Thread

Content Warning: Themes of trauma, surveillance, and emotional distress. No graphic content.

We were thirty kilometres past the last gas station when the fog swallowed the road whole.

It wasn’t snow yet, not quite. Just rain turning to sleet, slicking the highway and turning the world to static. My wipers squeaked like they’d given up trying. Streetlights blurred in the distance, and every sign looked like a warning written in another language.

Beside me, Zayd pulled his hood down lower and yawned.

“Why do all your genius plans end in hypothermia?” he said. “You’re the big sister, supposed to know better.”

I smirked. “Better than another overnight in the ER waiting room.”

He tugged the strings on his hoodie. A bag of takeout sat at his feet, barely warm now; leftover biryani and chai from the all-night Afghan place near the hospital where we both worked. I was the night nurse. Zayd was a lab tech, or at least trying to be.

That’s when we saw him.

He emerged from the fog like he’d been stitched into it. Limping. Soaked. Just jeans, a sweatshirt, and hands cupped around his ears like he was trying to hold his head together.

I slowed instinctively.

“Yo…” Zayd sat forward. “That guy’s gonna get clipped.”

I rolled down my window an inch. Cold air bit my face.

“You okay?” I called out.

The man turned. Lips blue. Eyes wide and wrong.

“Please,” he rasped. “Don’t leave me.”

He collapsed before I could unlock the doors.

Zayd jumped out and got him into the back seat, muttering the whole time. I cranked the heat, grabbed the emergency blanket and some water from under the passenger seat, and tossed them back.

The man’s teeth were chattering so hard I could hear them over the defrost.

“You Muslim?” he asked, looking at the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” I said, cautious.

He nodded like that settled something. From the mirror, I saw his eyes flick to the tasbih looped around my fingers. He didn’t say anything. Just pulled the blanket tighter like it was armour, and leaned back, breathing shallow.

The road stretched on, narrowing in the darkness and fog. I kept both hands on the wheel, my mind flickering between what I saw in the rearview mirror and the whispered adhkar I tried to recite.

“What’s your name?” Zayd asked after a long silence.

“Tariq,” the man said. “No last name tonight.”

“You hurt?”

“Not yet.”

Zayd leaned his head back. “Cryptic.”

I glanced back. His lips were dry, eyes half-lidded. There was something too still about him, like he was trying not to leave too much of himself behind in the car.

“Where were you going?” I asked.

“Not where I ended up.”

He smiled faintly. “Used to be easier to disappear.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “Nothing disappears. Not really.”

The rain turned heavier as we rolled through the next stretch.

The fog swallowed the guardrails. Beyond the beams, there was nothing but blur and black.

We spotted the diner on instinct; a flash of red neon humming in the storm. ROSE’S CAFÉ. OPEN 24 HOURS. The windows glowed warm in the haze.

I paused before opening the door. The fog pressed close like it had something to say.

My fingers curled around the tasbih in my coat pocket; smooth beads, still warm from the drive. I rolled them between my knuckles as I whispered Ayat al-Kursi under my breath. Not loud. Just enough for me. Just enough to feel like I wasn’t alone.

The inside smelled like burnt coffee and nostalgia. Checkered tile floors. Vinyl booths. A jukebox in the corner that probably hadn’t worked since the 90s. Rain lashed the windows as if it were angry we had come in.

The waitress behind the counter didn’t look up. Just nodded.

We slid into a corner booth. Tariq sat on the outer edge, across from Zayd and me.

“Three coffees, please,” I told the waitress.

She nodded and shuffled off. No questions. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the soft squeak of her shoes on linoleum.

Tariq didn’t say much. Just held the mug when it came, his fingers cradling it like it was a fire worth tending.

Zayd sipped. Winced. “Tastes like melted rubber.”

The waitress moved behind the counter, refilling the napkin dispensers with practiced boredom. A radio behind her crackled a little between stations before clicking off.

Above her head, a muted TV flickered. The news scroll caught my eye first.

"...Ministry of Digital Affairs confirms..."

"...employee missing since Monday..."

"...believed to be travelling under an assumed identity..."

I looked up in time to see a blurred photo. Younger. Clean-shaven. A face not unlike the one sitting across from me.

Zayd leaned forward. “Wait…”

Tariq didn’t look at the screen. “That’s me.”

Silence fell like it had been waiting for a cue.

“They think you’re dead,” I said.

“They’re trying to confirm it,” he replied. “Or make it true.”

The door chimed.

Two men stepped in. One in a black wool coat, the other in cracked leather. Neither shook off the storm. They looked around the room as if it were a chessboard. When their eyes landed on our booth, something in the air folded inward.

They didn’t sit right away. Just stood by the counter, still and sharp, like they were waiting for permission to move.

Tariq’s jaw tightened.

“They were supposed to wait until I didn’t show,” he said. “That was the deal. Observe. Confirm. Don’t interfere.”

“But you showed,” I whispered.

“I’m alive. I’m visible. I have witnesses.”

The men sat. One stirred his coffee. The other didn’t touch his. Both stared too long at nothing.

The waitress caught his face on the screen, then ours.

She paused.

But she didn’t say a word; just refilled the sugar jar like the whole world wasn’t shifting under her feet.

We sat like that for another three minutes.

Three hours.

Three breaths drawn out.

Tariq's hands rested lightly around the coffee mug, as if he were trying to memorize the shape of stillness.

I watched him for a moment. Then reached into my coat pocket.

I placed the tasbih in front of him. “Here, take this,” I said. “Just… something that helped me keep still.”

He looked down at the beads, then at me.

“My mother had one,” he said.

“Maybe now’s the time to find out why,” I said.

He tucked it into his coat. Not rushed. Like it mattered.

Then, almost to himself:

“They’re not here to kill me. Just to make sure I don’t return.”

A pause.

“Maybe I wasn’t meant to disappear. Maybe I was meant to be seen.”

He stood, nodded once, and walked toward the hallway near the restrooms; the kind of exit most people forget exists until someone chooses it.

No bell. No slam.

Just the door clicking shut behind him.

We left not long after he did.

Didn’t see where he went. Didn’t try.

The fog had swallowed everything outside the glass: signs, pavement, even the sound of our footsteps.

We got in the car. Zayd didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

I could feel Zayd glance at me, the brother who still thought I had all the answers.

A week later, I found a padded envelope on my windshield.

No return address.

Inside: a flash drive wrapped in wax paper, marked only with a small crescent.

And a note, torn from a yellow notepad:

The tasbih stayed with me longer than names ever did.

I didn’t wonder how he found me. Tariq seemed to be the kind of man who knew how to vanish and how to track down those who didn’t.

The surprise was that he used that skill to return something.

A truth. A thank you. A thread.

Sometimes, when the fog comes around and the world feels too quiet, I think about that night.

The man in the storm.

The diner that held its breath.

The tasbih that left my pocket, and maybe, finally, landed where it belonged.

Afterword:

This story was shaped by the quiet, often invisible moments where people choose compassion over caution, presence over safety. It explores the kind of faith that doesn’t always come with answers; only with the courage to sit beside someone in their unravelling.

In Islam, remembrance (dhikr) is not only an act of worship but a way of returning to ourselves. The tasbih in this story is not just a strand of beads; it is a thread of stillness, a pulse of identity, a reminder that the soul was never meant to disappear.

Tariq’s journey isn’t about redemption wrapped in certainty. It’s about being witnessed, and the possibility that this, too, is a form of mercy.

For anyone who has ever carried more silence than answers, or offered kindness without understanding the whole story, this is for you.

May we all be seen when it matters most.

— Saffiya H.