Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Children of Olive
The creature closed its mask. It stood up straighter, as if energized. Its red eyes burned with a new intensity.
Amal gasped, pulling away from the mirror. "They eat souls," she whispered. "This isn't political. This isn't war. This is... harvest."
"Harvest," Huda agreed, her voice dead. "That is the word. They harvest the grief. They harvest the loss. And every time they feed, they grow stronger. They grow more solid."
She pointed back at the reflection. The village was empty now. The wedding feast was still laid out, but the food was gray ash. The banners were tattered rags. The people were gone.
"Two hundred souls," Huda said. "In one afternoon. And when the British patrol came the next day, they found nothing. No bodies. No blood. Just an empty village. They wrote in their ledger: 'Abandoned.' They assumed we ran away."
She laughed bitterly.
"We didn't run. We were eaten."
"And the soldiers?" Amal asked. "The ones who came in '48?"
"They were the cleaners," Huda said. "They came to bury the ash. They didn't know. They saw empty houses and thought they had won a victory. They didn't know they were walking in a graveyard of spirits."
She looked at Amal.
"Do you understand now? Why they built the settlements? Why they built the checkpoints? It's not just land. They are building a pen. A coop. They keep us here, squeezed together, frightened, hopeless... to feed Them."
"The occupation is a farm," Yasmin whispered, horror dawning on her face. "A farm for pain."
"And for silence," Huda added. "Because the fatter we get with sorrow, the better we taste."
Huda threw the black cloth back over the mirror. The motion was final. The vision was gone.
But the cold remained.
"You saw," Huda said, her voice shaking with exhaustion. "You saw the erasure."
"I saw," Amal gasped.
"Then you understand why I sit in the dark," Huda said. "You understand why I use the salt. Why I tell the children to be quiet. We are hiding from the eraser, Amal. We are trying to stay on the page."
101