Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview
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Vision in Red
"Omar?" she said softly.
The boy didn't look up. He didn't flinch. He just kept drawing, his hand a blur of motion.
Amal moved closer, until she could see the page he was working on. Then she stopped.
It wasn't a person. It wasn't a soldier or a tank or a victim.
It was a wall.
But not a normal wall. It was the Separation Barrier —she recognized the high concrete slabs, the watchtower looming at the top, the barbed wire coiled like rusted snakes along the crest. But in Omar’s drawing, the concrete wasn't solid. It was porous. It was bleeding.
Dark liquid oozed from the cracks between the slabs, pooling at the base. And in the liquid, faces were forming. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Mouths open in silent screams, eyes wide with terror, hands reaching out from the stone as if the wall itself was made of trapped souls. The detail was microscopic and terrifying —tiny fingers grasping at the edges of the concrete, eyes that seemed to follow the viewer, mouths stretched in eternal, silent cries.
And standing on top of the wall, where the soldiers should be, were the watchers.
They were drawn in heavy charcoal, dark silhouettes against the sky. No features, no uniforms. Just the shape of them —tall, hulking, motionless. And the eyes. Omar had used a red marker for the eyes, pressing so hard the ink had bled through to the other side of the paper.
The eyes were looking down. At the people trapped in the wall. At the blood pooling on the ground. At Omar.
"They're part of it," Amal whispered, realizing what she was seeing. "They're not just guarding the wall. they are the wall."
Omar’s hand stopped.
For the first time, he looked up. His eyes were dark and hollow, rimmed with red from lack of sleep. He looked at Amal, then at Yasmin standing behind her, then back at his drawing.
He opened his mouth. His lips moved, forming a shape. Help.
But no sound came out. Only a dry, clicking rattle from the back of his throat.
Then he flipped the page.
The next drawing was worse.
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