An Afternoon Away

Nasir was going to have a mental breakdown if he didn’t get out of this house.

And with the way the news was running these days, it didn’t seem like he was going to get that chance anytime soon. A viral outbreak had caused a global shutdown, no school, no shopping, and definitely no hanging out with his friends. All he was allowed to do was stay locked up inside, with endless nagging from his parents to stop moping around and do something beneficial with this free time.

Beneficial? Yeah, right.

How could anyone even concentrate when the house was in constant motion? The kitchen fan droning, the vacuum constantly humming, and his father raising his voice to be heard over the shoddy phone connect to family back home.

It was hopeless even trying to think.

Nasir groaned, slumping in his chair and pressing his palms to his eyes. A teenage boy shouldn’t be locked up like this, it was worse than cruel.

“Nasir!” his mother’s voice shouted over the noise of the house.

“Yes, Mama.” He called back, drudgingly sliding his chair back and heading to the kitchen.

His mother was standing next to the stove, stirring a pot that bubbled red soup. The smell coming from the pot made Nasir’s mouth water and his stomach clench in hunger. The sharp smell of spices and herbs melting together in the pot was an irresistible combination.

“Run downstairs and get me a bag of flour please.”

“How much longer until dinner is ready?” He asked.

“I’m just going to make the dumplings and then we can eat.”

He nodded and made his way down the stairs. It was funny to think about now, but when he was younger he used to be frightened of going to the basement alone. Despite it being well lit and entirely carpeted, there was something sinister about basements once the sun had set.

Nasir padded down the thin hallway and opened the pantry, stepping inside before turning the lights on. He caught a whiff of something odd, something earthy. Like the salty smell of the beach. Nasir turned around and looked for the large flour bag that usually resided in the corner. He had to shut the door in order to reach it.

But it wasn’t there.

He moved towards the corner and felt grains brush against his feet. Nasir looked down and noticed a sprinkle of yellow particles dusting the carpeted floor.

Was that…sand? It couldn’t be, he rationalized. Maybe a bag of semolina burst and his mom missed this area with the vacuum.

Frowning, Nasir felt a warm breeze blow through the narrow pantry, ruffling his wavy hair. He took in a sharp inhale.

There were no windows in the basement, no source for a breeze to originate.

What was happening?  

The light of the pantry flickered and his heartrate soared. He felt his chest heaving, a slow, pinching headache begin to pulse at the side of his head.

Staying at home all day really was driving him crazy.

It was time to get out of here, flour be damned. So with determination and a hint of fear, Nasir grasped the handle of the pantry door and turned, pulling it sharply and tripping past the threshold.

He misstepped and took a tumble. Falling face first into the floor. A puff of dust clouded the air as he met with the carpet. No, not the carpet.

Sand.

Nasir lifted his head and stared in absolute, horrified awe. He was looking at an endless horizon of open desert. Hills and dunes and mountains for all he could see.

What the hell? Where was he?

Pushing himself to his feet, Nasir stood on shaky legs. Was this some kind of simulation? Was he in a dream? Was this a hallucination?

He turned around, looking for the door that he had tumbled through but there was nothing behind him. Nothing but the vast empty desert. The heat of the hot, scorching sun against his skin. He wanted to scream, wanted to cry, what was happening?

A muttered curse caused Nasir to jump back, the sound of someone else’s voice breaking him out of the internal screaming that was occurring in his head. He had not heard their approach but whirled around to find what he assumed was a young woman.

She was entirely covered, draped in swaths of cloth, fabric wrapped smartly around her head, masking her face and identity with it. She wore wide, billowing legged pants that tapered at the end and had a waist belt with too many sharp looking objects tucked protectively between the folds. All her could see were her eyes and the way they squinted at him with mistrust.

She barked something in Arabic and Nasir took another step back, raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. His Arabic was rusty at best and with the stress and fear that currently coursed through his blood, he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

In was the strangest thought, but he really wished he paid more attention to the Arabic lessons his Sunday school teacher taught.

“I don’t understand,” he tried, stumbling over his Arabic like he was a child. The words unfamiliar and hesitant in his mouth.

“Who are you?” She asked in response. This he understood. He wasn’t entirely hopeless.

“My name – I’m Nasir,” he shrugged, not knowing how to convey anything of importance. He tried English this time. “I don’t know how I got here. I was at my house and then suddenly I just appeared here.”

Her eyes eased slightly, the sharp edge dulled and to his surprise, she replied back in accented English. “You just…appeared here?”

“Yes! You – you understand me. I want to go home. Where am I? Is this some kind of virtual reality?”

She cocked her head to the side, questioning. “What is a virtual reality?”

Nasir shook his head. “Never mind, I just – what is your name? Can you help me get back home?”

She stuck her chin out, standing tall and meeting his gaze. “My name is Amal and I, too, am trying to find my way home.”

“Amal.” He said, a small smile appearing on his face. “That was my Teta’s name.”

He saw her eyebrows raise in doubt. “Your Teta?”

“Yes,” he looked down, shuffling his feet. A sudden tightness grew in his chest. “My grandmother – she passed away a couple months ago. She was really sick.”

Amal dropped her piercing gaze and muttered a prayer of condolence.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “She was the most amazing person in the world. My best friend and I wasn’t –” he choked over the words. Swallowed against the dryness of his throat and tried again. “I wasn’t even there when she died, I – I didn’t get to tell her…”

Tears burned against his eyes and he kept his eyes on the floor. What was he doing? Crying to a stranger about his deceased grandmother? He should be worried about getting home, not spilling his feelings to a hallucination.

And yet something in his chest told him to trust her. Something in him wanted to talk.

Amal sighed and then nudged her head towards a jumble of rocks. “Follow me.”

Nasir sniffled and rubbed at his nose before following her across the short distance.

“Sit.” She said, gesturing to the uneven surface, “Tell me about your Teta.”

Nasir lowered himself to one of the smoother looking boulders, the warm desert wind blew through the air and whispered across his face. He hunched his shoulders, kicked his dangling legs back and forth. Amal remained across from him, crossing her arms and keeping her dark eyes trained on him.

“She has lived with us ever since I could remember. Had.” He broke off, looking away for a moment. “She was always there for me. Always had the best advice to give, the smartest ideas to share, the most adventurous stories to tell.

“She told me about her childhood, how she used to play in the dirt and climb the houses and jump from the tops of the roofs with her brothers and sisters. And then when she got older and it got dangerous, she had to run away and escape through the mountains and hills with nothing but the supplies they could carry.

“And then she came here and had to learn a new language and a new culture. And sometimes she would miss home so much, she would teach me how to make her favourite meals and she would sing me her favourite songs and she would show me pictures of her life when she was a little girl.

“And then, she got sick. Really really sick." He paused for a long moment. Reliving the moment in his memory before speaking it out loud for the first time. "We had a big fight. I was upset because she wanted me to stay home when all my friends were going out. I had already stayed at home with her all week. But for some reason she wanted me to stay that specific day. It was like she knew something bad was going to happen. But I didn’t. I didn’t listen. Instead I said some awful, terrible, mean things to her. Then I snuck out to be with my friends.”

Nasir hung his head in shame. His face burning from more than the ruthless desert sun.

“And then?” Amal asked, her voice soft and understanding. “What happened after that?”

“And then I got a call from my mother, she was crying over the phone saying Teta’s name over and over. I ran home as fast as I could. I felt like I had swallowed my heart and it was stuck in my throat. But when I reached, they had already taken her to the doctor, and she was in a coma. The guilt I felt was so awful. My stomach hurt so badly and I felt like I wanted to throw up.

“I just wanted to see her one last time. I just wanted to say sorry for the terrible words I said. But I didn’t. I wasn’t able to. And then she died, and now she will never know how sorry I am.”

Amal shook her head in sympathy. Tears were flowing down Nasir’s cheeks and he scrubbed angrily at them with the back of his hand.

“I’m such a terrible person.” He whispered, more to himself than to her.

“She knew.” Amal said finally. “Your Teta knew you didn’t mean those words. She knew you would regret them. And I think – She forgives you, Nasir. Your Teta forgives you.”

Nasir’s lips trembled and he clenched his jaw to stop their shaking. “You don’t know that.”

Amal’s eyes brightened suddenly, “Oh, but maybe I do.”

Nasir shook his head. “I just want to go back home.”

Amal nodded, turning to look at the distant horizon, the sun beginning its descend for the day. “And you will.” There was a finality to her tone, something that made a shiver run along Nasir’s spine. As if she knew something he did not.

She took a step closer to him, her eyes ebony and shadowed now. Nasir sucked in a breath, his heartrate beginning to rise as he noticed the small changes happening around him. The wind started to pick up, throwing waves of sand particles into the air, the once clear sky started to cloud over. A chill ran along his skin and yet Amal seemed unaffected.

She was close enough to touch now, though Nasir kept to himself. He was paralyzed with fear again, with anxiety, unaware of his surroundings.

Amal held her hand out and Nasir flinched instinctively. Her fist remained suspended in the air, right in front of him. And strangely, he registered the unnaturally weathered skin of her hand, the creases and cracks where smooth skin should be. He tilted his head to the side, trying to piece together what he saw.

“Take it.” She said, her voice drowned out by the growing winds.

Nasir took a second before he opened his palm and reached it towards her. She dropped the item clutched tightly in her fist. It was a gold coin. Shiny, flat, unmarked. Thin as paper and fit comfortably in his hand.

“Farewell, child.”

The wind pushed against him, Nasir was shaking now, cold in a matter of seconds.

“Where are you going?” He asked as she turned and took a few steps away from him.

“I was lost,” she said, still faced away from him. “I forgot my path but I think I know where I need to go now. I know how to get back home.”

“Wait –” he tried to call out but was cut short.

A spray of sand blinded him for a moment and then darkness washed away his sight.

Nasir took in a deep gasp of air. His heart pounded against his chest, his head ached with a severity so strong he thought he might go blind, and his limbs left like iron. Slowly, taking deep breaths, he pushed himself off the floor and leaned against the wall.

He jumped at the contact. A wall! He looked around, blinking back his confusion. He was home. He was in his basement, a few feet in front of the pantry, the door left ajar.

“It was just a dream,” he whispered, gathering his bearing as his headache subsided and his limbs began to relax. “It was just a terrible, awful dream.”

And yet Nasir couldn’t help but feel a weight lift from his shoulders. A secret he kept close to his heart, that tormented him for the past months since Teta had died. Maybe he just needed to talk about it. Maybe he needed to share the feelings that drowned his chest with regret and shame each night. Maybe it was finally time to talk about her.

“Nasir!” his mother’s voice rang from upstairs. “What’s taking so long?”

Nasir shook his head and stood to his feet. “Coming, Mama.”

Something tingled in his palm. He looked down at it, hadn’t noticed that his left hand remained in a closed fist the entire time. Nasir felt a hitch in his breathing, a prickle in his blood.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he uncurled his shaking fist and stared down at the perfectly circular, smooth gold coin.