Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

The soldier had no mouth, no nose, no features at all except for the eyes. Two massive circles, colored in with red crayon so thick it had torn through the paper in places. The red was not the cheerful scarlet of apples or hearts. It was the dark, rust-colored red of something old and dried. Something that should not be there.

The soldier stood over a small car.

Amal's hands began to shake.

The car was gray, boxy, rendered with the simple shapes a child might use—four wheels, two windows, a roof. But the back seat was empty. Not just unoccupied—empty in a way that felt intentional, like Noor had deliberately left that space hollow. And hanging from one of the windows was something that might have been a blanket. Or might have been an arm.

The red of the soldier's eyes seemed to pulse in Amal's vision. She blinked, looked away, looked back. The drawing remained the same. Static. Just paper and wax. But she could not shake the feeling that something in it was watching her.

"Mama?"

Amal startled, shoving the drawing beneath the bed like it was something shameful. Noor stood in the doorway, a piece of bread still in her hand, crumbs dusting her chin. Her dark hair was pulled back in two uneven braids—Amal had done them herself that morning, distracted and hurried—and her school uniform was slightly too big, the sleeves hanging past her wrists.

"Yes, habibi?" Amal forced her voice steady.

"I can't find my blue crayon. The good one. Have you seen it?"

"No, I haven't. Maybe it's in your schoolbag."

Noor nodded, seemingly satisfied, and disappeared back toward the kitchen. Amal listened to her small footsteps recede, then slowly retrieved the drawing from under the bed.

She would ask Noor about it. She would ask, calmly and casually, the way the parenting books said to do. Don't make them feel interrogated. Don't project your own fears onto their answers. She had read those books when Noor was a baby, back when she still believed that reading the right words could protect her daughter from the world outside their walls.

But not now. Not yet.

Amal folded the drawing carefully, pressing the creases flat with her thumbnail, and slid it into her pocket. She would look at it again later, when she was alone. When she could think.

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