this peace will not go away.
DAY 42
Despite the echo of The Man’s good advice, I return to The Messenger’s point of view.
He sits on the opposite end of the private jet, closer to the pilot. Kashif is sitting at the back of the plane, nearly face to face with the child. All The Messenger can hear is, “Cookie. Cookie. Not all done. Cookie.”
Kashif whispers something to him and the child finds it funny, beyond hilarious. He keeps repeating himself: “Cookie, Cookie, all right. All right.”
Kashif leaves him and finds a seat across from The Messenger.
“My instincts aren’t aligning. I feel like we have been tricked, or will be tricked.”
“Should we get him some cookies?”
Kashif does not find this funny. The Messenger reads worry on his face. Now his skin colour is changing. It resembles a shade of green with purple on the edges.
“I don’t want to sound condescending, but I believe it is a matter of faith,” The Messenger hints.
Kashif is listening.
“From my experience, the answer to life’s paradox is faith. Tragedy will become comedy, pain will become love, death will become life, and the only common ingredient is faith that something will happen outside your understanding of it.”
Kashif smirks.
“I have to kill you by my word.”
“I have always had faith you would. I am ready, whenever you are.”
“I am not ready.”
“You want to see if he can save your daughter first. You don’t want to jinx it with more blood on your hands.”
“You have changed,” Kashif interrupts.
“And you are starting to look the same to me,” The Messenger says.
They are quiet for the remainder of the flight. The child is not. He is repeating the same words over and over again and laughing to himself.
When they reach the hospital in Bsharri, Kashif carries him up the stairs. Although the boy is only five years old, he is heavy as he straps himself to Kashif’s torso with an octopus grip.
Kashif’s daughter is right where they left her. She is lying in her coma, asleep. The room is clean of footprints. The Messenger glances around with the expectation of seeing Sabal, except she has disappeared for good. Even her memory is disappearing into a mythical reference or lesson.
The child is relentless.
“Cookie, cookie, cookie. All done now.”
Kashif places him on his daughter’s bed and the boy reaches back. He doesn’t want to stay. He has a goal in mind and it appears to have chocolate chips. For some reason, The Messenger imagines the boy’s favourite cookie as chocolate chip.
“What do I do?”
This is the first question Kashif has ever asked The Messenger. He is confused. He doesn’t know all of the answers and by virtue of that fact, he isn’t invincible to himself anymore. He is vulnerable in this moment, exposed for his humanity. He doesn’t know how to communicate to this child with a mental disability, with physical disabilities, and his lack of faith overpowers his accumulated strengths. In The Messenger’s eyes, his murderer will find it difficult to commit the act now. If anything, Kashif is self-afflicted, unsure, reborn you could argue, or just mortal.
The Messenger has no answers either. He tries to help Kashif force the boy to touch his daughter’s nimble arm. The boy is resistant. He wants a cookie. He wants it all done, as he puts it. He introduces a new demand.
“Ride in the truck. Ride in the truck.”
This request confuses Kashif some more. He didn’t expect this challenge. His instincts didn’t prepare him to take care of a disabled child. Everything is uncertain now. Everything is fear in the moment. The possibility of his daughter dying from her terminal disease. The possibility of not saving her. The possibility she is dying because of his sins. His faith in karma above a real creator.
Chameleon (Days) Page 21