Forbidden Thoughts

by Milo Yiannopoulos

  Hunching beneath the cold rain, Shazia moved swiftly across an open area behind a line of houses, passing a muddy garden and brightly-colored laundry someone had forgotten to take in before the rains started. She passed an old lady tending an old cart with faded blue wheels, overflowing with grapes, and a cart selling brightly-colored magazines. At the corner, dark stains on the pavement marked the place where a woman had recently been stoned to death for adultery.

  Shazia thought of all her girlfriends back home who dated married men, of her co-workers and fellow Marines who had cheated on their wives. She shuddered. Sometimes, even she had trouble believing America and Pakistan could exist in the same century.

  To the side of the blood-stained rock had been the spot where Shazia had vomited two days ago, when the nausea that came with seeing ghosts had struck her. It was because she had seen the poor woman’s ghost that she knew what had caused the dark stain on the street. Chana had gotten them past the guard’s checkpoint that time, so she had not needed to climb over the barbed-wire fence. Seeing her cousin’s distress, Chana had inquired whether Shazia had eaten something that did not agree with her, or, with a sweet but wicket smile, if she might be pregnant? Apparently, Chana had forgotten about such incidents from their youth.

  If only Shazia had thought to ask Great-Grandmother Anahika, while she was still alive, why it was that seeing spirits always made her feel so ill.

  Until recently, Shazia and Kabir had kept in touch by Skype. It was when he stopped calling that she began to suspect something was wrong. It had been over a decade since she had seen Kabir face to face. The flight to Pakistan was so long that the family had decided on a reunion in London, with Shazia’s family traveling from the US to England, and Kabir’s coming from Pakistan.

  They had met up at Trafalgar Square. Shazia had been an awkward, budding girl of thirteen. Kabir had been tall and lanky, with a veneer of teenage cool. A few minutes together, however, had revealed the same vibrant boy she had loved. She remembered the two of them running through the pigeons with their arms stretched, watching the startled birds fly up into the air. She remembered seeking out a birdseed vender and laughing as they watched their avian companions mob the seed. And then, laughing again when their antics caused Kabir to slide on the stones covered with pigeon droppings, his arms windmilling as he fell. How funny he had looked when he stood up again, his garments streaked with white.

  During her recent flight, she had scheduled a day’s layover in London. When she returned to Trafalgar Square, the pigeons were gone. The city had outlawed the selling of birdseed and chased the birds away. A man with a fierce-looking hawk was on patrol to make certain that no pigeons returned.

  The surface underfoot was less treacherous, true. Yet, the memory of the empty square without its mob of feathered friends made Shaza’s eyes prick with tears.

  Shazia shook her head. Rain in her eyes was bad enough. She needed to stay alert, focused. And yet, as she rounded the corner and started across an abandoned parking lot toward where she believed Kabir and his associates to be, she could not help recalling her favorite memories of her favorite cousin.

  Her clearest memories of Kabir were of walking to and from school. Shazia’s family had been progressive enough to send their daughter to school. That was one reason they had eventually moved to America. While they lived in Peshawar, however, Shazia and Kabir had attended the same form, so they walked to and from school together.

  She could remember Kabir striding beside her so proudly, in his role as her male protector. Most of all, however, she remembered the day they came upon the cockfight.

  They had been coming home from school on a lovely spring day. Blossoms were everywhere in the City of Flowers, and the air was heady with perfume. They had been walking together along the packed dirt road that led down the hill to their neighborhood, swinging their book bags and singing a song that they had learned in class.

  Ahead of them was a gathering of grown men, all shouting and cheering. Eager to investigate what was causing such excitement, the two children had run forward, darting through the crowd.

  “Remember,” Kabir had whispered to her as they slipped between the grown men, “look like you’re supposed to be here. No one ever bothers you if you do that.”

  The mass of men had turned out to be a hollow ring. At the center, two black roosters strutted and pecked at each other. All around, men hollered encouragement and called out bets. Kabir had stood for a moment, watching one bird try to peck out the eyes of the other, then he had turned away, dragging Shazia by the hand.

  “Come away,” he had said in disgust. “This is no place for a girl.”

  But he did not say it the way boys said such things in movies, as if girls were not worthy to be present. Rather, he said it with respect, as if she were made of finer stuff than the brutes who shouted and howled around them—as if the good things in life were worth cherishing, worth protecting.

  It had made her feel very good.

  “When I grow up, I am not going to do stupid things like that, making poor animals fight,” Kabir had said confidently. Shazia knew he loved their chickens. “Only a swine would behave so. A barbarian. Someone with no civility. When I grow up, I am going to put a stop to such cruelty. I will make the world a better place.”

  At that moment, as they walked along the dusty, flower-hemmed road, Shazia had sworn a solemn vow, the most solemn vow of her life. She had vowed to Allah above that, when she grew up, she would help her cousin accomplish his goal.

  That was why she had become a Marine—because when the time came for Kabir to make the world better, she wanted to be capable of helping.

  Under the shadow of the sandy walls of the old Jamrud Fort, Shazia lifted her bowed head and looked around at the broken concrete, the sand bags, the weary faces of the lone old man heading in the other direction with his cart and his patient donkey. She thought of the City of Flowers as it had been in her youth.

  It did not look like a better place.

  She heard their voices before she saw them. Using her military training, she crept forward slowly, staying behind cover. Of course, back in Afghanistan, she had worn city camo, not a teal and gold flowing dress with pants that looked like something out of I Dream of Jeannie.

  A cold black hatred of all things Taliban gripped her heart.

  This may have been a good thing, because when she peered around the corner from behind a low cement wall, in the midst of her hatred, she was thinking like a Marine—so she did not cry out.

  Lance Corporal Hayak never cried out.

  She was not so sure about Shazia, the young woman in the hijab. She might have called out. It was hard to remember who she was when dressed in these clothes.

  Ten young men stood around a kneeling figure, arguing with each other. They were not dressed in the turbans and dirty robes of the Taliban, but in the tight black paramilitary garb of Islamic State extremists, with black headgear and black scarves across their faces. One young man held a naked scimitar. The kneeling figure wore the uniform of a Pakistani soldier. A burlap bag covered his head.

  No!

  Shazia slipped out of sight and pressed her back against the concrete wall, her heart hammering. They were going to behead the soldier. And Kabir was among them. Even at this distance, she had recognized his eyes.

  He was the young man with the scimitar.

  Kabir was going to behead a man!

  How different those eyes were. Where was his compassion? His clever wit? Where was the joy that had set him apart from all others she knew? His eyes, the eyes of all those young men, had been filled with a rabid, feverous hate.

  Think, she told herself, breathe, stay calm.

  She moved back until she could see them again, peering from behind her cover. She had planned to wait until the meeting broke up and then approach Kabir. But she could not let this murder go forward.

  She wanted to save the soldier, but, even more than that, she wanted to save Kabir—save
him from becoming the very kind of man he had vowed, the day of the cockfight, that he would never be.

  But save him… how? Here he stood, part of a crowd that surrounded a hapless victim, even as those men had ringed the fighting birds.

  Shazia moved behind the wall again and sat there, struggling not to weep. Marines did not weep.

  What had become of her hero? Why had she suffered so, forcing herself to face things no young woman should ever have to face—death, mutilated children, the smell of burnt flesh, and worse horrors she did not like to recall—just to be worthy to aid him? Had all her hopes and dreams come to this?

  Were they to die today on the edge of a scimitar?

  The very thought made her ill. She doubled over with nausea.

  As she squatted behind the cement wall, her head between her knees, a searing pain shot through her head. Her vision became double. The broken glass and pebbles on the ground before her seemed to reproduce themselves, producing their twin.

  No! No! Not now!

  The waves of nausea grew stronger. Leaning against the cement wall, her fingers pressed against her temples, she made herself breathe deep, slow breaths. She had managed to control herself during her entire tour of duty, even though the war-torn countryside of Afghanistan had been full of ghosts. If she could keep herself together then, she could do it now.

  The nausea retreated, but her head still throbbed. Slowly, she turned and leaned around the corner of the wall, looking back at the young men to see what the “gift” passed down to her from her Magi ancestors would show her.

  The air above Kabir and his fellows swarmed with monstrosities. Some were horrible, ugly creatures with horns and forked tails. Others looked like snakes or scorpions. Still others were black clouds with fiery eyes. The marid towered over the others, tall as giants—cruel horns jutting from their forehead or huge tusks thrusting from their upper lips.

  She recognized each kind of evil djinn from her great-grandmother’s tales. There were five types of djinn in all. Four of them were here: bad djann, wicked shaitans, evil ifrite, and, worst of all, five terrible, huge marid. They swarmed over Kabir and his friends hooting and cackling. From time to time, they swooped down and whispered into the ears of the young men. Each time they did so, the young men’s eyes became more fevered, more fanatical. Their argument grew louder. One of the young men in black shoved another.

  Shazia had seen dark djinn before on Muslim battlefields. She had seen evil qareen—the companion djinn that urged each mortal to give into base desires—whispering to their masters, inciting wrath, lust, hatred. Her Irish bunkmate could see them, too. She called them by another name: demons.

  “Allah, Lord of Jibreel, Mikail and Israfil protect me!” she prayed fervently, mouthing the words she did not dare to speak aloud, lest she be overheard. “Save my cousin from this terrible sin. Send your angels to drive away these wicked djinn.”

  The young man who had been shoved lunged at his attacker. Only he never reached him. Instead, he stopped mid-step, his hand outstretched, motionless. His attacker, too, stopped moving, as if caught in the frozen frame of a movie. The other young men, too, were motionless.

  As was the rain.

  Amazed, Shazia reached up and touched one of silvery drops that hung suspended in mid-air. It gave slightly under her finger. Everything was quiet, hushed, everything but the wicked djinn, who still squawked and cackled. That was the only sound.

  What was happening?

  Footsteps sounded in the utter quiet of the frozen world. A figure walked into the grass and broken glass of the clearing in front of the frozen young men. He was seven feet tall with hair of gold that shone like a second sun. His coat was a white so brilliant that it hurt her eyes. When he came forward, the smallest of the djinn, the bad djann, fled away, shrieking. The larger ones hissed and cawed, but they continued to swarm around the heads and shoulders of the young men.

  The newcomer stopped and smiled at Shazia. His face was very handsome, but his expression was kindly, like a loving father.

  “Who… ” she faltered.

  “I am the Angel Gabriel.”

  Shazia’s jaw dropped. “You… came?”

  “Angels always come when they are called. It is just that mortals do not usually see us.”

  “Why can I see you?”

  “That is your family’s gift.”

  “But I have never seen an angel before!”

  “Have you ever called for one?”

  Shazia opened her mouth and closed it again. She could not recall that she had.

  “Can you drive away the Evil Ones?” she asked hopefully.

  The angel shook his head. “I can protect you. But those are the qareen of these young men, and other dark entities whom they have invited. The young men would have to ask for my protection themselves. I may not act otherwise.”

  “Not even to save them?” pleaded Shazia.

  “My Father has granted free will to the Race of Adam.”

  “Your… father?” Shazia took a step back in confusion. “But Allah has no children!”

  She suddenly became aware of how heavy and cold her wet garments were. She began to shiver. The angel regarded her wordlessly.

  Shazia played with the hem of her hijab. “Is that not why the good djinn converted to Islam? Because they overheard the Prophet explaining that Allah had no wife and no son?”

  Great-Grandmother Anahika had seen to it that she and Kabir were familiar with all the Quran had to say about djinn.

  “Does it not say in Sura Al-Jin,” she continued. “Say: It has been revealed to me that a group of Jinn listened and said, ‘Verily we have heard a marvelous Quran. It guides unto righteousness so we have believed in it. And, we will never make partners with our Lord. He—exalted by the glory of our Lord— has not taken a wife nor a son. What the foolish ones among us used to say about God is a horrible lie.”

  A terrible horrible cacophony came from the gathering of dark djinn. It took a moment for Shazia to realize that this terrible din was an expression of mirth.

  “No son!” They laughed outrageously, striking each other violently. “Oh yes. We like that part! Tell more pathetic worms of human beings. The Unaccursed One has no Son!”

  She looked from the chortling fiends to the glorious, calm angel. “Are you… You are the Muslim Angel Jibrail, right?”

  The angel gave her such an odd look. “Without me, there would be no Islam. I am he who spoke to Mohammad, thus making him a prophet.” He frowned at the gathered crowd of evil djinn. “What Mohammad wrote down is another matter.”

  “What do you mean?” Shazia drew herself up, eyes flashing. “Is not the Quran ‘Allah’s perfect and complete word’?”

  Laughter exploded from the dark djinn. They pushed each other and clawed and spat fire. One gigantic marid bent down and swallowed two of the ifrites, though they eventually burst out of its body in a method Shazia wished she had not seen.

  Another larger marid, with curling ram horns and cloven hooves stepped over the crowd and strode forward, bending down until its brutish, snub-nosed head was close to her. Too close. She could smell his putrid, fetid breath. She drew her hijab across her mouth.

  “Mankind, those Sons of Whores!” declared the marid. “How puny. How gullible. They cling to their sacred texts like a dung beetle to his ball. Little do they realize that we demons have, over the generations, snuck errors into every single holy scripture upon the earth.”

  “Is… is this true?” Shazia took a step back, shaken.

  The angel nodded.

  “But… why is this allowed?” she cried.

  “Mankind has been granted free will,” Gabriel said sadly. “My brethren and I may but advise.”

  Another marid came and squatted down. This one looked like a sunburnt pig with huge tusks. “Sooo many errors. Big rutting errors. Little buggering errors. And do you know the prize of the dung heap? “Two turdy little words: ‘Fear God.’ Everywhere those offal words appear�
��that was done by us.”

  The marid with the ram horns said, “Oh, mortals, those Get of Dogs, might claim these two words mean wisdom, or a hundred other explanations, but every time one of those sons of asses reads those two words, some part of him shrieks with terror, believing that the Unaccursed means him harm. Each time this happens, we win that little bit more.”

  Shazia understood that there were mistakes in the religions of the infidel, but...

  “Even in the Quran, there are mistakes?” She looked helplessly at Gabriel.

  He nodded gravely.

  “The faults in the teachings, which stink like the droppings of a sick dog, let us in,” said the pig-nosed one. “It allows us to sway men in our sheep-buggering direction. To fill the parts of them that should be filled with light with offal and filth.”

  “Whenever a prophet sins, there a door stands open for us.”

  “We can reach through it.” The pig-nose grinned a snorty, piggish grin, “and grab his followers by their moldering tender parts.”

  “Thanks to our diligence,” said the ram-horn, “we are winning.”

  “Shoo! Go away!” Shazia shouted angrily. “Leave these good young men alone! I have seen you before. In Afghanistan! Breathing on the necks of the rebels. Breeding hate! Let Islam go back to being the Religion of Peace!”

  Another burst of raucous laughter, both from the two towering marids who crouched beside her and from the raucous djinn gang around the young men.

  The ram-horn cackled, “The very first thing your Dog-rutting Prophet did—after receiving instruction from Oh-So-High-and-Mighty-Gabriel, here, telling him to be kind to the followers of the Slaughtered Lamb and the People of the Book—was move to Medina and to put those very People of the Book to the sword.”

  “And your bull-buggering prophet and his poxy offspring have been conquering and murdering since,” snorted the pig-nose. “With the help of Mohammad’s fanatics, we nearly won. We nearly conquered Europe and eradicated the… things we don’t like.”