Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

"Tariq."

Amal's breath caught. This was the boy Yasmin had mentioned yesterday —the one who spoke of the door made of forgotten children.

"Tariq, the nurse said you saw something important. Can you tell us?"

The boy nodded. He held up his drawing. It showed a soldier stepping on what was clearly a water container, his boot crushing it flat. Water spread across the bottom of the page in blue crayon. Behind the soldier, faint and half-formed, a figure with red eyes was emerging from the splash.

"This happened to my family," Tariq said. "Yesterday. They came to our tent. They took our water. All of it. Jugs, bottles, the big tank. They broke everything. My sister cried because she was thirsty, and one of them—" His voice caught. "One of them laughed. And then he shot her."

Yasmin's hand found Amal's, gripping tight.

"When the water spilled, I saw him," Tariq continued, his voice steady now, the words coming out in a rush. "The one with red eyes. He came out of the water. Not out of like swimming. Out of. Like the water breaking made him. Like he was always there, waiting to be let out."

"Can you tell us more about what you saw?"

"He was behind the soldier at first. Like a shadow. But when the water hit the ground and my sister started crying, he got darker. More real. And when she —when she stopped crying—" Tariq's composure finally cracked. Tears spilled down his cheeks, but he kept talking. "When she stopped, he was all the way real. He looked at me. He didn't blink. He looked at me like he was saying sorry."

Amal thought of Um Khalil's grandson. Adam. Seven years old. Another child killed for the crime of wanting water.

"Tariq," she said gently, "can you remember anything else about the one you saw? Anything that made him different from the soldiers?"

The boy wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "He was sad," he said. "The soldiers weren't sad. They were laughing. But the red-eye man was sad. Like he didn't want to be there. Like he had to be there but he wished he didn't."

"And your sister—" Yasmin hesitated. "Tariq, this is very important. When your sister... when she passed on... did you see anything happen to him? To the red-eye man?"

Tariq nodded slowly. "He got bigger. And sadder. And there was another one next to him. A small one. Little. Like me." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I think it was my sister."

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