Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

and the rights of the child, bright colors that tried and failed to mask the damp stains spreading from the ceiling like a slow-moving disease.

Amal had come here at Yasmin’s request, navigating roads blocked by new checkpoints and piles of rubble that hadn't been there a week ago. The city was changing, shifting shapes like a restless sleeper, and everywhere she looked, she saw the spaces where people used to be.

"I need you to see something," Yasmin had said on the phone, her voice tight with that new strain regarding the child-sized watchers. "Not a child this time. Someone older. But the pattern... the pattern is the same. And it's evolving."

Now, standing in the center ’s main activity room, Amal looked around at the teenagers gathered in small, listless groups. These weren't children like Noor or Tariq. They were older—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. The age of potential. The age of danger. Most of them were on their phones, scrolling through endless feeds of news and violence, their faces illuminated by the cold blue light of screens. Some were talking in hushed tones, trading rumors like contraband. A few were just sitting, staring at the walls with the thousand-yard stare she had come to recognize in her own students.

"Before we see him," Yasmin said, guiding Amal away from the main area, "I want to show you the others. Aspects of the same phenomenon, but manifesting differently."

She led Amal down a narrow corridor painted a frantic, cheerful blue that felt at odds with the silence of the building. She stopped at a door marked Quiet Room.

"These are the ones who can't handle the noise anymore," Yasmin whispered. "The ones who hear things the rest of us miss."

She opened the door.

The room was dimly lit, the windows covered with heavy blankets to block out the harsh afternoon sun. Inside, four teenagers sat on beanbag chairs or floor cushions. The air smelled of lavender oil and unwashed hair.

"Look at Layla," Yasmin murmured, tilting her head toward a girl in the corner.

Layla was about fourteen, wearing a hijab that had been carefully pinned. She held a needle and a spool of red thread. She wasn't sewing cloth. She was sewing a pattern into the skin of an orange she held in her lap.

Amal leaned closer. The pattern wasn't random. It was a series of concentric circles.

"Eyes," Amal whispered.

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