Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Children of Olive

It showed the checkpoint. The turnstiles, the metal cages, the narrow lanes where people were herded like cattle. But the metal bars weren't metal. They were bones. Ribs and femurs and spines curved into cages. And the turnstile was a set of teeth —long, sharp, grinding teeth that people had to walk through.

In the center of the drawing, a boy stood naked. He was small, frail, his arms wrapped around himself in a futile attempt at modesty. Around him, soldiers—faceless, uniform—were laughing. Their mouths were jagged tears in the paper.

Behind the boy, looming over him, a watcher stood.

This one was different from the others Amal had seen. It wasn't just watching. It had its hand on the boy's shoulder. A heavy, dark hand that seemed to be pushing him down, or perhaps holding him in place. And its face —its featureless, smooth mask of a face—was leaning close to the boy's ear.

Whispering.

"He hears them," Yasmin said softly. "That's what he wrote to me. He says the silence isn't empty. He says they talk to him."

Amal stared at the drawing. The charcoal lines seemed to writhe on the page. "What do they say?"

Yasmin reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of lined paper, folded into a small square. "He gave me this yesterday. It's... it's his account. Of what happened. I asked him to write it down, to get it out of his head." She handed it to Amal. "Read it. But be prepared."

Amal unfolded the paper. The handwriting was jagged, erratic, the letters digging deep into the page as if written by someone whose hand couldn't stop shaking.

It was Tuesday. The sun was hot. The line was long.

Amal read the words, and suddenly she wasn't standing in the youth center anymore. She was there, in the dust and the heat, standing on the asphalt road that led to the checkpoint.

They stopped the bus. They made everyone get out. They checked IDs. The soldier looked at mine for a long time. He was young. He had blue eyes. He was chewing gum.

He asked me where I was going. I said home. He asked me what was in my bag. I said books. He took my bag and dumped it on the ground. My sketchbook fell in the dirt. He stepped on it.

Then he told me to take off my shirt.

Amal's grip on the paper tightened.

I asked why. He hit me. He said security. He said maybe I was hiding something. He made me take off my shirt. Then my pants. Then my underwear.

77