41

The Bleeding of the Spirit

TO THE CARETAKER OF THE sanctum of the East (who had set out for the four corners of the earth with hordes brought forth from some hidden bottomless repository), she went bearing in her arms the vile plot. Thinking that there was no way to extinguish the flames of war among the world’s nations without forging the ties of a brotherhood that she had embraced as her religion, she had taken him in as her own son. From this religion of hers she had woven a fabric into which she had once incorporated the Greeks and Europeans. Moreover, since she belonged to a nation which had exalted the female as its object of worship since time immemorial, she was unwilling to relinquish her religion. It was through the feminine that the Realms of the Unseen had rescued the nations from the madness of a man thirsty for murder, who would have put himself to death as well if he had found no one else to kill.

So, had she been betrayed by the intuition on which she had relied for so long?

No, her intuition had not betrayed her. On the contrary, it was the faithful interpreter of events as it always had been. It was Intuition that had led her to the stronghold that had first ignited the sparks of war. It had led her to the soothsayer stationed on the throne of the East, holding an effigy which she had thought to be a child worthy of serving as a talisman that would engender peace between them, only to learn that the “deal” she had concluded had been a losing proposition—on her side, at least—since Khalid ibn Yazid, the child on whom she had pinned her hopes, had left her in the lurch to become the cause of her downfall instead of the instrument of her salvation.

This was the first message the prophetic nightmare had conveyed. However, it had also contained another treasure which she dared not disregard. In the vision, the gift of the head stood out as a puzzle that resisted interpretation. At the same time, it promised to yield an abundant storehouse of knowledge if she dug as deeply and valiantly as the situation required. And dig she did. She held lonely vigil for days, challenging the hidden realities to make themselves known. She refrained from food and wore nothing but seamless garments.

In her quest to grasp the truth which the Realms of the Unseen had encrypted in the metaphor of the severed head, she veiled herself from others. She strained her spiritual gifts to the limit; had she not persevered, they would have failed her. The head is the fount of earthly governance, the receptacle of wisdom from which judgments proceed, be they those that give life or those that deal death. If such a tightly sealed urn containing the cryptic symbols of rulings and edicts had fallen as booty into another’s hands—severed from its source, washed in its own blood—this could only point to a serious error in the manner in which it had been put to use.

As for the act of picking it up and offering it as a gift to an enemy—not under duress, but voluntarily—this could only point to the relinquishment of a right, the surrender to a destiny which, in the tradition of prophecy, meant that she alone had brought about her defeat. What did this mean?

She plunged still deeper into regions unknown which, before long, yielded a spontaneous moment in which, overcome by a sense of utter futility, she relaxed, determined to let go of everything, including her very existence. As this occurred, the pristine truth stood forth in all its brilliance. Her eyes opened at last, and she marveled at how accessible the truth had been all along, wondering how it could have eluded her throughout that painful, frenzied, days-long duel.

Indeed, the truth was that when she succumbed to the wicked urge to destroy her blessed realm with her own hands, demolishing the throne of her glories of her own accord, she had betrayed herself. It was true that her people had forsaken her. However, the reason they had done so was that she herself had unwittingly forsaken them. In a fit of madness, she had demolished their fortresses and their blessed urban centers, burned their crops, and scattered their families. In so doing, she had demonstrated that when those endowed with visions are defeated, they are not defeated by aliens, but by their own actions. On that day, she had rendered judgment against herself. Perhaps she had simply not wanted to go on combating futility on this rusty side of the coin of ill-fortune, and the Realms of the Unseen had granted her wish.

Only then did she realize that she had long been entertaining the notion of exiting this world. However, she had been ignoring this because of her belief in the teachings of the lost Scripture, which urge believers to bear the burden of life in this world for as long as they can, knowing that a lengthy sojourn on Earth is an opportunity to tame the spirit in preparation for an indestructible joy that can only be attained through deliverance from slavery and release from the trap!

Had she committed an outrage against herself, unwittingly bringing about her own demise? Or had the muse that had inspired her for so long forsaken her on that day when, speaking through her, it issued the senseless commands that shook the pillars of her reign and heralded its end?

She had always questioned those inner whisperings and had done her best to defeat them. However, the inner whisperer is a malevolent guide that will not rest until it has driven its victim to surrender. This is what it had done to her predecessors who, exhausted from roaming across endless deserts, would turn aside, pillowing their heads on an empty water skin under the open sky, and go to sleep to grant their souls a measure of peace.

Exhaustion is a bleeding of the spirit, and for those whose spirits have bled out, there is no hope of survival.