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[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

When Children Stand

The hype was real. His father had agreed to letting him go on the college tour with the other seniors. Hamza smiled and stretched his arms out wide. His phone buzzed, Asr, it notified. There’s enough time, Hamza thought to himself.

Musa and Ubaid were betting on who could slide down the banisters with the most flair, while the rest of the tour group was listening to the guide’s speech about the founder of the school. Hamza was only partially listening.

“And this is Westhaven Building, also known as The Haven. It is a common area for all students who are looking for a quiet place to study for a test. It was donated to the school by Samuel Westhaven…” the sophomore explained as Hamza sent a snapchat of the old time, gothic building. It was an ominous castle, even sporting a few gargoyles, and looked anything but like a Haven.

The students looked around, like excitable puppies, the song from Aladdin playing in their hearts. A whole new world, indeed.

“Hamza,” Musa yelled from the steps, stretching out the ending. “They’re going to leave you,” he wailed, ghostlike.

The boy in question tore his eyes from his phone, which flashed a low battery message, to see the tour group disappearing around the corner.

“I promised your mom I’d make sure you go back safe,” Musa continued yelling.

“I’m here, stop being an idiot,” Hamza jogged over.

Musa was not quite done being an idiot. He cupped his hands, even though Hamza was now two feet away and bellowed, “My boy!” He was wheezing like an old man.

“Do you need a change of the nappies?” Musa finished the part, coughing asthmatically.

Hamza smacked him behind his head, “No, but if we’re changing things—your face should be pretty up there on the list,” he grinned, all teeth.

They continued throwing jabs at each other until they caught up with their group. Hamza joked with a few people, talked with others, and was overall feeling very at home, away from home. He had known these people for the past four years, either through school or Facebook. There were also a few lingering parents, who were raptly paying attention to the guide’s every word, some were even taking notes.

While Musa and Hamza exchanged insolent comments regarding their respective dignities, Ubaid was being a bit cleverer. Ubaid’s specialty was knowing how to make people talk, in the gentlest meaning of that phrase. He didn’t even need the bat or cement shoes.

Frivolities aside, Ubaid had learned quite a bit about the school, which he had taken a shine to. He bragged about his immense wealth of knowledge to his friends.

“Just tell us already,” Musa swatted away Ubaid’s guessing game.

“Fine. Okay, so Steven told me that his sister goes to this school and she knows where to get the answer keys to all the tests.”

There was a pause. Hamza gave Ubaid a blank stare. Musa began snickering.

“What?” Ubaid asked, following a tennis match between Musa and Hamza’s face.

Hamza sighed dramatically, and just covered his face with his palm. Musa decided to educate their unworldly friend.  

“We thought you had some good stuff, the way you were banging on about it. Like, I know something you don’t know,” Musa explained, pretending to wipe away a tear.

“What, and having answer keys isn’t good stuff?” Ubaid frowned, affronted by their dullness.

The three began a heated debate on what qualified as ‘good stuff’, which ended in a miffed Ubaid, who muttered, “When you morons need help with your finals, don’t come crying to me.”

The sun was shining, the foreign birds sang beautifully and the youth were carefree. School was out, this was their final summer as kids and they all wondered about the nearing initiation to adulthood. But not for too long, because updating social media was a consuming task.

The university offered a complementary lunch, and who was Hamza to refuse? They all ate sandwiches on the grassy field, under umbrella tents.

While the sun’s fierce glare was shaded, the warm nostalgia slunk beneath the umbrellas. The youth seemed to know that this was the start. This is where their bonds frayed, and ran into millions of smaller threads that connected, separated and reconnected. Infinite opportunities, riding on the wings of their individual choices.

After refueling, they began the final leg of the trek around campus, which was to end in front of the dorms. They would spend some time there, before the bus came and picked them up in the late evening.

But burdened with food, laziness swept over the youth, like fairy dust in a Shakespearean play, and there was a group vote to just spend the rest of the time on the grassy lawn. The majority voted to just chill, and so summer time lethargy ensued.

Hamza, Musa and Ubaid were sitting under the shade of a tree, each with their back to one side of the trunk, when they heard the news. Rather, they heard their phones ding and they were fed information straight from the magical highways of the internet.

“Crap, my phone died. Where did they say it was going to be?” Hamza asked, pushing up into a sitting position.

“Uh, let me check with Sarah,” Ubaid typed a question, and sent his thoughts travelling to Sarah.

A second later, they heard an urgent ding, and Musa read over Ubaid’s shoulder. Hamza already knew they were going; he didn’t hesitate.

“She says she heard it’s gonna be in front of the mall we passed by.” Hamza remembered the squat complex and did a mental calculation. It shouldn’t take them more than twenty minutes to get across campus then to the mall. Fifteen, if they ran.

“Avengers Assemble?” Musa asked, reading Hamza’s thoughts.

“Avengers Assemble,” Hamza confirmed.

“Are you guys sure? My mom always warns me about this stuff. You never know what might happen. Once—”

“Avengers,” Hamza said through gritted teeth, and Musa finished for him, “Assemble.”

Ubaid knew a lost battle when he saw one, and reluctantly stood up to join his friends. The three of them went over to discuss with their larger group of classmates. They were young, they were fearless and they knew they could change the world.

Given that Hamza’s generation was known for eating tide pods, the youth were often side eyed by their elders. So, it was an unspoken agreement to leave the adults out of their decision to counterprotest the alt-right protest.

No need to have adults protesting their need to counterprotest a protest.

Anyways, this generation was also known for the March of their Lives and so they gathered their belongings and walked off campus.

Right, they were young. Right, they sometimes made dumb choices. Right, they had a particular aversion to rules. But there was no moral quandary here. They knew racism, sexism and blind hatred were wrong. They were emerging from their techy cocoons, spreading their wings and opening their eyes on a divided world. It was as though the hateful whispers, once entangled in between the lines of society, were suddenly shouting, an orange-hued trumpet amplifying their voices in exchange for power.

If they listened to those elders who would have them quiet, then the shouting would eventually turn to a deafening silence of a society combusting, crushing the hope of a future.

The word on the vine was the alt-righters were annoyed about a recent local election; a Muslim was elected. And she had the nerve to be a Somali immigrant. And now she was trying to run Springfield? According to the alt-righters, she was bringing sharia not only to Springfield but all of America. There was talk of confederate flags and swastikas. Basically, the tiki torches were still burning.

Hamza was not having it.

It was pretty easy to find the protesters.  They heard the shouting from a few streets away. Then they saw the cops, in riot gear, standing in wait for some danger.

The alt-right group was ponied up in all sorts of hate symbols. They had swastikas on their clothing and posters. The confederate flag was flapping in the wind, held aloft by several members. They shouted, roared and chanted. Hamza could hear some of them just barking, “Hu hu hu,” a sickening background music that thudded in his ears. More than a few had drinks with them.

The counterprotesters were handing out signs, posters and other symbols. Hamza and his friends grabbed some and went to stand alongside the silent group. He noticed the louder the protesters became, the quieter the activists were. The latter refused to engage in the decisive commentary, and Hamza watched in silent awe. His own face sported a tight frown, waiting for a hairpin trigger. The protesters were shouting incendiary comments and making rude animal noises at him; he stood in the front lines.              

“White lives matter!” They punctuated that slogan with “You will not replace us! Terrorists and rapists should die!” And of course, the ever present, ever confounding “Lock her up!” All of their colorful slogans were accompanied by that mad-dog guttural sound.

Springfield was not a large city, and the closeness of the protests made the adrenaline flow. The students around him had faces to match his own and as the protesters began to march down toward Town Hall, the activists began to move. They barred the pathway, creating a human wall, stood, without a word, and stared down the alt-righters.

The protesters were infuriated, and began mocking the individual activists; Hamza, standing front and center, was a good target.  

The cops in riot gear began to look jumpy. They saw the alt-righters begin to approach the activists, and Hamza could see a fear in their eyes. They got on the loudspeakers.

“Please clear a path. Stand away from each other,” an authoritative man said clearly.

The alt-righters looked like rottweilers being held on an invisible leash; they were dragging at it. The cops were trying to regain control of the situation, but the activists’ silence was thunderous against the petty anger of the protesters.

Hamza felt the electricity in the crowd; he knew something was about to happen. The cops must have felt the same pulse because they got back on the speakers.

“Those who are not with the Conservative Springfielders, clear the square. Leave the streets. Exit toward the south side,” came the official voice. Hamza felt his face grimace. As if.

The way he saw it, the alt-righters were the ones pushing forward. The activists didn’t make a move; the protesters looked expectantly at the cops.

Then it happened, the trigger. The man right in front of Hamza spat on him, and turned his flag, and pushed it against Hamza and the activists. There was a thrilled roar from their radius of space.

Hamza was caught by surprise, and he felt his blood boil at the oceans of blind hate in the glob of spit. He opened his mouth and almost lifted his fist.

Then, there was an acrid crack, as though the world’s ears were popping. And the smoke began to rise from the midst of their crowd. The activists scrambled as their throats began to fill with the tearing gas. Hamza cursed, coughing and blinking away tears. Being in the wave of human bodies, all struggling in different directions away from the epicenter of the attack was entirely consuming. Hamza went on autopilot as humans diffused like droplets of water on oil.

He just ran. There were no protesters, no activists. Only the struggle for preservation. It seemed as though death was imminent.

More cracks emanated from behind Hamza, but he didn’t turn to look back. How he managed to disentangle himself from the writing mass was inexplicable, especially by him. In any case, not focusing on specifics, he ran. Head down, sweat plastering his back to his shirt, he ran.

At some point, it became clear to him that the rioting noises had become a victim of distance, and only a faint whisper of it remained. And even that may have been his imagination. More so than anything else, Hamza heard his pounding feet and his trembling heart. Nervousness, mixed with being thoroughly winded, made Hamza’s head feel like smoke, spiraling towards the sun.

When he slowed down, one thing soon became extremely apparent. He was lost.

“Low key, but crap,” he came to a stop in front of a restaurant and pretended to observe one of their sample menus. Though he was bereft of energy, he was thankful the run hadn’t stolen his wits.

Unfamiliar town, a large population of racists on the loose, and a lost dark-skinned boy. The math was clear enough.

Not reading over the menu, he scanned the streets and tried to remember which direction he came from. He thought he was doing a pretty bang up job of not looking lost, when a waiter from the restaurant walked out and asked him, “Are you lost?”

He was a few years older than Hamza and startled the latter out of his covert operation.

Hamza being as quick witted as a dancer on tip toes responded, “Nope, just checking something for my mom, thanks.”

Maybe his self-observation was a bit out of focus because the waiter eyed him oddly. Nevertheless, he nodded and walked back inside. A civil war erupted within Hamza.

He felt stupid for not asking directions, but then countered by saying, well that’s exactly how people get kidnapped in the movies.

And at the same time, he knew if he couldn’t find his way back in time, he’d be stuck in this strange city; the bus would leave without him.

To which he responded, How hard can it be? I can figure this out—cities are pretty standard.

Hamza put the menu back and took a few steps. His legs were straws, barely able to support his weight, and his palms were clammy. The sun beat down on the entire world.

Hamza realized something: his youthful bluster was largely maintained by the support of his friends. Now that he was alone, he was second guessing everything. It was a stark contrast to his self image, as the underdog, stiff upper lipped, with his first to the world’s audacities.

The thought struck him like a veil being pulled from his eyes: did his friends make it out? Guilt took him. He was the one friend who, if he didn’t get a response back, he assumed tragedy. It seemed to him, in the vast matrix of possibilities, the probability of death was alarmingly high. He hoped they hadn’t gotten caught up in the mess. He hoped they were okay. He pulled out his phone, reflexively wanting to text Musa and Ubaid. Then he closed his eyes and mouthed a word. He had drained the last bits sending a snap to Aisha.

A gut sickening feeling seeped into him as he watched his wrongdoings become manifest against him. Without realizing it, he made istighfar.

“Okay, just get back and it’ll all be okay,” he whispered reassuringly.

He remembered something. During his Usain Bolt impression, he remembered cursing at a hill. During the upward climb, he was panting and mentally destroying every bit of earth under his feet.

If he could find the hill, then he would have a good vantage point of Springfield. Then all he had to do was find the castle walls of Westhaven and he would be back in time to not face the wrath of his family.

While he did his best to sort out his footsteps, Hamza realized that he would have done it again. He would still have gone to the protest and stood against those who tried to condemn the voices of minorities. Even with only a few suns beneath his belt, he had grasped a universal truth—if the weak allow their voices to be muted, then deafness becomes a justified pride.

Unfortunately for Hamza, the small city was full of buildings and offices that looked exactly the same. He passed by the same office three times, before realizing he was walking in a circle. When the waiter saw him again, Hamza had to pretend he dropped something. Quick witted indeed bro, he thought to himself. After, he avoided that street entirely.

A few attempts and several suspicious Springfielders later, Hamza was at the foot of the hill. Matchbox houses surround him, sprinkled in between the trees, each standing superior to its predecessor. He breathed a breath of thanks and began the climb. This time around, he took a break every so often. Hamza checked his phone several times, and the dead battery forced him to berate himself about his loose snapchat morals.

Finally, he was at the top and before gazing on the city, he said the basmalah. And when he turned his eyes on the city, the first thing they fell on was the angst filled establishment. Westhaven Building. He whooped, joy-rushed at finally succeeding. He breathed another thanks and made a mental map of how to get back.

Then he ran down the hill, hands flailing in the air, leaving behind a stream of laughter. The fifteen-minute trek up the hill was cancelled out by a minute of wind in his hair and wings on his back.  

He danced to a stop, still chortling and looked around. He knew he had to make a right at the end of the street and saw that it was the only way he could go. The street was lined with tall, ominous trees and he heard a raven’s caw in the distance. Hamza could have sworn he felt a cold chill.

He took a breath and calmed himself. He wasn’t three years old, and he could make it across without his parents’ help. The sun was preparing to set, and rain clouds filtered the orangey glow into an eerie cast on Hamza’s face.

He began walking and told himself to stop imagining things. He was glad Musa and Ubaid were not here to watch him make a fool of himself. Sweating over the sunset. He shook his head at his childishness.

But there it was again, that noise. He hoped it was just his brain playing tricks on him, but it was getting louder. He looked around for the source but his ears failed him.

“What is that?” He asked himself, already knowing the answer. Then he shook his head. “No. No, hopefully not. Maybe it’s a –” his brain took an impromptu vacation.

He could no longer deny the doppler effect; in the narrow street, lined with dark trees, the source of the noise was beelining towards him.

He glanced down at his hands, covered in liberal wrist bands. And his shirt, dotted with pinback buttons. Not to mention his kufi, which he had decided to wear that day. And aside from all the counterprotest paraphernalia, the worse case against him was his dark skin. There was no denying what Hamza stood for. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.  

The large crowd was doing their rumbling chant, interjecting it with the occasional bark. “You will not replace us,” he heard their chant. “Hu hu hu,” was the replying chorus.

The group was at the end of the street, having just turned the corner and began to slither towards him—a depraved snake made of posters, swastikas and confederate flags.

Hamza looked around and saw his one man against their hundred. They blocked out everything else like a wave of hatred over his world. Hamza felt a calm wash over him.

He coolly estimated his options. He could outrun them; there was a direct correlation between their racism and their obesity. But something in his chest stopped him from running back up that hill. Firstly, he was sure they had seen him—he had been walking toward them. And more powerfully, he refused to be a coward.

A thought occurred to him: if this was his day to die, then there was no two ways about it. If God was going to take his soul today, then Hamza was going out standing up for what was right. The cold directness of his decision shook a more emotional part of his heart, but it was drowned out by the chanting. Hamza began walking towards them, not making a sound. He was fully prepared to meet, in the best case, hospitalization. He said the name of God and stepped.

Their footsteps ate away at the distance and before he knew it, Hamza was inches away from the man who had spit in his face. He smelled like alcohol. Their deep warbling was deafening in his ears, pounding at him in waves. Hamza stared forward, not meeting any eyes, and still stepped.

And the crowd parted. Not one at a time, but simultaneously as though the whole thing was rehearsed. Or as though they were being forced to walk around him. They created this narrow path for him, a stone making its merry way along a river.

Hamza hid the astonishment that melted into paranoia. They’re going to close in around me, and swarm, he thought. He formulated the ways they would attack him. With their beer bottles, he supposed. Maybe a hate flag to the head? Hamza’s heart was the eye of the storm, as he stepped through tearing ignorance. He heard their rude comments and their curses, but not once did they acknowledge him.

He felt the impulsive nature of youthhood to grab one of them and ask, “Can you see me?” Biting his tongue, he kept walking, invisible.

The entire lot of them walked around him, regrouping once they had passed him. When Hamza made it out on the other side, he inspected his body looking for the wounds. Nothing. He stopped walking and turned back toward the still chanting crowd.

Not one turned to look back at him. Hamza’s face broke into a stupid grin as he turned the corner, looked up at the sky, and felt a newness in his chest. He ran the rest of the way back to Musa and Ubaid.

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

Milligrams of Weight

The milligrams of weight on his hand, he felt every bit of it. Allowing the grain of sand to roll this way and that, he cupped his palms. It gave him a better sense of the edges, the corners, the curves. He didn’t even feel the bullet as it pierced through his body.

~~

He lay there, dying all over the floor.

His blood was comically red, reminiscent of the ketchup blood packets they used to buy from Jim’s Jokes and Gags. But it was all as true as the clear sunlight that warmed the officer’s back and the man’s blood. The black object the officer had seen and fired because of, without pause, was also lying there. Unlike the dying man, it wasn’t bleeding. Except for information. It was a wallet, with its contents strewn in the steadily encroaching onslaught of blood.

The officer took gulping breaths, relief filling his well-oiled, pumping heart. He rushed to the fallen man and grabbed his wrist in an attempt to lock the flopping appendages together. With nimble use of his opposable thumbs, the officer was able to clasp the cages onto the leaving man. He let the chained hands drop, and it fell, with the weight of the world, back into the blood. Threat contained, and detained, the officer stood over him.

He looked at the man closely and with an animal surprise, the realization pooled over him, like blips of bits forming a coherent message. He knew the man. He cocked his head, wondering where exactly this man’s face was hidden. His brain scanned thousands of images, impossibly fast—too fast for him to even notice— as it tried to end the instinctual itch of familiarity. Immaculately, he used his left foot to scratch his right calf.

The dying man looked at the sun. The wound was in his chest, but no one had yet told his heart. It kept trying to do the job it was created for, unaware that its efforts were in vain. The man’s entire system conspired against him, siding instead with the gaping hole on both sides of his body. It was as though the trauma had always been there and his body knew it all along. It was a matter of waiting, really, and now the gash got along swimmingly with his blood. He gasped for air and swallowed blood. Then he tried to breath out and spat blood. He blinked and tried to raise his hands, attempting to fight this new, age-old breach. He found they were bound; all the while his body loosed its energy into fighting cancer with a band aid.

He had grown up thinking he was thicker, he could handle it, let the world bring its fire and fury. He stood adamant in the face of hatred. When they called him a criminal, he hardened his shell and fed the homeless. When they called his mother words his dying mind would not let him remember, he gave her his shoulder, made her his queen and found heaven at her feet. He studied when they threw him into schools that sat in the shadows of prisons and were lined with judging eyes and an explicit lack of books. He swam in the desert they gave him. He found the light of truth even when they unloaded all their weapons, trying to bring the darkness of fear into his heart. The oneness, the balance, the justice that is, and always was, promised. He was thankful, even as he knew his gratitude fell a universe short of what the One Creator deserved, that he walked the straight path, guided.

He was dying, the injustice burned in his chest. Or maybe it was the blood.

The officer was now rubbing his stubble against his shoulder. He tapped his foot involuntarily, as his brain ticked and itched to find an answer. The blood reached to where he stood, quietly wrapping around his shoes, thanking him for liberating it. The officer’s nod was gracious.

The man smiled as his heart filled with a tranquility that no man who had spent a second in his shoes could possibly ever feel. Without having walked with the Color of his Creator on his face. He knew of a truth more ancient than lies, more ancient than hatred, more ancient than injustice. He knew of a truth that came from the First. The Last. The One and Only. The Ever Living and the Self Sustaining.

And the Truth was Just. Everything would be called back for questioning and for answering. Deeds would be weighed and hearts would be found out, telling gladly of the corruption they hid. Where in this life, he found the systems of law and justice failing him at every twist and turn of his journey, he knew the Judge was Utterly Just. His whole life, he always had to keep one eye open for the checks and balances. He threw so many looks over his shoulder, it was a wonder he had anything to look forward to. How are things balanced and checked, he often used to ponder, because though man was tasked with maintaining justice and balance in the world, man found much more satiation in greed and pride. Or maybe man just thought he did. In any case, man was adept at deftly turning blind eyes to the tiny reminder he was given—the entire existence of the natural world. Not a thing exists, except that it is balanced. Not a thing exists, except that it is checked. Not a thing exists, except that it is accounted for. A leaf fell into the man’s pooling blood. He felt melancholy at coming upon these gems only as his breath was running away.

They always said greed and pride make blinds of men. A thin man wishes to stretch his reign further and further, blocking all the light of knowledge.

The officer shifted from one foot to the next, alternately blocking the rays of sun from the man’s face. He shifted again, the sun was entirely blocked. The officer kept thinking. Was the dying man the waiter from the fast food joint? No, but they did have the same sort of teeth. Was he the janitor from work? There’s a jolly idea—the city was employing criminals now? Where the political system was going, the officer had no idea. He shook his head in wonder at the bright, intellectual debate he brought forth. He continued executing the instructions printed by the journalist’s lens.

And though the officer left the man in the dark, a light began to emanate from the wound in his chest. The man adjusted his gaze, blinking with effort, and there it was. A light especially from Him, especially for him. Whispers buzzed in his mind, as neurons made final arrangements. They began slowly, saying first— “Just look. Look where all your efforts got you.”

“How can He be Just when all you’ve done is remember Him and He forgot you when you need Him the most. You’re dying, I hope you know?”

The man blinked, the light grew stronger. Like their children, men have blamed others for their own seeds since they began amassing, since evil penetrated their hearts and they began to wander blindly. Unlike their first father, who, when confronted with his sin, immediately took responsibility. But today’s man would sit and fume, as he crammed chips into his mouth and washed it down with beer, over the ridiculous notions of Goodness and Justice when millions were dying of famine and war crimes. Do not speak to today’s man about the Truth. The room is air conditioned, the television blares unpleasant news, phones buzz with the thoughts of people half a world away and cashmere rests upon cashmere. Today’s man sits in the middle, idly enraged at the bad things that happen while his brethren carry out those very tasks. He turns his head, annoyed at the interruption brought by a jeering landlord and a crying janitor.

Give allowance to a small thread to peek its head out, and soon the entire piece is unwoven. The man hears today’s human asking how can Goodness exist while such badness reigns?

And of the goodness? How does one know badness except in contrast to the unfathomable goodness? Man does indeed believe he reigns.

The officer scratched his head. Maybe he had seen the man on the television. Wasn’t he the criminal who had robbed the corner store? Or maybe the one who had taken advantage of the young woman? Yes, that was probably him.

The whispers no longer spoke to him, for in his final moments, his heart was stronger than ever. He felt his smile through all the pain. He thought of his tests and wondered how many he had passed, if any at all. He breathed a begged repentance. He saw the beauty even in destruction, for nothing comes to a human but from his Creator. The man chastised himself, He had taken care of him his entire life, allowing him to breath, allowing his body to function, allowing the earth not to crumble before his very eyes, and in a moment of pain, he would turn his back on Him? A life gone to waste, that one.

The man smiled. He was thicker. He did handle it, and as a way to measure his faith, the world had brought its fire and fury. Success is not defined with gold and silver metals.

The man thought of the anecdote he once heard. The Amazon rainforest, with its uncountable trees and innumerable creatures living in them. And he thought of where the forest found life. From a desert. In West Africa.

He is the one who brings death from life and He is the one who brings life from death. The man used his final energy to raise a hand to his cheek and felt his features. He is the One who shapes you while you are in your mother’s womb, the man reminded himself. From a thing which clings into a chewed lump of flesh and the chewed lump of flesh into bones then bones clothed with intact flesh.

He is the One who keeps apart oceans that meet, fresh water not falling into salt and salt water not falling into fresh.

He is the One who created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other.

The gratitude welled up in his chest, nearly overflowing. He opened his mouth one last time “There is no god but God…”

--

The officer did not hear the man’s whispers, but suddenly jolted into an upright position. “Ah HA!” He smiled triumphantly, “We went to high school together.” And at the same moment of pleasure, the officer suddenly felt queasy. The man had stopped moving. He worried about the bad press that might soon be coming his way. He always did hate fake news.

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

The Prince

I didn’t choose kingdom. I ran away from it, for more years than I’d like to recall.

The young prince lay unconscious; his chest hardly rose with the shallow breaths that vainly attempted for normality. His brown hair was golden soaked from the desert sun, the color of the earth. His hand was draped over his face, a paltry attempt at preservation.

The sun beat down on his unprotected body, each degree dragging him closer to the looming grip of death. Insects looped in and out of the parched, splintered earth. Miraculously, the desolate wasteland hummed with a myriad of lives, struggling at full capacity to live. The singularity of it all could easily be overlooked, the scene passed off as a death land, but the careful observer could see the small blinks of life taking shelter underground.

Far above the Prince’s inert body, vultures glided, lazily waiting for the inevitable. Their wide arc spiraled, closer and tighter towards the being.

Death drew near. The vultures surrounded him unimpeded by the soft breaths that still escaped his lips— a cocoon of bony feathers and the rank smell of carrion.

From far away, something approached. The only precursor was a slight rumbling of the ground, a pebble shivered. The vultures didn’t mind, and the sun ignored everything. The Prince did not realize either; he was too busy dying.

And then the pair barreled into the wake of vultures, causing it to rupture like a beaky, feathery volcano. The vultures’ screeching shattered the dry air, oddly harmonizing with the newcomers’ chortling.

As the last of the vultures hobbled away, the two figures wheezed and giggled. One was thin and lanky, like a twig, with a reddish mop on his head. His mischievous grin told he was the mastermind behind their shenanigans. His friend was portly and strong, with a warm face; he knew how to laugh. Theirs was a friendship borne of their mutual inability to act as adults. The two companions paid no attention to the burning sun, the surrounding death lands, or the fact they were clearly outcasts. Instead, they continued their constant stream of aviary jokes. They did not like vultures.

Twiggy dusted his shoulders, feeling absolutely proud of himself. Portly walked off, still jumpy from the adrenaline.

Portly suddenly ceased guffawing about the persistency of birds and made a sick sort of sound. “Uh, oh” he said, guilt seeping into his voice. He called his friend over.

“I think its still alive,” said Portly about the limp, unmoving body. Though there were few signs of life, Portly did not want to be branded as a murderer. He was only having a bit of fun with buzzards, not trying to take lives.

Twiggy’s face pulled into a disgusted grimace, “Yeesh,” he began, but quickly regained his professionalism. He wiped his hands of the metaphorical dust of the whole situation.

“Let’s take a look, what have we got here?” The lanky one was miffed at the sudden cloud over his tomfoolery, and he had no plans to take responsibility for this lost soul. He sniffed.

The Prince may have been young, but his stature was still larger than that of the scrawny architect of mischief. Corpulent Portly stood to the side, still shamefaced over the consequence of their actions.

It went without saying Twiggy was the leader of the meager syndicate. He began inspecting the fallen body, making short observations under his breath. When he lifted the Prince’s hand, Twiggy’s bravado escaped like a drop of water on the scorching earth. He loudly exclaimed and grabbed his friend to run, wanting to place as much distance between them and the terribly threatening, near dead figure.

The kinder of the two, Portly rebuked his friend. He pointed out the desperate proportions and state of the lone Prince, making a strong case on his behalf. Smoothly, he transitioned to asking Twiggy if they could take this ward into their charge. It was, after all, the morally right thing to do.

Twiggy was appalled, and his panicky voice cracked through his normally cool front.

“Are you nuts?” He asked reverberatingly, making sure his friend could hear, and hopefully, possibly grasp the full nature of the situation. Twiggy pointed out all the Prince’s flaws, which amounted to a grand total of one—the very nature of the Prince’s face.

Twiggy yelled out the obvious reason. Why his friend was so dull was beyond Twiggy’s comprehension.

Portly was unconvinced and pointed out that such a young being could not be any threat to anyone. Portly’s girthy stature might have inhibited his fear, but the same could not be said for scrawny Twiggy.

Twiggy glared up at his friend and asked Portly about the young Prince’s future.

“Maybe he’ll be on our side?” Portly asked with a hopeful smile, grasping for straws of persuasion. Something in his heart refused to let him leave the lonely being to perish alone, at the beaks of ruthless buzzards.

Twiggy brushed the dusty earth from his sleeves and shoulders, snorting and laughing darkly.

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he snorted and mimicked his friend’s nasally voice, “maybe he’ll be on our side,” when he was seized by a thought.

“Hey,” he said in a whisper of brilliance, as the thought hit him—a stroke of genius. “I got it,” he continued, raising the previously chiding finger. “What if he’s on our side? Having him around might not be such a bad idea,” the youthful confidence remerged and Twiggy was the leader once more.

He pretended as though he had never lost his cool; his ample friend ignored the plain thievery. Portly was just glad they weren’t going to abandon the individual. He iterated his joy in the form of a question, ensuring they were taking charge of the young thing.

“Of course! Who’s the brains of this outfit?” Twiggy asked, voice full of leadership and self-assured bluster. It had an interesting way of growing on one, like a wart one simply learns to accept.

“Uhh….” Portly replayed the last few minutes, and decided it was not worth it to try and reason with Twiggy. He dedicated himself to lifting the fallen Prince to shelter.

“My point exactly,” Twiggy said, arms crossed. The heat of the sun began to blister their foreheads, and the leader pointed it out.

“Gee, I’m fried. Let’s get out of here and find some shade,” Twiggy said as he wiped his forehead. They dashed off, carting the Prince with them.

Twiggy and Portly were raised in the crook of the desert’s dry arms, and the two knew exactly where that arm ended and the oasis began. They found a nice burbling river and let the Prince’s body rest beside it.

Twiggy began splashing water at the Prince’s face; Portly had laid him down under the shade of a generous palm tree. A soft breeze danced across the land, watching as three fates began to intertwine.

It took some time, but eventually enough water lodged itself in the Prince’s nose to cause him discomfort. He frowned in his comatose state and lifted his head slightly, eyes only just cracking open. The death spell fell back. The Prince gave a grunt and turned his wavering gaze to the source of the blessed annoyance. The cool water was paradise on his dry, splintered tongue.

“You okay kid?” Twiggy asked, in a half wary, half brotherly tone. The nerves only just showed.

The Prince hesitated but was still too dazed to fear the strange faces, “I guess so,” he mumbled in a gravelly voice that would have made any self-respecting desert proud.

The Prince turned his face away from Twiggy and Portly, an overwhelming guilt settling on his young brows.

“You nearly died,” exclaimed Portly with a genuine concern.

“I saved you,” Twiggy intervened, patting his chest with both hands to convey his extreme generosity.

Portly gave a disgusted snort at Twiggy’s direction, demanding a more honest story line.

Twiggy amended in a modest tone, indicating Portly’s help, albeit with an annoyed frown. He placed his hands commandingly on his hips and re-amended, “A little,” waving a casual hand in the air.

By this point, the Prince’s guilt shadowed his face entirely. He had regained enough consciousness to remember what the tugging, constant, dreadful voice was echoing. Your fault, it whispered.

The Prince ambled onto his feet and started to walk away. He hung his head, degraded, and slowly paced away.

“Hey! Where you going?” Twiggy wondered aloud. His body guard plan was quickly unravelling with each of the Prince’s steps. Twiggy was not about to watch it fall without a fight.

“Nowhere,” was the solemn response.

Something in the Prince’s tone made Twiggy pause. That was not a youthful tone. It held the regrets and agonies found only in the breasts of old men.

“Hey, he looks blue,” Twiggy pointed out eloquently, speaking out of the side of his mouth to Portly. The two friends watched the Prince’s retreating back.

And while Portly had a heart to rival his nickname, he was not always the quickest cheetah on the plain.

He squinted, wondering what his friend was talking about because it was quite obvious to him, “I’d say brownish gold,” he said matter-of-factly.

Portly glanced at Twiggy and hoped Twiggy hadn’t eaten more of those suspicious looking roots that grew at the edge of the oasis.

Twiggy was not a stranger to Portly’s gradualness and corrected his friend without pause.

“No, no, no. I mean, he’s depressed.”

“Oh,” Portly narrowed his eyes in humiliation. It passed quickly and he trotted over to the Prince and asked in a way that only he could, “Kid, what’s eatin’ ya?”

The Prince turned his head toward the sincere question and gave a look. He felt ready to spill the contents of his heart.

This was when Twiggy opted for comic relief as the cure-all and made a rather basic pun, alluding to the Prince’s strength and potential. He found his joke a highlight, and proceeded to laugh in an undignified manner, shrieking in a wheezing howl. He nudged the Prince, and repeated the pun, giggling.

The words seemed to depress the Prince further, and Twiggy began to feel the uncomfortable tension of a joke fallen flat. Too late to undo the process, he tried to cover it with an unconvincing grin. His giggling ceded to a throat clearing sound, and the Prince’s head drooped further still. Twiggy was not used to this reception, usually Portly laughed at all his jokes whether he understood them or not.

“So…” Twiggy tried to save face by changing the topic, “where ya from?”

It didn’t really help; the Prince dodged the question and began to walk again. “Who cares, I can’t go back.”

These words seemed to hit home with Twiggy, who felt them echo in his own chest.

“Ah! You’re an outcast,” he proclaimed with a confident smile, ignoring the depressed princely looks. “That’s great! So are we,” he raised both arms above his head in a welcoming manner.

Twiggy was glad things were finally going in a saner direction, that coincidentally ran parallel to his own somewhat selfish desires.

Portly cut in, not wanting to be left out of the loop, “What’d ya do, kid?”

The Prince’s face was grief, for a second before he closed his eyes and muttered, “Something terrible.” He turned his head away, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Twiggy had no qualms, “Good, we don’t want to hear about it,” he said cheerily, holding his hands across his chest.

Portly felt his friend was being a bit crass and muttered as much to his buddy. He turned and in a louder voice asked the Prince, “Anything we can do?”

The Prince looked back despondently, his golden eyes darting this way and that, “Not unless you can change the past.”

“You know kid, in times like this, my buddy here says, you gotta put your behind in your past,” Portly said in a hearty voice.

“No, no, no!”  Twiggy intervened, waving his arms again, implying Portly’s vast foolishness.

“I mean…” Portly meandered abashedly.

“Amateur,” Twiggy muttered, “Lie down before you hurt yourself.”

“It’s,” Twiggy paused for effect, “you gotta put your past behind ya,” he held his hands out like a professor.

The Prince did not waver from his sorrowful expression. Twiggy redoubled his efforts.

In a stronger voice he said, “Look kid, bad things happen. And you can’t do anything about it. Right?” The Prince looked at him with a morose face, and sadly replied, “Right.”

“Wrong,” Twiggy jumped loudly, jabbing his finger at the Prince’s face for super emphasis.

Twiggy’s face contorted to that of a lone adventurer, a single hero outcast. He swished his hands dramatically, illustrating the hordes that had ostracized him. He spoke, “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world,” he finished triumphantly, closing his fist in a tone of finality.

“Well, that’s not what I was taught,” the Prince said, shaking his head. He wasn’t willing to be talked out of his grief.

“Then maybe you need a new lesson,” responded Twiggy, who loved challenges.

“Repeat after me,” he said cheerily, and then cleared his throat, “Hakuna Matata.”

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

Imad Thinks

full. 

The network of tree branches bounced in unison, against the strength of the wind. Who would win this time? Often the tree won, but there would come a day when the wind would win. The tree would lay, uprooted.

Imad sat on the boulder that marked the forest. He watched the sun descend. It was already past Asr, meaning sunset was well on its way. Shadows grew, making tangible a concept that was light years away. Imad picked at the scab on his elbow.

He rested his sneakers on the plaque nailed onto the boulder, immortalizing some old man that had died hundreds of years ago. Why someone would nail a plaque on a boulder was beyond him, but there he was, with his feet resting on the ledge created by the thick plaque. Imad idly wondered if the dead man knew that there existed a rusty plaque in his name.

The sky was intensely blue, not noticing the sun climbing down toward the horizon. A wispy cloud sailed this way. He marked its voyage and watched, even as it passed behind his tree.

His tree. His tree was the tallest of those that lined the forest. He felt his phone buzz. It was likely not his parents, nor friends. The latter was near nonexistent. He imagined it was social media whistling and whittling.

The sun’s shift created that diamond burning light, tantalizing the unseen, attached moon to follow in its path. He wanted to stare but contented himself with a peripheral view. Paradoxically, the center was strikingly dark. Maybe, Imad thought, watching rays cast by the sun, not darkness but a light beyond his eye’s understanding. Truly a blindness, a veil. Imad wondered at its source.

There on the boulder, at the edge of winter and the edge of the forest, Imad thought about lands far away. He wondered if life truly was greener on the other side. He wondered about the deserts his nomadic ancestors hailed from. What he wouldn’t give to see the stars they gazed on.

The sunlight sunk behind a tree branch. Imad heard the twittering birds. His phone buzzed again. There was that tug to find out, to see what was calling him so ardently. It begged his attention. He knew it would worsen as he scrolled. Scrolling meant never stopping. The digital world of what-if’s and look-here’s was intensely addictive. It called him, gently, and then pulled him into that black hole of a never-ending feed, constantly refreshing him with events that happened and those that didn’t.

Someone once told him that black holes destroy everything in their path. No. Someone hadn’t told him, he had read it in an obituary.

The sun had finally passed the tree trunk’s shadow and cast itself before his eyes again. This time, he looked away for fear of blinding himself. He humbled his eyes downward at the grass. Far above his vision, the sun claimed its presence. Would it return tomorrow? Only with the permission of its Creator, Imad remembered.

The chaotic world of chance, and probability, where fortune favored the atheist. Relatively speaking, of course, Imad thought. Did it not depend on how the word fortune was defined? Those singletons who drove in the most expensive cars had permanent negative parabolas gashed out on their faces. They cut those ties that added drag to their speed. Newest, fastest, best; materials and plaques spun in Imad’s eyes. Then his gaze fell on his tree, a thing of pure beauty. He imagined the conversations it was having with its neighboring trees. He imagined the pressure built inside the apparently docile creatures. He did not have to imagine the servitude they held towards their Master. Imad watched their shadows bowing down.  

‘It’s a random thing’, they liked to say to cover their ignorance. And yet, everything still followed some equation or another. Imad thought of the golden ratio. The trees formed around it, the shells, the plants. The insides of atoms took the same formation as the planets, all circling one. And the entire universe, the magnificent system.  

He heard the taunting of his classmates in his ears, even as his eyes dreamed of stars billions of light years away. Mad Cow, they liked to call him, a play on both his name and skin discoloration. The sun took shelter behind another tree branch. Maybe it was his eyes that sought shelter and not the sun at all.

The way the branches, the trees, the bees, the birds, the creatures, the ecosystems, the inter and the intra groups worked together; Imad marveled at all. He forgot the taunts, and thought instead of creation working together, hand in hand, as though they were one being. One existence.

Maybe not one existence, but maybe existences that all had one purpose. They worked together toward the same goal. Like the fire fighters who worked as a unit to put out the fire in his father’s new car.

The sun was right in his line of view, ignoring any branches that tried to block its brilliance. Imad closed his eyes and saw the fiery warmth behind his eyelids. There was a darkness in the center, a reminder of what was hidden.

And suddenly, it was all dark. He opened his eyes and saw his lazy cloud had waltzed before the sun. It was a dark storm cloud, center grey like his boulder. But its edges were emboldened, emblazoned by the sun. The sun was nonetheless brilliant for the clouds cover.

Soon enough, the cloud pushed away and Imad was facing, once again, this great orb of light and fire. Destruction and life at the same time. A creature that was allowed to create its light by nuclear fission, a process devastatingly destructive. At the optimal distance, that same creature brought life to where deserts reigned emperors.  

A bit closer, and the earth would have burned too hot for life. A bit further and the earth would have frozen all breath.

The perfect distance, the perfect center. And yet, the sun, too, set.

Everything would eventually meet its own setting. Everything would cease. He thought again of the unified goal. Would life truly continue? Could it?

Imad thought of the leaders, the speakers in his country. Those who painted him as a thing to fear, compressed into about a hundred characters. He looked at his dark skin and wondered where his weapons were hidden. In his name? In his history? In his melanin? They began to worship money, and soon enough, they began to worship themselves. Imad imagined what would happen when everyone stopped and just did whatever made them happy. A dangerous concept, when relativity was thrown into the mix. Far be it from mankind to be able to put aside their own angelic image. The ocean wide gaps between the rich and poor in society wailed, yelled and bellowed for attention. They stood idle, deaf, dumb and blind when riches and the pursuit of happiness danced before their eyes.    

The greatest minds could not deny the balance imposed on the universe. The balance left as a reminder, a model, a standard to follow. The balance imposed from things intensely small to those overwhelmingly large. Rigid instructions that gave leave not to the atom nor the supernova, nor what was in between, nor what was smaller, nor what was bigger.

Systems and individuals, everything maintained equilibrium or worked hard for it.

They kept looking. They kept searching. It’s understandable that with limited sight, and tools, they could only see so much of the picture of the universe. Imad squinted his eyes, and the trees blurred into one. But, he rationalized, at least the miniscule objects could not escape his attention.

That is, he countered himself, relatively speaking. What was known as the smallest structure, was redefined more than a few times. Once it was thought atoms were the smallest, then they discovered what the atom was made of. That held, for a while, until physics brought to light the quark, among other fanciful creatures.

And the oceans. The forests were wrought with creatures intricate and rough. But the oceans held secrets, Imad thought, creatures that swam in depths so dark. Life in watery deserts, blackhole existences where light did not wander. Yet life existed there too. Life, the ever persistent, the constant struggle. The very nature of life implied that all that boast it, must struggle.

But is there more? Imad tried to justify the struggle. For money? For love? For fame? For power? Did these things, would they carry on after he set? The sun began to cool on his eyes.

He thought of the little pearl that sat on the ocean floor. And then he remembered the mountainous glaciers that floated atop the waves.

Things once incomprehensible, were unveiled by knowledge. But did knowledge only pertain to what was observable? Could one not read between the lines of existence? Between the lines of the sun as it rose then set, casting all objects to bow to their Creator?

They would like to tell you that your life amounted to merely chemical reactions, and environmental stimuli. Imad thought of what his science teacher had told him, how all things had their niche, their purpose, their reason for being. That removal of the seemingly insignificant creature will cause waves of destruction to sweep over the entire linked network. Imad lifted his foot away from the line of ants passing across his boulder. His tree nodded with the breeze, agreeing those who preached did not always listen to their own beliefs.

All things existed with purpose, and yet the one creature with the faculty to observe, quantify, and qualify this legacy of knowledge existed only to die? His tormenters tweeted at him ‘yolo mad cow’.

He created the heavens and earth for a true purpose and He is far above whatever they join with Him!

Thoughts. His phone buzzed again, telling him modernity had no place for religion in her attractive folds. Worship what exists, what you can see: money, fame and fast reality. Ignore the late at night yearnings of your heart. A pill here, a drink there.

Imad dropped his phone in the grass.  

A small flock of birds swooped over his head, as though they were connected with invisible lines, moving as one. They knew where to go. They knew where things were heading. Eventually, the sun did set. Imad hoped his setting would be as full of warmth, beauty, and the promise of reawakening.              

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

A Long Afternoon

full. 

A long afternoon’s work complete, the woman stood tall and stretched her back. She admired her cement, as the sun shone down on the dark, glossy material. Though her shirt was soaked with sweat and her muscles ached sorely, she felt the familiar pride that accompanied a day of hard work.

She began the day by digging out a hole, levelling it and preparing the area for the concrete slab. She wanted a small shed, a bit away from her porch, which would give her easy access to store some of her work tools and also feed her incessant itch to tinker with new ideas and inventions.

The sun, well past its zenith, warmed her face; she gave herself a congratulatory smile and set up the small perimeter fence to keep the squirrels and critters away from her freshly laid cement. She put a grid fence on top, to further detract unwanted paw prints. It was slightly smaller than was needed, but she balanced it in a way that would decrease the probability of disaster.

Gathering the remaining rebar high chairs, and the forgotten shovel, she headed back toward her home. On her way back inside, she stopped by the garage, and stored her tools. The garage smell of woodchips and grass soaked over her, as the cool air dried her drenched shirt.

She skipped the porch steps, two at a time, and walked into her kitchen. Not one to solve a problem by creating a mess, she left her dirt logged shoes on the porch.

When she returned, she had in her hand a supreme sandwich and a tall glass of cold water. The hammock called to her. She looked for her messy sneakers but was surprised to see them missing.  

“I swear, I left them right here,” she frowned to her burger.

She checked behind the pot, thinking maybe she had been careless, but it was in vain. Shaking her head, she shrugged.

“Ah well, I guess it’s a feet of nude proportions,” she chuckled merrily to herself, punning her favorite superhero’s motto. “Feet. New proportions, nude proportions,” she elaborated to her food. She shook her head again, and stepped down the wooden stairs, barefoot.

The hammock was strung up between the two oaks and made equally for sitting or lying. She set her water down on a stone slab near the hammock, and leaned back into the hammock with a  most satisfied sigh. It was in perfect view of her handiwork, and she couldn’t have asked for better seating.

“Lunch, para mi,” she grinned, happily.

Not wanting to create unnecessary work in the form of dishes, she had forgone the option of a plate.

“No biggie,” she reassured herself, and easily managed the burger in her one hand and the drink in the other.

It was a double decker, with all the toppings. The warm, toasted buns mingled with the tomatoes and meat in the fresh spring air, causing her mouth to water. She wanted nothing more than to bite into the burger and relax after the arduous day.

Now that the cement for the lean to was done, she promised herself she would deal with the actual shed tomorrow. But now, now she allowed herself to simply sit in the shade, tracing the sun’s path as the singing birds and humming insects serenaded her while she feasted for a queen. The scent of her rhododendrons hung in the air.

The cool grass under the tree’s shade tickled her toes. A small smile began budding, and she raised the beauty to her mouth. She took the long-awaited bite, and her smile blossomed. A hard day’s work is truly only appreciated at lunch time. She nodded in agreement.

The burger was all that it had promised to be, and more. A breeze blew toward her, tickling the baby hairs that had fuzzed up in the process of her work. She didn’t even care.

Just as a whooshing second breeze ran over her skin, riding the coattails of the first wave, she felt an urge to gaze at her work. Not one to deny herself simple pleasures, she looked up and froze, mid-chew.  

In an eerily, unnatural way, it turned its head toward her as soon as she noticed it. Right on the edge of the fence was a crow. Its soulless eyes started beadily at her, locking gaze with her. A mischievous glint did a rowdy cha-cha-cha in those charlatan eyes. It spoke volumes, saying ‘I know just a bit more.’

The bird had knocked over the grid fence, leaving the cement wide open to an air attack.

The woman swallowed the half chewed, none the less royal for it, bite.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered menacingly at the bird, for she had weighed that calculated beady stare and found it amounted to treachery.

Never having seen a crow up close before, she was surprised at the size of the bird—especially compared to a pigeon.

She gauged herself about fifteen feet away from the fence, and consequently her feathery foe, and knew her threat was as empty as she hoped the bird’s skull was.

Can crows grin? If their beaks disallowed for it, their eyes certainly made up for what they lacked in lips. The woman didn’t move a muscle but glanced quickly at her lovingly set cement. She imagined the bird landing heavily onto the still-wet ground and destroying her beautifully even foundation. She dreaded it for she had spent an unmeasurable effort in maintaining the balance, a quirk she could never shake.

All that work, the countless measurements. All of it, gone to waste because a winged rat was about to take a dumpster dive in her foundation!

She wanted the speed of light at her disposal, so she could remove the ridiculously absurd, but imminent threat of the crow. Yet she dared not move a muscle, for fear of startling it. It would either fly or hop down the fence… into her foundation.

She never did like statistics.

“Crow, bird, flightful friend,” she spoke in soothing tones. “Do be a dear and get the hell out of my garden,” she asked in a honied voice.

The crow hadn’t blinked, in all that time. It chose that moment to turn its head to the cement. When it looked back at the woman, there was a definite decision in those black eyes of death.

“No, please, please don’t. You’re such an intelligent bird, you’re such a clean bird. Why would you go and dirty your royal claws of death, clogging them with cement?” The woman pleaded, “You’re smarter than that!”

The crow ruffled its feathers, shrugging shoulders that didn’t really exist. What of it.

The woman was desperate. She made a slight motion to get up, and simultaneously, the menace raised its wings, in warning.

She gave a choked growl of fury. Fire and brimstone wasn’t enough for this evil phantom. The woman was mentally cursing the bird. On a regular day, she would have fawned over its magnificence, for it was truly magnificent. Its plumage was a black that simply glistened in the sunlight. It had a prominent beak, matching its plumage in color, and thin feet armed with cruel black claws that would cause chaos of irredeemable dimensions. Perhaps a bit larger than the average crow, this winged beast would more than just graze the already solidifying cement. The concrete was at the stage where it was firming but would still yield to pressure.

The woman could not explain how she knew, except to point at those eyes. They were pools of darkness, death, and destruction, and they mocked her. They danced with the thought of waltzing in fresh cement, while she watched. She groaned inwardly, knowing she was at the full mercy of a creature about the size of her arm.

“Birdy,” she began, but bit back when it veritably glared at her. “Your royal avianness,” she amended quickly. “Why don’t you go to Mr.Flenderson’s garden? I hear he grows the most delectable tomatoes. Ripe for the picking, and fit for a king such as yourself,” she bargained persuasively, still not making any motions.

The bird tilted its head sideways and appraised the woman. She gulped silently. The bird hopped, gave her a heart attack, and shifted slightly to the left of its original position. No, not feeling tommies today.

She let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

“Please piss off?” She begged quietly.

Did the midnight pest shake its head? It might have just done so, or maybe it was preening its feathers, but in either case it did not, in fact, piss off.

The woman waited. It felt like millennia, but from her vague estimate of counting the seconds tick by, she guessed it was about five minutes. In all that time, she had never seen the bugger lift a feather or shift a foot. They stared each other down for the entirety of the time it took the woman to realize she had to do something. It clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

“You aren’t leaving, are you?” She asked, just to double check.

It verified by tilting its gleaming head at her, Not quite yet.

“I didn’t think so.”

The bird shifted its gaze for just a moment, then locked its pools of ink back on the woman. She made up her mind. The shovel was still within sight; she could sidle to the garage, grab it, and then shoo the bird away from behind the safety of her makeshift sword. Suddenly a tomato slice slipped from between the buns of her burger and landed sloppily on her knee.

She snapped back to a reality where birds were much less threatening and frowned unhappily. Her lunch was getting cold, and her stomach gave a growl that seconded the motion. She wanted to take a bite, but the contagion ruffled its feathers, giving the first, single sharp caw that re-snagged her attention.

She glared at the bird for ruining her perfect afternoon, and whispered a stream of unrepeatable curses.

“Stupid, intimidating, winged rat,” jaws clenched, openly hostile now, she glared at the bird.

The crow wasn’t having any of it, and in a flutter of wings, swooped down to the cement. The woman gave a sharp cry, between defeat and anger, as her body tensed, preparing for the blow. The crow gracefully pulled itself up in the last moment, and landed back on the fence, and though a feather had landed on the cement, she saw no bird prints, a sign of relief.

She set the burger down on top of her glass, lovingly positioning the bottom bun so the burger did not fall.

Then, with motions like a rusty automaton, she slowly lifted out of the hammock. It was ridiculous scene, and the bird’s inky eyes pooled with mocking delight. The woman had to use the ground to steady herself as she heaved out, and slipped, and then heaved again. She finally lifted out and stood warily. The bird blinked once.

“Stay there, you magnificent thing, you beautiful bird. You’re gonna get a whack soon,” she smiled sickeningly.

The bird stared. She shifted to the left, keeping her eyes on the bird. When it made no motion to move, the woman quickly started toward the garage door, losing the winged rat from her vision. Leaning over the garden chair, she grabbed the shovel. She also saw a net, from a long ago camping trip, and swiped that too. Just in case. Thankfully, her oft-annoying neatness had ensured the net was handily folded. She was able to open it in a matter of seconds. There was a flutter of wings, she ran.

When she turned the corner of the garage, the bird was not on the fence. It wasn’t in the cement either. In fact, the only trace that it had ever been there was the single feather dropped in the cement. The woman gave a joyous crow, dropping both the shovel and net, to throw a fist in the air.

“You’d better run, you mongrel!” She shouted ferociously into the diamond blue skies. She triumphantly walked back to her hammock, to stand guard again. She halted mid-triumph.

The bird was nowhere to be seen, but the remnants of her burger was scattered on the stone, in a pool of icy water.

One bun was missing, along with the patty. The woman was dumbfounded, and heartbroken at the same time. She turned away, wildly, from the crime scene. It was sickening.

She walked back to her fenced cement, as a small consolation and laid a hand lovingly on the fence.

“At least you’re okay,” she whispered, a choked sound. The burger massacre had hit her hard.

A thump caused her to spin back around, and she saw her sneaker added to the bizarre scene. She walked over to it and realized, mingled with the mud, was bits of burger meat, tomato juice and sauce. The salt rubbed into the wound, causing her to blink at perspiring eyes.  

She stumbled back to her fence and felt the final strike. The single black feather deposited by a single detestable beast. It was a handsome feather, she grudgingly admitted. But all the same, the entirety of her anger was taken out on the feather. She leaned over, and ever so gently pinched the feather, being careful not to touch the cement. When she lifted it out, all that remained was the faintest shadow of a feathery pattern.

In the distance, a happily stuffed crow cawed.

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

a long afternoon p1

A long afternoon’s work complete, the woman stood tall and stretched her back. She admired her cement, as the sun shone down on the dark, glossy material. Though her shirt was soaked with sweat and her muscles ached sorely, she felt the familiar pride that accompanied a day of hard work.

She began the day by digging out a hole, levelling it and preparing the area for the concrete slab. She wanted a small shed, a bit away from her porch, which would give her easy access to store some of her work tools and also feed her incessant itch to tinker with new ideas and inventions.

The sun, well past its zenith, warmed her face; she gave herself a congratulatory smile and set up the small perimeter fence to keep the squirrels and critters away from her freshly laid cement. She put a grid fence on top, to further detract unwanted paw prints. It was slightly smaller than was needed, but she balanced it in a way that would decrease the probability of disaster.

Gathering the remaining rebar high chairs, and the forgotten shovel, she headed back toward her home. On her way back inside, she stopped by the garage, and stored her tools. The garage smell of woodchips and grass soaked over her, as the cool air dried her drenched shirt.

She skipped the porch steps, two at a time, and walked into her kitchen. Not one to solve a problem by creating a mess, she left her dirt logged shoes on the porch.

When she returned, she had in her hand a supreme sandwich and a tall glass of cold water. The hammock called to her. She looked for her messy sneakers but was surprised to see them missing.  

“I swear, I left them right here,” she frowned to her burger.

She checked behind the pot, thinking maybe she had been careless, but it was in vain. Shaking her head, she shrugged.

“Ah well, I guess it’s a feet of nude proportions,” she chuckled merrily to herself, punning her favorite superhero’s motto. “Feet. New proportions, nude proportions,” she elaborated to her food. She shook her head again, and stepped down the wooden stairs, barefoot.

The hammock was strung up between the two oaks and made equally for sitting or lying. She set her water down on a stone slab near the hammock, and leaned back into the hammock with a  most satisfied sigh. It was in perfect view of her handiwork, and she couldn’t have asked for better seating.

“Lunch, para mi,” she grinned, happily.

Not wanting to create unnecessary work in the form of dishes, she had forgone the option of a plate.

“No biggie,” she reassured herself, and easily managed the burger in her one hand and the drink in the other.

It was a double decker, with all the toppings. The warm, toasted buns mingled with the tomatoes and meat in the fresh spring air, causing her mouth to water. She wanted nothing more than to bite into the burger and relax after the arduous day.

Now that the cement for the lean to was done, she promised herself she would deal with the actual shed tomorrow. But now, now she allowed herself to simply sit in the shade, tracing the sun’s path as the singing birds and humming insects serenaded her while she feasted for a queen. The scent of her rhododendrons hung in the air.