Aaliyah

Chapter 1: Aaliyah

           It was early morning, and Aaliyah, still rubbing her eyes as usual, stepped into the blinding sunlight as warmth began to crawl across her skin. Younger than her peers, the elderly women of her community would often ask her to run errands near the bustling marketplace in the morning, such as purchasing herbs, flowers, oils, and fish, and to wash the dishes and clothes at night. “Why do I have to go?” she shouted to a eunuch, ordered to guard the walls of the harem, as she readied herself. “I’ve already done this for seven years ever since I arrived, and now that I’m nearing 14 years old, old enough to…” Her voice trailed. She knew what her path would entail were she to stay in the imperial harem: she would just grow old, wrinkle, fight for the Sultan’s love, and bear a child. She didn’t want to have to spend a night with the Sultan, and though the other girls had studied flirtations to grant themselves the honor of being chosen, Aaliyah had her own plans. After all, the stories she had been told by her mother about the world before she had been sent to the dreary, abusive, labor-camp interior of a palace seemed way more fascinating: stories of mystical beasts, men without eyes, mountains of gold, and most scarily demons…this was the world she wanted to live in, and as she continued dreaming her fantasy, she rounded off her checklist and stopped at the last item, nodding to the fisherman as she put the basket of fish atop her head. “Why would anyone travel to Istanbul if this is all there is to see?” she wondered again. “And…what if…I could see the world? Could I outrun my fate? Who would care?”

Glancing left and right, she noticed Omar and Salman, the two eunuchs for the day, discussing their daily gossip: who would be chosen, who deserved it, who had the supplest skin, widest hips, and biggest chest, etc., and quickly hastened in the opposite direction. First, a fast walk, then a sprint, Aaliyah felt her bare feet scrape against the sharp and uneven path. Her arms were sore from the fish that she was still carrying. But even so, she trudged forward. Sweating profusely, she gazed again toward the sky, seeing Mr. Sun now on the opposite side of where it had seemingly been just a few hours ago. She knew not where she would go, but she somehow had faith that if she followed the sun, she would find the place of her dreams. Taking a deep breath, as Aaliyah’s adrenaline and anxiety wound down, she noticed that she found comfort in the smaller things such as the whistle of the wind, the sound of travelers’ footsteps, and the autonomy of freedom. She noticed the stars waking for their nightly dance and soon felt a wave of lethargy crash, her eyes drooping and her body folding forward. Murmuring her mother’s tales about the demon and the fisherman to put her to sleep as always, Aaliyah felt a hand on the back of her neck. Had they caught…she thought before falling limp on the ground.

Chapter 2: The French Man

“You think she’s rich?” a man whispered. “Maybe.” another voice replied. “Why else would she have so many fish?” Waking up to the sounds of a few middle-aged voices, Aaliyah clutched her head, still pounding from the impact of her fall. She opened her eyes to the pitch black of a handkerchief and immediately winced as the plant fibers dug deeper into her wrists and ankles, restricting any complex movement. She jerked and flailed until she hit the side of what seemed to be a box. The man grumbled to his partner that she was awake and yanked the cloth off her eyes so she could see. She had hoped that it was either Omar or Salman; it was neither. The men had dark skin, brown eyes, and an oddly serious complexion around them, but what stuck out to her the most was their common dialect, ripped clothes, and run-down caravan, equally as rife with holes as their attire. Little more than a moment of silence occurred before the men drew their swords to threaten the whimpering Aaliyah. The men interrogated her for hours on her past, where she came from, and who her father was, but their faces grew evermore somber at the realization that they had not struck the opportunity of a lifetime. At long last, the man on the right whispered again to his companion and began to point at her from every direction (up down left right), occasionally touching her chest, stomach, and hips, which were still restricted from moving. The other man smiled, and for the first time in a while, the caravan began moving once more.

Days became weeks and soon months, but her daily routine never changed. Aaliyah would be fed two figs and a handful of almonds for lunch, and some olives or grapes for dinner, but she would never be untied, allowed to move or to speak. She could only stare, light drained from her eyes, as the scenery altered from dark to red to blue and so on and so forth, with a hint of green every so often. Is this my reality from now on? Aaliyah wondered to herself, praying frantically every night for justice to be restored.

One morning, however, as the sounds of a populace she could not discern grew louder, the caravan halted to a stop. Taking her out, and untying her legs but not her arms, the bandits (as she decided she would call them) ordered her to stand atop a box in front of an audience of 40 or so people. Eyes darting, she knew instantly that this city looked nothing like what she knew to be home, and just as her eyes were starting to grow accustomed to the white populace and elegance around her, the affluent man talking the loudest tore off her clothes to a flurry of hands, speech, and commotion. She saw many men staring at her and her alone, and while she could not understand what would become of her, she was soon directed by cold iron nudging toward a man with glasses, a black robe, and a red tail dangling from the neck. She was now his, the bandits informed her, as he had paid the most gold, and thus her life with the French man began.

Chapter 3: Miracles

           Surprisingly, life in France, as she learned it was soon called, was different from anything she could have imagined, for better in some instances and for worse. Though she did receive dirty looks from neighbors whenever she left the house, the French man treated her relatively well, even granting her a new name, Alice. Her morning routine consisted of watering the flowers and cooking breakfast, shopping for groceries before lunch, playing with the dog in the afternoon, and later performing duties related to “Why I keep you around, Alice” at night. And despite her lack of understanding regarding what was so special about her “nightly duties,” she was soon quick to learn that so long as she kept doing what he taught her, he would be pleased and not pull out the whip. As the weeks passed, the French man would teach her about reading and writing, of philosophy, and of the world. He was, after all, a thinker as he proclaimed, a man of reason and logic. Under his tutelage, Aaliyah began to learn more about numbers or this thing known as algebra, learned about the stars and their movements, and about this man named Descartes. When questioned about her own experiences in Istanbul, the French man would often seem confused to hear that she had not performed “nightly duties” before and to hear that oftentimes men followed some code of law. Nevertheless, when asked about her beliefs, traditions, and aspirations, Aaliyah now Alice would often be met with the same reply, a look of disgust followed by the same phrase, “I’m sorry you were born there. I will teach you correctly and right your wrongs.” The lessons, and nightly duties of course, continued all the same, and as the man taught her more about science, the idea of modern medicine, and the lack of proof for religious interventions, she started to follow suit in his ideals.

People who believed in a supernatural entity were just fooling themselves, she began to believe. Miracles don’t exist, I am simply blessed to have met the French man and to have such a teacher; if anything, perhaps he is more of a miracle to me than any god, she thought, chuckling to herself.

           As the years passed, Alice began to feel more at home, conversing often with the maids and tending to the French man’s hunting wounds whenever they occurred, never neglecting her nightly duties or her study about the world around her. She had now grown into a fully-fledged woman of roughly twenty-one years, and though she had been taught not to believe mystical fallacies, for what use do they have, Alice began to find herself longing to spend more time with the French man.

Chapter 4: Alice

           Alice was ready. It had been two weeks since she noticed the physical changes in her body, such as her racing heartbeat every time he was near, and also mental changes, such as her inability to focus on lessons or even garden properly. She had been consulting the maids about this unknown disease for a while now, but only recently gained insight from a vendor about this foreign concept called love.

           Armed with her new understanding of her disease, Alice decided to ask the French man about this ‘infatuation’ the following night preceding her nightly duties, but the man, now quickly solemn faced, refused to answer and simply sent her away. Why did he have the same look as he did many years ago? She wondered. Did I do something wrong? What is this love thing? Alice spent the whole night thinking, as the French man had taught her, but she could not wrap her head around the situation. Was my question equally as disgusting as my background? Laying her head on a pile of hay, she recited her multiplication table, the names of the stars, and Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum” before finally falling asleep.

           Early morning came the next day, and Alice, rubbing her eyes, stepped into the morning dawn as chills ran down her neck. She did not know why she was concerned, but as the French man beckoned her over to speak to her, she confirmed that her suspicions were true. The French man spoke slowly and carefully, letting her know how it was not proper for a woman like her to fall in love, and that she, having forgotten his benevolence for raising her properly, was no longer allowed to remain at his estate, claiming finally that it would ruin his ability to think.

           Alice was confused. Was I in love? What did that even mean? But before she could answer any of her questions, she saw in the corner of her maroon eyes, the semblance of a familiar carriage, namely the one on which underperforming maids were all sent, none of whom ever returned. Alice felt water fall from her eyes like never before, and a wrenching pain within her heart began to grow as she was informed that the French man was sending her back to Istanbul where she could now pass her knowledge onto others. As she cried, the French man once again winced at her emotional outburst, and she knew immediately that she had been discarded. But what else could she do but to follow his task diligently?

Chapter 5: Socrates

           Months passed, but Alice found herself still unable to properly grapple with her situation, and each night, she tore out a hair for every time she thought about the French man and her mistake. At long last, as the familiar scenes of black, red, blue, and the occasional green began to pass once again, Alice found herself standing in the very same marketplace that she had been in roughly eight years before. She was now roughly twenty-two but had been equipped with the knowledge of French medicine, arithmetic, science, and philosophy. Prepared to teach passersby citizens the truth of the world, Alice began to talk to random people on the street about the nonexistence of a god and the lack of utility derived from telling untrue or imaginative tales. She, as she now thought of herself, was similar to the modern Socrates, arguing with people on the street and disproving their current beliefs with rationality and logic, in effect, forwarding the agenda of the French man.

           But just as Socrates met his end in Athens centuries and centuries before, Alice was soon captured by a guard for causing public unrest and was sent to the Sultan. Upon entering the royal chamber, the Sultan asks of her, “Why are you refuting our tradition, our imagination, and our culture? You, who seem to be one of us.” Alice began, “My name is Alice, and I have traveled to France to see the new world. Our beliefs are outdated if we simply look at how we calculate…” and as she spoke, the women behind the Sultan chatted, remarking on her unremarkable features, laughing at her wrinkled skin, and more. But as the conversation between Alice and the Sultan seemed to grow increasingly more tense, an elderly woman whispered into the Sultan’s ear, claiming that she recognized the young girl before her, having been, in fact, the superior of Aaliyah before she ran away from the harem. An instant scowl came across the Sultan’s face as he called for his guards to discipline the unfaithful and unloyal whore. “You who were once mine, now dare to come back to me, argue to my face, and teach me things after eloping with another man?!? Get out of my sight immediately, and never come back.”

           And so, Alice took her beatings and was dropped on the side of the street, arms and feet sore yet again in Istanbul, but this time for different reasons. Bruised black, red, and blue and left with a small open wound, Alice could no longer move freely, feeling a jolt of pain upon any directional change. As she begged along the street for food to eat and people to talk to, she was often met with either a gaze of disgust or pity or a combination of the two. Meeting people was rare but having been “placed” on the side of a bustling street, she was bound to see people that she had previously met, talked to, or laughed with either from the harem or from her mission from the French man. Some days, the fisherman would kindly give her a piece of unsold fish; other days, kids would come around and listen to her stories. But as she looked night and day, losing blood slowly by the week, she soon came across a familiar face.

Chapter 6: Once More

           Or should I say…a pair of familiar faces? Alice spotted the two men, who once held little to no possessions and nothing but a broken-down caravan, riding on a luxurious camel, with delicacies such as coffee, tobacco, nice gowns, and more young girls in a modern caravan attachment. And while the bandits could hardly remember the face of the first girl they sold almost a decade ago, Alice could hardly forget.

           As she finally bled out on the side of the street, she cried, laying there gasping for air, “Why has reason forsaken me? Where is the so-called justice in this world?” Aaliyah paused, gasping for more air, and losing the desire to live, “I worked so hard to think logically, to calculate movements and use formulas, to understand thought and morality, so then…where is my happiness?”

What in my life have I ever chosen to do for myself? She thinks, now unable to scream aloud further, perhaps, she chuckles with her final breath, as the whistle of the wind and the autonomy of freedom comfort her, my last sights would have been prettier, conversations more delightful, and treatment better had I only outrun my fate once more and stayed in France.