Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Vision in Red

Amal pushed against the bars. They were immovable. She was trapped in the mechanism.

"Amal!" Yasmin called out. "Push it!"

"It's stuck!"

Behind her, the crowd began to groan. "Ya Allah, move! We are late!"

Amal looked up at the booth. The soldier looked down. He wasn't bored anymore. He was staring right at her.

No. Not at her.

At her bag.

He picked up a phone receiver.

Amal felt the key get hotter. It was burning through the fabric. It knew it was being targeted.

They see the iron, Amal thought. They see the history.

She closed her eyes. She remembered Huda's voice. Survival is not collaboration. Make noise.

She didn't scream. She didn't beg.

She gripped the cold steel of the turnstile. And she pushed with her mind. She pushed with the weight of the key. She pushed with the song of the wedding drums she had heard in her dream.

I am not a number. I am not a void.

CLUNK.

The turnstile shuddered. The red light flickered.

CLUNK-SCREECH.

The mechanism groaned, fighting against its own locks. Sparks showered down from the gear box above her head.

The soldier in the booth stood up, hammering on the glass.

But the machine obeyed a different law now. The law of the Key.

With a final, tortured screech, the bars gave way. The turnstile spun freely—too fast, spinning like a fan blade.

Amal stumbled through, almost falling onto the concrete on the Jerusalem side.

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