Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

It was a fortress of bureaucracy. Concrete palm trees (literally —sculptures of concrete), fountains, and angular stone buildings.

"The Archive is in the basement of building C," Amal said, reciting Huda's instructions. "The entrance is through the parking garage."

They circled the building. They found the ramp leading down.

A sign above the ramp read: Municipal Archive / City Engineering Dept.

And below it, someone had spray-painted a single word in Arabic, hastily crossed out:

Dhakira. (Memory).

"This is it," Amal said.

She took the key out of her pocket. It was cold now. Ice cold.

"Why is it cold?" Yasmin asked.

"Because we're close," Amal said. "Huda said it gets cold when we are in danger."

She gripped the iron tight.

"Let's go into the freezer."

Part IV: The Bureaucracy of Silence

The basement smelled of old paper and ozone.

It was a smell that Amal knew well from the school library, but here, it was concentrated. It was the smell of drying ink, decaying cellulose, and the static electricity of a thousand xerox machines.

They walked past the security booth. The guard, a heavyset man with a bored expression, didn't even look up. He was watching a game show on a small TV.

"IDs," he grunted, hand extended.

Amal handed him her permit. Yasmin handed hers.

He scanned them. BEEP.

He didn't look at their faces. He just gestured to the metal door behind him. "Row 4 for zoning. Row 8 for tax. Don't touch the maps."

Amal nodded. "Thank you."

They passed through the door.

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