We trudged toward the station, stretching out our conversation. As if I were a panicked bird, I squealed, “I have to leave this place. I’ve got to get out of the city”. Calmly tethering my escaping imagination, your voice, free of judgement, asks, “Where would you go?”
The breeze falls still, and birds are silent. Sirens no longer squeal. The persistent rumbling is only the coming storm. It carries a cool rain, sowing the wide and swaying plain with generous drops. Atop a curled peak, that twists towards a twilight expanse, my trembling heart can sit and see the sun to the horizon.
Inside a homely hollow, huddles a family of eight or nine. Children of varying ages crouch about a glowing hearth. Meals are simple, but the aroma of virtue draws those hungry to the wooden door. No plastic mats or hearty carpets deck the dusty floor, so when we greet it, we meet with familial soil.
Glances of expectation and gazes of adoration don’t exist except upon the black stage of consciousness. They are like weak-spined candles, easily snuffed. The obnoxious thud of instruments is replaced by young voices diligently reciting Allah’s Revelation. We keep sheep for wool, and on the two days of Eid, one is enough for a month’s meal. Outside, on the dripping branches, wild berries dangle in reach and are plucked in moderation.
There is no such place that I am permitted to take to. What of the understanding that Allah has nurtured in my heart? What of each insurmountable trial that Allah has helped me climb? When weary hands could not clamber further, Allah pushed me over with a gracious shove. What of my parents? What of my people? Who will speak soothing words, hold out a hand, and wait patiently if not me? Who will stand before Allah with the temerity to say, “I left”?
No one needs me. Someone else will fill the gap. Someone else will take the opportunity. I will have wasted this knowledge, like the hermit counting gold coins in a weathered hovel. They need Allah. I am merely the stubby chalk, etched with dents and scars, used to scrawl something of benefit onto hearts blackened by neglect. My pale visage protrudes, but is justly effaced against the hard, cold blackboard.
You depart after wishing peace upon me. I find myself on a city street, with coursing heads charging forth like eager mackerel into the net of a greedy fisherman. I stay still. Inside my heart, I walk the steps that rise to a curled peak, over a swaying plain, and into the night sky beyond.