Exodus of Expectations 012

Exodus of Expectations
BOOK 1 Prayers
PART 2 New Terrors and New Faith
CHAPTER 12 Wearers of Red, Light, Flame, and Darkness
Rilya Muhammad Sharif

SHE COULD NOT HEAR OR SEE THE CAUSE OF THE SCREAMS but what Sister Mary Fatima Alhazmi did know was that the screams reminded her of Amil's father – especially the day he died.  Such was her first experience with Soviets using weapons on the common people of Afghanistan: when the Soviets began purging whole Afghan civilian villages suspected - or not - of Mujahedeen presence and support no manner how peaceful, fair, and inconsequential in aid they had or could give to the Mujahedeen.  The Islamic belief of, "If you kill one person unjustly, it is as if you killed the whole of humanity, and if you saved one person, it as if you saved the whole of humanity," meant nothing to the Soviets.  For that manner it arguably didn't really mean much to the Mujahedeen as well.  Militaries and militants are killers first and foremost after all; while their backers and supporters make even the Devil cry at sight of their manipulations of human beings as mere pawns in a chess game.  Amil's father by comparison was a doctor and for him that Islamic belief meant, "better to be an upstander than a bystander – do not stand idly by – help ALL you can help PEACEFULLY and if one person of ANY community shows you kindness or you them than extend that kindness to the rest of their kin."   

Even after the hospital Amil's father had been working at was bombed by Soviets he still treated BOTH Mujahedeen and Soviet soldiers – albeit in secret – out of his own home.  He had started one day after a small skirmish had occurred on the outer limits of the area.  Like a man possess he drove out to the battlefield searching for living among the dead.  He found civilians and fighters alike, and among the fighters Soviets and Mujahedeen alike.  He didn't care what they had done before that moment he found them or where they were from.  All that mannered to Amil's father was they were still alive but wearing red no one should have to wear – their own blood.  He would bring them ALL into his home to clean, stitch, and bandage up.  He would remove bullets from bodies.  He would amputate limbs when necessary.  More often than not he did so without the supplies to put them under while doing so.  So he would rely on Amil and his mother, and Mary Fatima and her parents to hold patients down as he did his work.  All of them together wearing more and more of the red of blood from lives saved not killed rather than the natural colors of their clothes.  

As others fled in exodus Amil and Mary Fatima families stayed.  They couldn't just up and leave the wounded like so many of the military and militants do.  They were better than killers.  They were better than the Soviets and Mujahedeen.  Amil's mother and Mary Fatima's parents were out getting medical supplies and food on the day that the two groups of killers upon hearing of Amil's father actions tried to raid Amil's home before the other to regain their wounded and kill those of the other side.  The Soviets came from the back of the house and the Mujahedeen from the front.  When they came to sight of each other with guns drawn Amil's father tried to convince both sides to take their wounded and peacefully leave.  Neither side would have of it.  With Amil's father still in the middle of the two groups they began to fire at each other.  The kind man even in such horrible circumstances thought of others before himself.  He covered Amil and Mary Fatima both and got them to the cellar door safely with bullets skimming just above his back.  After opening the door he pushed the two children into the cellar, as the door closed both children could see he had been struck and that his white thobe was turning red.  

Before the day that Amil's father died Amil had always loved the cellar.  It had always provided his best places to hide when playing hide and seek with Mary Fatima as she had always a childish fear of the dark.  It was there in the black void of the cellar once free of evil that Amil's innocence was lost.  Suddenly blind in the darkness.  Screams abound followed by silence more horrifying than any violent chorus of cries, gunshots, AND screams.  Than finally the reemergence of light from Mary Fatima parents opening the cellar door…

Only Mary Fatima out of her old but childish fear of the dark and at the sight of the two adults ran up the stairs to her parents.  Amil remained in the darkness and broke out in fervent - violent - prayer begging for Allah not to have taken away his mother and Mary Fatima's parents as well.  Standing in the cellar door way, between the light and darkness, Mary Fatima saw the only colors one should never have to wear more so than one own blood: the blood of a love one as Amil's mother held in her arms Amil's father dead and bleeding; and the darkness of isolation and terror so possessive that it made Amil unable to recognize that those who he was praying for the safety of were still alive and just a slight look of the head away from him.

"ALHAZMI GET OUT OF THE LABRINYTH OF MEMORY LEAST YOU WOULD CEASE TO BE!" screams Alita at Sister Mary Fatima.  "Such is how Iblis gets rid of those who refuse to move beyond the Ouroboros."

If the sound of her (last) name didn't pulled Sister Mary Fatima from the past back into the present, then the mentioning of Iblis ripped Sister Mary Fatima from the Labyrinth of Memory.  Alita is no longer upon Rilya in the form of the old red hijab but in her humanoid angelic form holding a collapsed Sister Mary Fatima in her arms.  Alita is naked but not bare as her six crimson wings and long charcoal hair are more 'clothing' than most clothes for her ember skin.  Alita dares only a spilt second glance with her white with light eyes and a hesitant assuring smile at Sister Mary Fatima face before she looks back at the nun's hands and legs which have become translucent almost transparent.  

More strongly than her appearance would suggests Sister Mary Fatima speaks to Alita.  "Why have you left little Rilya for me old friend?  Did I not tell you to always look over her?"

Speaking as tenderly as one can without sounding like a lover Alita replies, "What good does it do to lose one friend for another?  I have lost too many friends already – God Prime himself, legions of my fellow angels, and humans like yourself.  What good is free will if not to simply be friends - not just mere servant - to more than one other being?  Besides one of my wings still shelter Rilya."

RILYA FELT NERVOUS OVER THE ILLUMINATED BEINGS IN THE DISTANCE AND DARKNESS.  For they kept distant enough away to keep recognition of what illumines them - fire or light – undeterminable.  Rilya couldn't tell if they were jinn or angels.  When Rilya heard the voice of Sister Mary Fatima the illuminated beings became even more distant changing into just star like specks.  Rilya thought the illuminated beings must have been angels watching over her until those that hold her dear could all surround her.  Soon after she came to that opinion the sudden screams and the more horrifying silence thereafter came and the illuminated beings became like bullets rushing towards Rilya.  She quickly saw that they are made of fire – that they were jinn - and began to run; already feeling their oppressive heat bearing down upon her.

RILYA HEART-RATE SPIKES ON HEART MONITOR, both Sister Mary Fatima and Alita heads jerk towards the sudden increase of sound changed from a slow drip to a flash flood of electronic beeps.  Alita is already changing back into the form of the old red hijab and returning to Rilya as Sister Mary Fatima tries to get up - her hands and feet still translucent - and falls.  "Damn it," She curses as she begins to crawl like a snake to Rilya's bedside.

RILYA FEELS WARMTH DIFFERENT THAN THE OPPRESSIVE HEAT OF THE JINN.  It is kind and loving; it reminds her of how she felt when Sister Mary Fatima gave her the old red hijab.  She begins to feel cooler.  Rilya dares a look behind her and sees the jinn are slowing down in their pursuit.  While doing so she suddenly bumps into something or someone and falls on her rear.  What else - who else - could be here in the darkness of her Heart, Mind, and Soul?

Rilya looks up to the sight of a young woman, not much older than herself, who reminds her of Sister Mary Fatima.  She asks Rilya if she is alright as she offers Rilya a hand up.  Standing up Rilya gets a better look at the young woman's face – oh how much she looks like Sister Mary Fatima!  "Are they bothering you?" the young woman asks, pointing to the jinn that had been chasing Rilya seconds earlier.

"Yes." replies Rilya meekly before she looks back at her now desisted pursuers.    

"Allow me to rid you of them."  The young woman smiles; darkness behind and around her begins to move as void within void unfolds/the jinn fall to their knees and begin to begging for their lives.  The unfurling gloom behind and around the young woman begins glimmering an imperfect glow like cinders in a fire pit/the jinn begin to prostrate and now simply cry.  The splotched embers flickering behind and around the young woman catch aflame into the shape of six wings/the jinn raise their heads in shock and horror unable to even gasp in terror.  The burning wings behind and around the young woman shine more and more brightly - like a blistering sun exploding into pure white light - looking more like daggers than wings as they are drawn back to strike/the jinn begin to rise and run away screaming.  They - the jinn - are struck down and torn asunder by the wings of pure white light more like dark and bloody knifes.  Rilya feels both relief and fear in being freed from the presence of the jinn.  Rilya feels only dismay through when she notices the all too eager smile on the young woman face over the havoc she had just wrought that makes her look like anyone but Sister Mary Fatima.

SISTER MARY FATIMA IS STILL ONLY AT THE FLOOR OF RILYA'S HOSPITIAL BED when she hears Alita shriek.  In the whole time Sister Mary Fatima has known Alita she have never before seen a tear must less heard a cry or scream of any kind from her.  Alita is too much of a tough and smart ass for such.  Sister Mary Fatima's hands and feet are growing ever more opaque but are still not solid enough to stand or pull herself up to check on either Rilya or Alita.  To be at bedside of her friends but still blind to their condition, much less not being able to aid them, would frustrate Sister Mary Fatima.  However she can't afford such luxury unless she wants to cease to exist – for memory isn't the only labyrinth Iblis uses to destroy the souls and bodies of man.  That said labyrinths of memory and negative emotion can be used against Iblis as well.

SHINKAY AND KHALIL SHARIF ARE TOO KIND TO THINK ONLY OF THEIR DAUGHTER.  As they work their way to their daughter hospital room they keeping stopping along the way to check on all of those they pass.  They can't think of just one person at the expense of all others.  Everyone is in some degree of 'minor' emotional shock at least.  Many still are curl up in horror and completely catatonic.  Any able to convey what they had just suffered tell of the same experience – being forced by God himself to witness and experience an execution through the eyes of those being killed.  The thought that God is a terrorist and intimacy with him is terrorism isn't missed by the Sharifs.  Furthermore the subsequent thought of if God is this terrible than what of the Devil isn't missed by the Sharifs as well.

"THANK ALLAH FOR YOUR AID." Rilya tells the angel (?) now feeling less fearful of it after invoking Allah name to thank it, "Are you one of my companion angels come to my aid?"

"Most of your kind would have not thanked me - much less Allah - for I having just saved you."  There is a tinge of contempt and superiority to the angel's words especially, 'Most of your kind.'  However as they are said so perfectly, so beautifully Rilya is entrance by them before she can be put off by them at all.  "And no I am not so lowly a sibling of my kind to be a mere transcriber or shield of a human life.  No I am much more than that!  I am one who makes sure good deeds happen and bad deeds are punished regardless of who commits them."

"Than what is your business with me than dear angel?" asks Rilya still more entrance by the perfect sound of than put off by the ever more arrogant selection of the angel's words.

"To tell you not to trust any voice claiming to be God."

UNRAVELING AND BURNING PIECES OF THE OLD RED HIJAB – Alita herself – fall from Rilya hospital bed above Mary Fatima - still unable to stand - as ash, thread, and feather.  She erects herself on her shins while using her forearms to grab hold of the bedrail to pull herself up.  What she finds of Alita still upon Rilya is more shocking than what she saw falling just seconds before.  

Alita has been made into a barely still living miscellany on and around Rilya and her bedding.  Each pair of her wings given specific partnering pains - torn and bleed, burnt and unraveled, crushed and tangled.  Mary Fatima knows this is a message from Iblis to her, "I know you and Alita are still working together…" Mary Fatima furthers sees that from the waist down Alita is nothing more than a pool of ash, thread, and feather she saw trickle of earlier, "…despite you no longer being a substitute god or human."  Mary Fatima eyes stop for a while on Rilya hands that have been nearly cut off and appear as portions of the old red hijab connected together only by the barest of tread, "Go against the system too much and I shall punish you just like I did God Prime himself."

Mary Fatima begins to smile as sad tears form in her eyes, "You fool you just reminded me how in my past life the mere red thread of that old red hijab was all that still linked me to my dearest childhood friend Amil after he offered himself willingly to war so I wouldn't be stolen by it.  How in this life without Amil ever borne in it - for he now serves as substitute god like me before him - Alita gave up her station to give his gift to me in his place!  And how this day it brought me back to this girl I at first only taught than came to love like I would have had the child of Amil who my parents forcibly made me abort…"

With those loving and binding rather than fearful memories fueling her, Mary Fatima is finally able to stand and use her hands.  Arisen to her full height she looks down at Rilya and Alita.  She strokes both of their faces gently.  She is calm and no longer possessed by fear.  Rilya head rests upon Alita stomach whose hands and arms rest around Rilya face and shoulders like a hijab.  Mary Fatima smiles as she begins to speak, "Rilya your name is more than we once discussed.  For one like me it is the first verse of the invoking of powers to restore things that have been poisoned and destroyed…" Mary Fatima begins to gather the fallen pieces of Alita from the floor and place them over Rilya and Alita hearts.  While doing such she begins to recite, "Remember I love you always…life and hope and peace without end.  As long as such is the way, time shall grow infinitely rather than consume itself finitely.  Hatred begets only more hatred.  So love even war and murder and rape for the contrast they provide in order for love to be remembered rather than stagnated into forgetfulness.  There is no good and evil just growth and consumption.  Please Ouroboros!  Avatar of time!  Remember me, one of your prior caretakers.  Please swell with kindness to a better time!  Replace your stolen bitter meal with the sweetest faces from my memories."

"WHAT AND WHO ARE YOU TO SAY SUCH A THING?"  Rilya asks the slayer of the jinn standing before her.

Smirking and no longer possessing the charm it had over Rilya seconds before the slayer of the jinn replies, "A better question would be what are you human child.  However I shall answer your questions for my own amusement.  I am neither angel nor jinn but a Seraph, one made of both fire and light, possessing both free will and obedience.  As for who I am well I am sure you can guess one of my names properly despite not knowing my true role."

Fearfully, eyes widening, Rilya guesses, "Shaitan?"

Making a gesture of hitting a homerun the slayer of the jinn confirms, "Ohhhhhhhhhh and the girl with the pathetically saccharine name wins!  Please call me Iblis through I find it much more pleasing to the ear than Shaitan, Lucifer, and the rest of my varying in musical tone names.  My names certainly lend their selves to music more beautifully than those of God!  That is about the only thing those Wahhabi types are right about without even realizing it!  I guess that is why they hate music…oh I have gone off on a tangent dear girl!  Yes I am Iblis!  Iblis Seraph, God's jailer…"

Iblis intentionally shuts up and stands with arms cross and feet tapping.  Rilya knows how Iblis wants her to respond (to take one of God's names in vain while exclaiming Iblis presence in front of her) and doesn't give Iblis the satisfaction.  "It is Allah who judges who goes to heaven or hell and it is the angel Maalik and the nineteen angels of the Zabaniah that Allah employs as the jailers of Jahannam!  You Iblis are nothing but one who tempts others, a lowly trickster!"

Smiling and waving a raised finger no, Iblis replies, "Dear girl whose name makes me want to vomit you misunderstand me.  Must I repeat myself? I am GOD'S JAILER!  And if that is not enough to carry the message home let me tell you why I waste my much more valuable than yours time on you today:  your body dear girl is the last of God's fleshy prisons, your soul the last vessel holding one of his divided pieces to be taken out of time in order to restore his form-"

Rilya is too in shock by the notion just described to her to even consider a reply.  Iblis frowns, plops down, and sits cross legged, "Oh dear girl you are no fun!  Don't worry, it was God's will to be divided and imprisoned, so don't feel bad about what you are little jail cell.  I myself support God's will and intend to carry out His imprisonment for His crimes!  I might think humans below me…but I never made genocide against them with epic floods or the ravaging of cities with funny names like a child sodomizer does young babes asses.  I am like you said, 'just a lowly trickster,' after all!"

THE SHARIFS TURN INTO THE HALL where Rilya's hospital room resides.  They can see that the doctors and nurses near her room are all still unconscious or in shock.  Rilya is located at the end of the hall.  About half the way down a woman bursts out of a hospital room crying that her daughter has stopped breathing.  Khalil takes control of the situation and to the best of his knowledge begins CPR on the woman's child.  Shinkay is sent down the rest of the way to hopefully get one of the doctors or nurses near Rilya room awake and coherent enough to help.  She dares a quick glance into Rilya's room and for a split second thinks she sees Rilya head resting upon a mutilated six wing angel and Sister Mary Fatima gathering handfuls of ash, thread, and feather off the floor.  Khalil calls out to Shinkay from the room down the hall, "Shinkay what is wrong?!?  Is there something wrong with Rilya?!?  Can you not get any of the doctors or nurses to help us?!?  Shinkay?!? SHINKAY?!?"  

Shinkay snaps out of her pause.  She finds herself staring but not truly looking into Rilya's room.  She gazes into it and sees Rilya without her red hijab but otherwise fine.  Shinkay no longer sees an angel and if Sister Mary Fatima is in the room she must be off to the side or collapsed on the floor like so many others in the hospital.  She replies to Khalil, "Yes dear husband Rilya is fine!  Our daughter is fine!  Now please focus on saving that woman's daughter life with all your will, while I work on getting a doctor or nurse able to help us."

SHE COULD HEAR AND COULD UNDERSTAND THE CAUSE OF THE SCREAMS, the parents of one of her old students - the Sharifs - were in despite need of help saving someone without aid from a doctor or nurse.  Sister Mary Fatima remembers that Amil's father had been a doctor.  That after hearing the first news of the Soviets using weapons on the common people of Afghanistan he taught her and Amil some basic medical knowledge like how to properly do CPR and making tourniquets.  Sister Mary Fatima leaves the bedside of who she presumes is one of her students, wearing a red hijab that reminds her of the old one from her childhood that Amil gave her.  Exiting the room she first comes upon Mrs. Sharif, Shinkay.  Sister Mary Fatima tells Shinkay that she can help because of Amil's father old lessons.  Shinkay hesitantly gives up on the doctors and nurses and places her trust in Mary Fatima.  Together Mary Fatima lead by Shinkay goes to where Mr. Sharif, Khalil is.  He is attempting to do CPR on a crying woman's daughter not much older than the girl whose bedside Mary Fatima had just left.  Despite his calm demeanor Mary Fatima can see that panic is poisoning Khalil's efforts and takes over without asking.  In about two minutes Mary Fatima revives the crying woman's daughter.  With tears no longer flowing out of only fear but out of thanks the crying woman embraces Mary Fatima thanking her repeatedly.  Mary Fatima expression by comparison is more stoic than stone as she asks the woman, "How long was your daughter without oxygen?"

The thanks in the crying woman eyes, begins to be sweep away by renewed fear, "I… I don't know.  She…I…she was already that way when I came out of my shock from God's second address to humanity."

Shinkay begins to comfort the crying mother while Khalil asks Mary Fatima, "How is Rilya?"

"Who is Rilya?" replies Mary Fatima.

Khalil eyes widens as he says, "Oh Allah!" and embraces Mary Fatima as if she was his daughter Rilya herself.  "I am so sorry about before."

Confused Mary Fatima replies, "About before?"