Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

"It was 1948," Huda began. "April. The rosemary was in bloom. And my village... my village was silent long before the soldiers came."

She stopped. She looked at the covered mirror on the wall—the large oval one with the chipped gilt frame.

"Words are wind," she whispered. "The Watchers eat words. They catch them in the air like flies. But they cannot eat reflections. Mirrors... mirrors remember deep."

She stood up, her joints popping in the quiet room. She walked to the mirror and placed her hand on the black cloth.

"You want to know the truth?" she asked, her voice trembling. "You want to see what the vacuum looks like?"

"Huda, no," Yasmin said, standing up. "You said it was dangerous. You said the mirrors catch them."

"We are already caught," Huda snapped. "The child has the key. The door is already opening. Better she sees the wolf before she walks into the woods."

With a sudden, violent motion, she ripped the black cloth away.

Amal flinched, expecting to see her own terrified face reflected in the glass.

But the mirror held no reflection of the room. It held no reflection of Amal, or Yasmin, or the oil lamps.

The glass was a window. And through it, Amal was looking at a hill covered in wildflowers.

It was bright daylight in the mirror. She could see the shimmer of heat haze on the horizon. She could see the stone houses of a village, clinging to the slope like geckos. Vines of jasmine climbed the walls. Chickens scratched in the dust.

"Bayt al-Rih," Huda whispered. "House of the Wind. Two hundred souls. My father was the mukhtar."

Amal watched, mesmerized. It was so real she felt she could reach through the glass and touch the warm stone. It was peaceful. Idyllic.

"Look closer," Huda commanded. "Do not just see the stones. See the life."

The image in the mirror shifted, zooming in like a camera lens. It focused on the village square—a wide, dusty plaza shaded by an enormous sycamore tree.

It was a celebration.

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