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DEATH BEFORE BIRTH

James Harper

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In the last weeks of her pregnancy, she had become convinced she carried the devil; not a demon, not a djinn, not an evil spirit, she knew it as a devil. And Sue Tulsa had learned the difference between the castes of evil, because her family knew the importance of teaching the distinctions among the nether forms. After all, how could one expect to defend against or even ward off a being of iniquity without proper knowledge of its true nature or class?

That morning, those thoughts pressed on her more than ever while she strived to help her husband. Her instinct told her the baby she now carried caused his pain. As he lay stretched out on the living room couch, clutching his abdomen, she gathered her keys and purse. His screams filled her with ice.

She said, “The hospital told me to bring you straight away. By the time they route an ambulance, it may be too late.”

Caleb moaned louder. Losing control of his bladder, the cushions darkened as he released its contents. He growled with the torture.

“It – it’s unbelievable,” he said, “The pain. It’s –”

She reached for his forehead. “I know, dear, I know. We’ll get you to the doctor as soon as we can.” She stopped breathing through her nose to avoid the stench. Standing upright, she called to her son.

“Jake?”

No response. She looked down at Caleb, his face warped in agony.

“Jake?” she called louder. “I need you.”

From the upstairs, her son rushed down. “Yes, yes.”

He shot a look at the sofa then over to his mother. “Oh my god.” Caleb’s pelvis had begun to leak blood. A red stain streamed across the fabric of the couch, dripping toward the carpet floor.

“Do you want me to drive you to Suburban?”

“Yes, I’ll sit in the back with your father.” She handed him the keys. “Help me get him to the car.”

Together, they lifted Caleb under his shoulders, supporting his effort as he moved with feeble steps out of their home to the front yard to where the Panamera stood in their driveway. Caleb left a trail of liquid: blood, urine, water, across the lawn. Getting into the Porsche, the smell overwhelmed them.

“Oh my god,” Jake said.

Sue cradled Caleb’s red-splotched face in her hands, his temperature beyond any she had ever experienced. He groaned again, discharging more liquid; yellow fluid – pus and bile – joined the rest. She regretted not remembering a tarp. Or at least a bedsheet.

Jake started the car then squealed out of the driveway. The screech of the tires set her teeth into a grinding lock when he floored the accelerator. She didn’t speak on it, however; they could not afford to lose time.

Caleb screamed. She felt her skin quicken at his anguish, the sound of his pain curdling her heart.

She watched as Caleb’s entire GI system loosened, the rectum and anus unleashing fluid as his lower organs dissolved before her eyes. The foot well of the Porsche filled with fetid water, urine, blood and more as he flooded the back compartment with his ascites, the entire contents of his chest and abdominal cavity emptied into the car in the form of noisome liquid.

“Hurry!” she cried, though she knew it did not make a difference anymore.

She knew the baby she carried caused it. That thought echoed across Sue’s soul with certainty.

From the Suburban Hospital waiting room while the ER staff attended Caleb’s postmortem, she called Syed in Al-Awja. Her hand sweated against the metal and plastic of her iPhone.

“Caleb is dead,” she said after he answered.

“Shayel hamak.” A moment. Then he asked, “You think it’s what we talked about.” The remark hovered beside a question.

“I know it is,” she said. “I know it is. A piece of Satan has gotten into my womb.” She scanned the ER lobby for Jake. She would spare him what she had to say. For now.

“You know what the legend decrees –”

“Yes, yes, I do.” She sniffed back the tears that threatened.

“The jinin alshaytan, it comes once a century.”

“I know, I know.”

“Well, if you’re right and you are the bearer –”

Tears sneaked from the corners of her eyes. She said, “I know, I know.”

Syed said, “Have you – have you –”

“Yes? What?”

“Have you thought about a psychiatrist?”

“No. No way. Not after what happened to Mama and Baba. Out of the question.”

Later, she sat in the visitors’ area waiting for Jake to return with the car, a numbness washed over her ran as cold as the thing she felt in her womb. Pulling her thoughts from that random, she tried to recall the knowledge of all the legends of her homeland, that the devil cycles through every hundred years in the form of a newborn babe. It filled her with remorseful despair coupled with grim resolve for she knew the devil could only do so much as an unborn – she would have her will done.

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Sue realized she needed treatment, professional help, or she’d lose her mind, the pressure of grief unraveling her more than she felt she could bear. Rest, along with seclusion, would put her back on track before the overwhelming stress she’d suffered shattered her wits.

“Take me to Glenn Dale,” she told Jake.

Rather than go to St. Elizabeth’s, she checked into the Glenn Dale in PG County, once the prestigious mental sanitarium for the District, but now fallen on harder times. More seclusion and less visibility rather than status because the press and her adversaries in the public would find it harder to locate her in the latter than the former.

Also, she felt she must go to treatment; she had no other recourse, the events of Caleb’s death too brutal for any normal person to witness, her suspicions on how they arose, worse since that way lie insanity. No one would ever believe her. Not that they should; on its face, it held no rationality.

The mental hospital itself proved pleasant enough, filled with other folks like herself – troubled people trying to cope with a world that offered hardships at best or crippling crises at worst. Her ward housed thirty inmates, from the maniacal indigent poor to the well-fed nervous and discontented.

She spent most of her days wandering the ward or the grounds, allowing her grief and pain to settle inside, hoping that the advice on loss the doctors and other professionals gave correct. While most of the inmates she encountered showed polite, cordial manners — a kind of bland rote humanity — one showed hostility for no known reason.  Marjorie Salton, a middle-aged former business professional (office manager? retail owner?), appeared consumed with antipathy toward Sue.

“Watch your fat fucking ass,” she said with a bark the day their conflict started. They had been standing in line at the cafeteria, awaiting service from the non-motivated lunch staff. Sue felt a lurch behind her when Marjorie slamming into her back at the tray rail.

“Move it, you fucking sow,” she said, sneering.

The remark sank deep into her vulnerabilities. Despite the urge to cry, Sue stayed brave for more purposes than one. First, that bitch’d not see her weak; second, true sorrow, when she lost her husband, had preceded that moment.

After she sat with her lunch tray, another inmate, Alice, joined her. Sitting beside her, she reached out for Sue’s hand for a gentle squeeze.

“Don’t let Marjorie get to you,” she said. Sue looked to her. She smiled in a broad grin. “She’s the resident bitch.”

Fighting the tears, Sue croaked an abrupt laugh then swallowed it. She returned Alice’s look.

Alice said, “Every intake has someone who’s a Class A, full-on asshole. It’s as if they have a check list to fill. ‘We need a slut, a boss, a slob and a bitch.’ Well, Marjorie came in to complete our slate.”

Mimicking Marjorie’s speech, Sue said, “I know, right? Like why ya gotta be all mean and hostile, Moe? I ain’t got no beef wit’ you?”

They busted in shared laughter. Sue felt a release of tension she’d not known for days.

“So, don’t let her get to you,” Alice said with a wink. “I got your back.”

Closing her eyes, Sue touched her hand. “Thank you.”

That afternoon in group, as always, each patient got the opportunity to speak, allowing a daily vent for their feelings or concerns. Marjorie held the floor for her turn.

She pointed to Sue. “And this bitch.”

Eleanor, the group facilitator, asked, “Bitch? Margie, you know better than to —”

“I don’t care.” She frowned at Eleanor. Waving her hand toward Sue, she said, “I found out who she is. She’s a stone-ass bitch.”

“We don’t use those terms in group.”

“I’m going to anyway. I know who she is.”

“What do you mean: ‘you know who she is?’”

“She the boss of RTC Music. The heiress to the Al Mussallat fortune.”

“So?”

Marjorie shrugged.

“I don’t know what that means. What is RTC Music?”

“You seen the news; you watch TV, ain’t you?” She scanned the group. Seeing blank faces, she said, “RTC Music’s that joint that sues legit artists outta their songs.”

Eleanor said, “I don’t get you.”

Another patient, Liz, said, “What she means is RTC Music has caused controversy that’s been on the news lately.”

“What kind of controversy?”

Rose, another inmate, said, “The company sues artists for plagiarism.”

“So?”

Liz continued. “There seems to be questions about the legitimacy of RTC’s claims.”

Sue’s face reddened; she felt the heated flush of blood hitting her skin. She said, “That’s not true. Every lawsuit has standing.”

Rose said, “Standing maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s on the up and up.”

Everyone in the group broke into cross talk with all of the patients speaking at once. Eleanor lifted her hands to regain composure to no avail. She clapped her hands creating a loud report.

Eleanor said, “Okay, clearly, I’m in the dark here. I guess my lack of knowledge of current events in pop culture, along with my less than prolific taste in music, has left me without understanding. Will someone explain it to me?”

Marjorie began to speak when Eleanor cut her off. “Not you, Margie. Someone without skin in the game.”

Liz said, “RTC Music brings lawsuits against musical artists – many artists – claiming that the artist’s hit song is plagiarized.”

Kelly said, “Yeah, they’ve sued Beyoncé, Drake, Cardi B, Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, lots of them.”

“And this RTC — it wins the suits?” Eleanor asked.

“Every time.”

Sue leaned forward, placing her face on her thighs.

Rose said, “The word is the company just publishes music at random, then when somebody has a hit record, they sue to make money.”

“How is that possible?”

“The rumor is,” Liz said, “that her father —” she pointed to Sue “— built a computer program in the 90s that came up with every possible musical melody. A compendium of all the possible songs that could ever exist on the Western music scale. Then he copyrighted all the songs.”

“So, if I understand all this,” Eleanor said, “what you’re saying is RTC Music has a copyrighted catalogue of all possible songs that it uses to bring lawsuits against hit musical artist.”

Marjorie nodded.

“Yep.”

Rose said, “Uh-huh.”

Marjorie said, “And that’s bullshit.” She rose in her seat a few inches, pointing at Sue. “You know what else? Her name’s not even ‘Sue Tulsa.’” She barked a laugh, raising her fingers in air quotes. “It’s Subha Tullulah.”

Liz said, “Subha Tulfah,” correcting.

“Subha Tulfah. Whatever.” Marjorie crossed her legs, rotating at the waist to turn her face away from the group.

Pointing at Sue, Liz said, “There’s a lawsuit going on right now where she’s hitting Lil Drew for his song, ‘Sweet Stan.’”

Eleanor turned to look at Sue. “What about all this?”

Sue produced a card from her back pocket. “You know what?” she said, “I’m going to read you something my lawyer says in court with every suit we bring. It’s a quote from a famous brilliant musician, maybe the only genius in Music today.”

She read from the card. “Music is the most plagiaristic art form there is, and that’s because we can’t help it. We’ve got so little to work with! The Western whole-tone scale has like 12 notes in it. Only eight or less of them ever get used in a particular scale. That’s the chromatic scale. Eventually, just by the sheer mathematics of it, you wind up repeating other melodies.”

Shaking her head, Sue brought her gaze the women in the room. Looking each in the eye, she said, “I’m not sure why this has anything to do with any of why we’re here.”

Everyone spoke in the moment, the room a vocal cacophony. Eleanor raised up her hands again. “Enough!”

The women went silent but the room temperature dropped several degrees. After a beat, Eleanor said, “Sue’s right. In truth, this has nothing to do with our recovery here.” She looked to Marjorie. “In fact, I think you’re pushing your focus away from yourself so you don’t have to look at your own flaws, Marjorie. Why don’t we talk about that?”

The discussion had turned; Marjorie shot Sue a glare that threatened revenge. Sue’s eyes narrowed in response.

Later, the residents had an allotted time to ease out of the day, a space when they could relax for personal time. Facilitators explained that, in order to shed the tensions and anxieties of daily life, the opportunities for many bouts of mediation, or at least relaxation, should come in abundance.

Sue sat in the abandoned lecture hall, a relic from the days when Glenn Dale, then a research facility, taught classes. The auditorium, complete with over a hundred fixed students chairs, went unnoticed by the other patients, which suited Sue, as she found the solitude in the darkened open room comforting, a place where she could relax to decompress.

As Sue sat, closing her eyes, she heard the door open. Marjorie stood at the threshold, her silhouette dark against the light of the hallway. And what did she have in her hand?

“Bout had enough of your bullshit, bitch,” her voice low and threatening. She entered then pushed the door closed with her back.

She switched on the overhead. Sue saw the knife she held, a butcher’s blade, the kind used to carve roasts.

Marjorie ran toward her. When she neared, from within Sue’s abdomen emerged long, black tendrils stretching out to Marjorie. The arms looked black but transparent; she could see through them despite their obvious menace: the life inside her striking back.

The arms stabbed at Marjorie, who cried out while one tendril wrapped her throat, choking her. She gagged, air squeezed out of her lungs, the tendril pushing it from her body. The knife, now forgotten, dropped to the carpeted floor.

When an arm reached into Marjorie’s body, her skin broke out in boils. Her entire body became covered in lesions, each the size of a golf ball, erupting over every inch of her body. Her eyes swelled in pain as the boils pulsated in their growth, oozing outward and in while spreading across her.

They yellowed, turning a color that jaundiced her. The boils now plastering every inch, swelled and ebbed with throbbing life, causing Marjorie to drop to the floor, writhing in pain.

Then the boils ruptured, spewing the air with pus and blood to such a degree that Sue, the chairs, floor and walls of the room became splattered with viscera. Sue felt it splash against her face as she blinked back her vision.

She did her best not to vomit when she slid out of the auditorium in silent haste. Behind her, Marjorie’s limp body oozed fluid across the floor.

All the next day, the staff and patients buzzed about Marjorie’s mysterious death. Late in the afternoon, the official announcement came that she died of sudden natural causes, a freak seizure.

In the afternoon, Jake came to see Sue during visiting hours. They sat in the lounge while the other residents met with their families.

“I’m leaving soon,” Sue said.

He blinked. “Well, if you’re sure you’re ready. What do the doctors say?”

“That doesn’t matter, I’ve had enough of this place.” She twisted the cloth of her skirt as she spoke. “I’m not – not insane. But also, there’s too much going on outside that I have to attend to.”

“You mean the Lil Drew suit.”

“Yes.”

He drew a deep breath. “Okay. But Menendez says it’s all under control.”

“I don’t care. I’m not comfortable. The depositions start next week and I think I need to be there.”

He exhaled. “Fine. If that’s what you want. We’ll attend the depositions.”

“No, not you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What? Why?”

“I need you to do something more important.” She leaned toward him without breaking her locking stare. “You need to go back home.”

Now alarm swept his face. “Home? Wait, why?” He shook his head.

She moved her chair closer to him, their knees touched. Lowering her voice, she said, “You need to go see your Uncle Syed.”

“Syed? But why? I – I don’t understand. It doesn’t have to be –”

“Do you remember the story we told you when you were a boy? The story of your ancestors?”

“The story of Akram and Sadak? The Tale of Sadak and Kalasrade?”

“Yes, exactly. Jake, I have the devil inside of me. I’m carrying a devil.”

Jake cocked his head to the side staring at her.

“Listen to me,” she said, her tone deepening, “I mean it. I’m carrying the devil.”

“The devil? Do you even hear how that sounds?”

“I don’t care how it sounds, it’s true. I’m not – I’m not crazy. It’s a devil – or a div or an asrestar or a daeva, I don’t know.” Tears emerged from her despair.

Jake took her in his arms to console her. “I think I understand.”

She cried for long minutes, the exhaustion and fear coming in gasping sobs. “After everything I’ve been through, I need you to do this for me. I need you to fulfill our heritage.” She stood.

Leaning above him, she said, “You must bring me the Waters of Oblivion.”

*

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Landing at the Baghdad airport, Jake squinted against the brightness of the day. This portion of the world lacked the greenery of the America he had grown up in, its brown and dung-colored land looked sterile by comparison.

Uncle Syed stood at the gate with a grim smile. Both knew what lie ahead, neither looked forward to what awaited them. It would take another two hours by road to reach Syed’s home in Al-Awja then many more beyond.

“Jakeem, my nephew,” he said, opening his arms. Then he turned to his companion.

His cousin, Tariq, stood next to Syed. Jake smiled. All three embraced in an all-encompassing hug as Jake met them.

“Tariq, I didn’t expect to see you here,” Jake said. “I mean – to meet me at the airport.”

“Cousin,” Tariq said, smiling, “how could I not? After all, how long has it been? Years?”

“Yes, too many. I’ve missed you.”

He nodded. “And I you.”

Syed said, “Let us get your baggage.”

Jake shook his head. “No need.” He raised his backpack carryon. “This is all I brought.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I don’t expect to be here long. Not if I can help it.”

Tariq held his arms out. “Then let us make the most of the time you’re here.”

At Customs, Syed flashed a badge at which the official headed the line nodded. They turned to walk toward the airport exit. Tariq leaned on Jake’s shoulder to whisper, “As the Keepers, we don’t have much but we do have some freedoms.” They passed through Customs unmolested.

“Did you bring them?” Syed asked. “The –”

Jake’s smile stopped his question. “Yes Uncle, I have them.” Syed returned the grin.

Syed shot a glance around the vicinity. Then, with a wink, he pulled out his Ghazis to light one. He exhaled the first puff, smiling. Jake saw an idea ignite his eyes as he offered the pack to him.

Waving his palm, Jake said, “No thanks, Uncle; don’t smoke.”

Syed shrugged then replaced the pack to his shirt pocket. As they exited the airport building, Jake braced himself for the expected heat of the Iraqi day. But, when walking to the daylight, the warmth of the weather surprised him. In the DMV where the springs and autumns lasted a whole fifteen minutes, he grew up with summers that alternated in a mere two kinds of hot: Blast-Furnace Hot and Surface-of-the-Sun Hot. Here, however, the humidity lacked the intensity of the Washington Metro area. Iraq weather did not match the cloying stickiness of DC.

They came to Syed’s vehicle, a 20-year-old Toyota Monica, pocked and scarred with each punishing year in the desert. Climbing into the back seat, Jake smelled the ghosts of long-dead Ghazis.

Starting the engine then the much-welcomed air conditioning, Syed said, “Let’s have them.”

For a moment, Jake forgot. Then remembering, he poked his hand into his backpack to withdraw a fistful of Snickers. Syed attacked them with glee. In seconds, he had one unwrapped in his gluttonous mouth. Raising the handful of American candy, he spoke through the mouthfuls, “These I save for later.” 

Two hours to Al-Awja then arriving at Syed’s house, Jake suppressed his disappointment. It had been years since he had visited his relations – boyhood, in fact – but the look of the home far exceeded his lowered expectations. He knew his family came from a poor area, but, when he saw the home, his heart dropped into his gut. The house, built of clay brick and found stone, resembled an abandoned ruin more than a residence.

Entering, the warm, plush interior belied the outside. “Where’s Aunt Salma and Zada?”

Tariq’s face went cold.

“Gone,” Syed said. His grim eyes discouraged Jake’s next question.

“Tomorrow’s gonna be a long-ass day,” Tariq said.

“Yes, yes. Best to eat well, drink long then sleep hard.” Syed raised up a bottle of arak. He winked at Jake. “We won’t tell the Prophet.” He handed a glass to Jake who tasted its sweet anise flavor. Not his first time partaking the liquor but never so fresh as from the homeland.

Early the next day found them driving hard into the desert, well beyond any remote hint of civilization. The land surrendered to little more than brown dirt and scrub, its barren appearance foreboding to Jake’s sensibilities.

After many hours driving, Syed stopped the car at a stone-clad hill beside a dry wash. The temperature had soared during the journey, the sweat on Jake’s shirt evident the instant he exited the vehicle.

Getting out of the SUV, Tariq gathered empty goatskins on to his shoulders. The straps padded for reasonable comfort against the upcoming weight of two gallons carried over many miles, colorful patterns of embroidery decorated their surface. A lion straddled a shield with laurels entwining it.

Jake marveled at the decoration. Tariq said, “Our family crest,” he smiled, “The Seal of Akram.” He handed more to his father and Jake.

Jake loaded his share on his neck and back when Syed said, “We retrieve as much of the Waters as we can. This will be our only trip out here for a very long time.”

“Really?” Jake said. “How long has it been?”

Looking at his feet, Syed only said, “A very, very long time indeed.”

The outbound hike took many hours, stretching from the morning into the rising heat of the day, the hot soil scorching Jake’s booted feet, the barren dirt unforgiving in its searing nature. He mopped felt his face for what seemed like the hundredth time that hour as the sweat flooded his face. Sulfurous miasma greeted his nose hiking into the Iraqi wilderness; Jake gagged at the stink.

“Does it get any shittier than this?”

Tariq just shook his head. “Bear with it, my cousin, we go through the worst of it now.”

After they had walked for some time, Jake said, “I think I need to be clear on what I’m doing.” Syed looked over from the ground to Jake, raising his eyebrow.

“I mean, I remember the stories Mom used to tell when I was a kid.” He turned to look at Tariq behind him. “But that was a long time ago. I think I need a refresher.”

Syed said, “You’re right.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Tariq said. “A long time ago, round about the First Millennium, a Persian named Sadak lived very comfortably in his palace estate with his beautiful wife, Kalasrade.”

Syed said, “Sadak and Kalasrade: a greater love story has never been told. Indeed, their love endured and survived hate and oppression and wrath and jealousy.”

“Not to mention the corruption of toxic power from the overlord,” Jake said. “I remember that.”

Syed nodded. “It is said that Kalasrade was the most beautiful woman in all the world. All who beheld her, were smitten by her beauty and grace.”

“Yeah, she was hot. Fire. Everyone wanted to bang Kalasrade, especially the caliph.”

“Yes. The sultan of Sadak’s land, Amurath, was a most evil man. He lusted after Kalasrade. He coveted her fiercely.” Syed mopped his face with a towel. He replaced it to his back pocket.

Tariq said, “So much so that he plotted to get her away from Sadak.”

“So, he devised a scheme to separate them.”

“By burning down their fucking house, bro.”

“Indeed.”

“The sultan gets his spies to set fire to Sadak’s home and, in all the confusion, he loses Kalasrade.”

“Who’s then abducted by those same sultan spies.”

“They whisk her back to the palace of the sultan where he cloisters her in his harem.”

“But he cannot take her outright.”

“Yeah, if he does that, he violates the Sharia and risks his immortal soul.”

“So somehow he must get Kalasrade to agree to consummate his lust.”

Jake squinted in the blistering sunlight. He said, “That’s pretty fucked up.”

“No shit.”

Syed said, “But Kalasrade begs – pleads – with Amurath to allow her to see her beloved Sadak again.”

“But our boy’s having none of it.”

“He commands her to submit to his will. But she rightly refuses.”

“Finally, he asks what can he do to dissuade her.”

“That’s when she demands the Waters of Oblivion.”

“At last,” Jake said.

“The legendary Waters of Oblivion, the Miah al Nasyan, will bring forgetfulness to the drinker. Anyone who drinks the Waters forgets their ills, all their troubles. In fact, everything.”

“It’s kinda a memory eraser.”

“The sultan, knowing full well the true love between Sadak and Kalasrade, realizes he has to agree.”

“Yeah, she just ain’t going give herself over to him unless she can forget Sadak. But, plot twist: after the sultan agrees, who should show up at his door?” Tariq pulled the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead.

“Sadak,” Jake said, “I remember this part.”

Jake stared outward toward the brown-dirt wasteland that stretched before them. He sighed knowing that hours of empty, scorching drudge still lay before them.

“Yes,” Syed said, “Sadak is desperate to locate his beloved Kalasrade. So, he goes to the sultan to beg for his help. Not knowing the sultan himself’s kidnapped his wife, Sadak, faithful servant that he is, goes the sultan to ask a boon. He pleads with him to send his soldiers across the land to find his fair Kalasrade.”

“Irony, eh? The sultan’s got her stashed away in his harem the whole time.”

“The sultan says, ‘Sadak, I will find your Kalasrade for you if you complete the mission I am about to set you forth upon.’”

“And, of course, Sadak says yes. He’ll agree to anything to get Kalasrade back.”

“The sultan says, ‘You must retrieve the Waters of Oblivion for me.’”

Jake said, “Oh fuuuuck.”

“I know, right,” said Tariq.

“So Sadak traveled far to the west to seek and obtain the Waters of Oblivion.”

“He finally found them just west of here in Al Anbar.”

“But he needed help, which he received from our famous ancestor, Akram the Wise.”

“Yeah, bro does him a solid.”

“Akram leads Sadak to the Waters of Oblivion, deep in the western desert of Al Anbar.”

“Al Anbar?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. West and north of Ar Rutba and Najaf.”

“A desolate and perilous region.”

“Good thing, too. The Waters, while not well known, are kinda valuable.”

“But not considered real.”

“Right. It’s mostly thought of as a myth, something lost to the ages.”

“Like an infidel fairytale.”

“Akram, our blessed ancestor, stood fast to the task of guarding and preparing the Waters. It was his lot –”

“His charge, father.”

“Yes, yes, his charge – to protect and safeguard the Waters. He was truly Alharis Almuqadas Lilmiah, the Keeper of the Waters. This task he passed to us, to his descendants through the many years.”

“And one we will pass on as well.”

“As knowledge of the secret whereabouts of the Waters has remained in only our family –”

“From generation to generation –”

“Down through the centuries.”  

They came to a mountain in the desert. Syed and Tariq stopped while Jake caught up to them. He followed their gaze.

Syed nodded toward it. “Our journey’s end.”

Jake looked from the mountain to his uncle. “Really? This is it?”

Tariq said, “A cavern inside that shit’s where we will find Miah Alnasyan, the Waters.”

At the mountain within a crease in the rock, they moved with some difficulty through a crevice. For several hundred feet, they squeezed their bodies across the escarpment into the depths of the rock until all sunlight disappeared within the cavern. Then the crevice opened to the cave where the Waters awaited.

The site of the Waters of Oblivion surpassed Jake’s imaginings, the lush green of the oasis, though small, appeared in stark contrast to the desert beyond. Here, trees and undergrowth stretched to the stream of the Waters and back. The creek emptied into a pool. Jake marveled at the sight.

And the smell. Jake drank in aromas and scents he had never before experienced, a wondrous atmosphere that bathed his senses in instant comfort and a warmth to his soul. He imagined that heaven itself smelled like this.

“Wow,” he said, the best he could mutter in his awe.

Tariq said, “I know, right?

Syed held out his hands. “Behold the wahat eayilia, the water source of our ancestors.”

Strange, Jake thought, that he saw no animals present, not even fish. The whole area looked free from fauna. Shaking his head, he squatted to fill his skins.

Tariq showed his palm. “Stop, wait.”

“Yes,” Syed said, “we must first bless the Waters.” He opened his satchel to produce a weathered book. Clad in leather it appeared ancient to Jake, its pages by turns brown and yellow. He then brought out a stone from the purse, a dark red carnelian rock the size of his fist. He manipulated it while speaking. “Before we can fetch our birthright, we must first prepare our path forward.”

“Be careful to not touch the Waters.” Tariq withdrew thick rubber electrical gloves from his backpack.

Jake said, “What? Is it like acid?”

Syed said, “No, nothing so mundane. But, do not allow it to touch the skin. But, yes, their touch brings more than forgetfulness. They bring death. Remember to tell your mother. To drink is okay, but not to bathe. For they are truly waters of oblivion.”

Many questions flooded Jake’s thinking. “What? How we gonna fill the skins?”

“Father has the plan. Akram and our forbearers gave us the method.”

Syed began to sing in an old Arabic tongue Jake had never heard. For long minutes, he chanted the words, reading from the book while he suspended the carnelian over the stream.

As Syed sang, Tariq motioned for Jake to copy his actions. In slow, deliberate movements, wearing the electrical gloves, Tariq opened a skin then lowered it by its strap into the stream. Then, once filled, he pulled the skin from the water to screw it closed with care to not touch the water itself.

Jake mirrored the effort. Syed continued the chant in the forgotten language, holding forth the carnelian as he sang, the men loaded the skins, bag after bag, until they stood surrounded by their endeavors.

Still singing, Syed moved around the edge of the bank, his hands outstretched with the carnelian. He moved close to Jake then slipped on grass near the pool edge, falling to his knee. The stone fell out of his grasp; he cried out.

Jake caught his hand, grabbing his wrist as he clasped the carnelian. Jake managed to maintain both Syed and the rock, his grip tight on them. The stone warmed to his hand; did it glow for a moment beneath his palm?

Syed regained his footing, still singing. He stood with more care, taking the stone from Jake. Once secured, he waved the carnelian over the dozen and a half skins to finish his incantation.

“We must wait for the water on the outside of the skins to dry,” he said, sitting on the ground. They ate dates and fruit while the hour passed.

The hike back to the car proved more strenuous, loaded down with full skins, the trek more laborious. They strode across the blistering ground where the heat rose in waves of undulating hell. Silent, without talking, they made their way over the empty terrain.

At one point after two hours, Syed said, “Akram knew to give us this boon, praise be his name.”

“Praise be his name,” Tariq echoed.

After a look from his cousin, Jake said, “Praise be his name.” His awkwardness stayed with him the rest of the hike.

The SUV had remained undisturbed during their trip. Few others had cause to venture out into the western Iraqi desert, evident by the sweat and pain Jake felt all over his body.

Driving back to Al-Awja, the talk became more spirited with the feeling of a well-completed mission. Jake shared a comradery amid his family, one he had no chance to experience in America.

They returned to Syed’s house, spent and exhausted. After unloading half the skins – the rest Jake would take to the States – the three sat in the living room parlor, eyes closed to fatigue. Jake drifted into an easy slumber, his mind at the edge of dreaming.

A cry from Tariq woke him from the reverie. He saw his cousin clutching his stomach screaming, his face twisted in pain, he looked at both Jake and his father for help.

His skin blasted sweat outward. His clothes drenching in seconds; all the secretion in his body evacuated him at once. Sweat poured from every pore and out of his mouth and ears and eyes. His skin and muscles shriveled while all moisture abandoned his form.

“What?”

Jake didn’t know what to say; didn’t know what to do. Helpless, he watched Tariq shrink, mummifying before his eyes.

Syed reached out toward his son then froze to scream himself. All at once, the blood in his body exploded from him. Every orifice – his nose, his mouth, his eyes – gushed blood out from him, the fluid bursting, covering both Jake and Tariq in a red shower.

Syed’s face showed his despair. He said to Jake, “The stone,” his voice little more than a croak.

Scanning the room in a glance, Jake saw the carnelian laying by the skins. In a flash, he grabbed it to bring it to his uncle.

Tariq, now a shrunken desiccate, dropped to the floor dead, his body thudding as his head popped from his shoulders. Jake moved to Syed, blinking away the blood that showered him.

Rasping, Syed said, “No.” He pushed away the carnelian in Jake’s hand. “Too late for me,” he said, the blood spurted from everywhere in his body, his pores now streaming blood.

“Now – now, you –” he clutched Jake’s forearm. “Now you must become the Keeper of the Waters.” He fell dead to the floor, shriveled like his son.

Covered in blood not his own, Jake stood staring for long moments looking at his dead relations. He put his head in his hands, he crying for them, his tears the last shed for the end of his line. He vowed never to let go of the sacred stone of Akram.

After long minutes, he gathered the skins from their adventure in the desert. Once he washed up, he’d return to America.

*

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Nancy Menendez had explained to Sue her belief that clients should never attend depositions, an unbreakable rule for her. So, when Sue insisted on attending the deposition of Andrew Meyer – Lil Drew himself – she defended her view.

“It will not please you. There’s nothing that will happen in the depo that will give you more than you already know, you’ve nothing to learn from it.”

Sue expected the protest. “Look, I want to be there. I need to –”

“No, there’s nothing you can get in the deposition room that I can’t provide for you later, outside the deposition room.” She sighed, the purpose of which to show her patience eroding. “I have a hard and fast rule about this. You know that.”

“But –” 

“Can I ask you a question?” Silence. “Let me ask you this: what do you have to gain by attending the Meyer depo?”

“It will give me eyes on, something I need right now. I mean it.”

“Okay. I understand. I get it. Especially after everything you’ve been through lately. But, listen Sue: that hit you’ve taken isn’t going to help you when you go through the stress of a deposition.”

“Stress?”

“Yes, stress. That’s all a depo is is stress. Stress for us, stress for the defense, stress for the witness. Hell, it’s stressful for my assistant and she’s not even in the room. Sue, it’s stressful for everyone.”

A beat.

Menendez continued. “You know what? I think it’s even stressful for the court reporter.”

Another beat.

“So, I don’t think you need that in your life right now, after all the grief and suffering and pain you’ve been through. That you’re still going through.”

“All right, all right,” she heard her own resignation. But the truth – that the tumult around her had exhausted her – lie in her attorney’s words. “Can I at least meet with you after the deposition? Face to face? In your offices?”

“Yes. Of course.”

She knew she could get that concession. But she dare not tell her counsel why she wanted it.

In keeping to her secret plan, she did not meet with Sarah Menendez afterward. In the lobby of the sumptuous law offices of Menendez & Warnock, LLC on Connecticut Avenue at Dupont Circle, she waited for the defense counsel and his client, Lil Drew, to arrive where, at a normal time, the concierge would call the valet for their cars.

Her phone buzzed. She saw Jake’s name light the screen.

“Are you back?”

“Yes, but –”

“I know, I know. It bothers me, too.”

“Bothers? Mother –”

“No. Listen: this is the devil.” She gripped the iPhone tight. “I must – we must destroy it. Wipe it away.”

“All right. I understand.”

“Set the ritual up in the master bedroom bath. I’ll be home soon. I mean it.”

“Yes, Mother.” He clicked off. She turned her attention to the dog lawyer and his dog client approaching.

Since the deposition had run so late, darkness had fallen by the time they entered the lobby. Sue watched when they exited the elevators, the day so late the concierge had left. The stairwell to the garage below stood at the end of the lobby behind Sue. They approached, talking and smiling and laughing while they interacted, making Sue feel uncertain about Menendez’s effectiveness. She dismissed the disappointment; she’d deal with that later. As Lil Drew and his counsel, Clarence Smith, strolled away from the front desk to the indoor garden in the lobby, the trees, ferns and other greenery would shield her from their sight for her planned confrontation.

She did not mean to do much but she intended to get this off her chest, out of her system. She had had enough of this nonsense brought on by an adversary who stood no right – the music matched to each exact note, no difference – that she would not brook further anxiety. Her plan – to break adversarial protocol by speaking to her opponents – would garner rebuke from Nancy Menendez but would ease Sue’s extreme stress. Besides, she did things her way, always.

They approached the main lobby then she moved in front of them. Clarence Smith’s eyes widened.

“Ms. Tulsa, it’s very inappropriate for you to be here. In fact, I’m sure your counsel has advised you against any interaction of this sort.” 

Lil Drew said, “This the lady tryna to steal my money?”

Smith laid a hand on Drew’s shoulder. “Let me handle this.”

When he took a step toward Sue, a transparent black tendril reached out from her womb, stretching toward Smith while another extended toward Drew Meyer. They looked on in fear as dense pillars of smoke wrapping about them like phantom snakes without substance.

But, when the tendrils touched the pair, both men writhed in pain, their voices crying out while their faces distorted in anguish. The columns dove into their bodies, driving in and out as they gasped with each movement.

Sue watched the act, the men now on their knees, helpless under the onslaught of the arms that penetrated their forms. Smith gargled a protest but the sound from his throat loss all articulation when his skull softened.

The tendrils began turning their bones into liquid.

The men’s forms lost all solidity as their frames became looser, collapsing with Sue looking on. The larynxes, dependent on the structure of the neck for proper function, now failed at all ability of coherent speech, their voices burbling cries of incoherent torment and bewilderment.

Smith’s hands flailed when he tried to move them, the limbs flapping in useless motions against his sides. He dropped to the floor, his legs sagging without strength.

Now powerless sacks of skin and fluid, the men sank to the floor while their skeletons degenerated to water, the effect causing the legs to lose rigidity, their faces muddled blobs of meat. Black smoke poured upward from them, the air filling with the acrid stench of burnt carbon; columns of thick dark fumes billowed toward the cathedral ceiling, their bones liquefying beneath the skin.

They slid to the ground, their clothes enveloping their now melting bodies. Without skeletal structure, their attempts to move their arms and hands as futile as their efforts to speak, their limbs flopping about like empty rubber bladders drained of contents.

Drew’s form slipped to the marble floor, sliding across the stone as a pool of bloody fluid. He scowled at Sue, the hate behind his eyes riveted her attention. She returned that hate as she witnessed his slow destruction.

Both men now no more than puddles of flesh pooling on the stone floor of the building lobby, Sue watched while they lie in languid slabs of boneless flesh. Their eyes still locked on hers, the hatred still livid in their stares.

They began to wheeze, their lungs collapsed to gelatin. Without the structure of the ribs, the organs ceased proper function. Both men drowned before her, unable to breath in their now liquefied forms. Mere skin bereft of framework, the pair lay at her feet, bodies lacking bone.

She kicked Drew’s skull-less head as she walked out of the building. The men pooled on the floor for the next four hours before they died, gasping for air that came in slow, minimal breathes, dying by inches.

––––––––

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At home later, she prepared the Waters for the ritual, gathering the predetermined items: the basin, the drinking vessel, the cloth, the oils. Then she felt the jinin move again. It hurt; the pain felt as though it scraped against the inside of her uterus, a slow, dull scratching that pulled along the internal material of her womb.

She looked on as, again, ethereal black tendrils reached out from within her, out into the room. She thought since the house vacant except for Jake in his bedroom on the other side of the home, this time the fetus could do no harm. But no. The transparent arms continued to stretch out, beyond the bathroom, far beyond her line of sight. She felt the strain of the distance, as though lifting a weight in her outstretched hand.

From Jake’s room, she heard him scream. Abandoning her ministrations, she rushed to the upstairs third-floor bedroom. Jake’s cries grew louder, more intense. Her pain intensified. With her hands, she supported her swollen abdomen while running to her son.

In his room, Jake had fallen to knees, his body prone on the floor. He groaned and gasped, writhing on the carpet.

“Mama,” he said when she entered, “help me.”

His back twisted while he extended his hand toward her.  His face contorted into a mass of anguish, she saw that he had already vomited, the contents of his stomach a fetid puddle in the corner.

“Please.” His face a warped anguish of pain when he spoke the words.

The tendrils from the devil inside her groped him, twisting about his form like the caress of a potter’s fingers in clay, the movements sliding in and out of Jake’s body, penetrating him with psychic blows of soul-stabbing violence. Jake crawled to where his mother stood, his motions slow and agonized. She watched in horror as he inched toward her.

At her feet, his neck bent back to look up at her, she saw his skin began to loosen. The edge of his forehead slid from his hairline, the skin dissolving away from the bone underneath.

The tissue of his arms and shoulders also started to slip away from its attachment to the bone. His skin melted right before her eyes.

His flesh lost all solidity, softening while she looked on in helplessness. His face dripped like the wax in a candle jar left burning overnight, his skin a turgid sludge sliding away from the mooring of his skeleton.

She saw the skull beneath his face come into view, the bloody white of bone appearing from beneath the dissolved skin that flowed from his body. His cries wrenched her core as he groped in agony at her feet.

“Help me, mother,” he said, “I can’t –”

The rest became lost in a sputtering of mire as his condition betrayed his attempt to speak. His voice now a slush of guttural nonsense from his throat.

The muscle of his back fell from his shoulders, liquefying to drop in clumps on the floor, the plopping dollops of runny flesh hitting the ground as great blobs of his body fell away from him like molten metal from a foundry crucible, his skin splattering on the wet surface at her feet. 

“Mother, mooom –”

Then he lost all ability to speak. His jaw, now a clacking bone striking the teeth above, still striving to talk, the bare mandible slapping against the roof of his denuded mouth.

As the meat of his face dripped away from the skull, his entire throat – larynx, tongue, genioglossus – fell to the floor with a sickening wet plod. His face a leering skull, he had become a living skeleton. But his look still showed cognizance, his eyes alert and aware. His gaze held his mother’s as she saw the bone beneath his face looking back at her in lost hope. She watched his despair matched by suffering; his torment met with misery.

The smoke-like tendrils seized him in a tighter grip. His head howled in a now-silent scream as the black arms pummeled his form, stabbing in and out with ethereal hatred. She felt the loathing from within her venting toward Jake while the manifestation inside her consumed his flesh as a parasite might liquefy its victim before devouring it.

His hands and arms, now just the bones of his tibia and metacarpal, moved about her legs as he tried in vain to seek comfort. She felt the fingers scrape against her when he touched her skin.

His muscles nothing more than foaming bloody muck, his skin a pool at their feet, the internal organs of his chest and stomach ruptured from his body in a slow putrefying flow, sliding away from him in a sloshing descent. She saw his bloody ribcage and the organs beneath as his stomach and intestines unwind onto the floor. The heavy organs splashed as they struck the liquefied skin that lay in a viscous pool of melted human matter and waste.

The flesh of his body gone from the bare skeleton, the muscle liquid gore at their feet, Jake’s form kept together by no more than his cartilage and his will. Blood and skin mixed in a puddle of human slop as he melted.

The last of Jake’s body, untethered to the human solidity than once knitted him together, clattered to the floor while he continued to command her gaze, his eyes looking about with sentience. But he had lost all ability at movement. No muscle, no tissue existed in solid form to allow for human grace of motion.

Still the jinin would not permit the release of death. Now a living skeleton, silent but conscious, alert but helpless, Jake could only lie in the broken form he had become.

She knelt over his body for what seemed like hours, weeping. She cried for her son, hugging herself at times. Despite the stench of his offal, the reek of his loosened viscera, she sobbed for her only child.

After a time, she rose, wiping her tears with her palms to return to her boudoir. She must finish the ritual. Now more so than ever, she craved the release the Waters of Oblivion would bring.

Undressing, she went to the basin, a vessel of elaborate design, wide and round, capable of containing gallons. She opened the skins Jake had retrieved from their homeland in Salah ad Din. Groaning, she lifted the heavy goatskin to touch the lip to the edge of the basin then poured with care the sacred Waters. Emptying the skins, the Waters appeared as none she had ever seen, thick, black, with the smell of Heaven itself. The aroma soothed her senses as she closed her eyes to the sensation.

Once she filled the basin from which she would wash, she drew more of the Waters into an ornate goblet. Drinking from this, she sought to wipe the pain of the past days – the pregnancy, the death and the loss – from her troubled mind. And the jinin. A part of her hoped the Waters would erase that evil as well, make the thing also forget so as to forget its malevolence.

She lifted the goblet above her head to speak the ritual words, a litany of blessings to sanctify the rite. These had been passed down from the ages through her family line from Akram himself. Only their line, only their family, knew them.

“I beseech the Great One in the name of Sadak, whose profound bravery and might discovered then retrieved the Grand Miah al Nasyan. Bless their purpose this day that I shall escape into their embrace.” Then she drank.

The Waters tasted strange. Not foul, not off but strange, as if fruit had fallen within to cast its sweetness upon it. It appeared as a black translucent, like no other water she’s ever seen: thick with the scent of paradise. She tended to the bathing next.

Taking a cloth, she dripped it into the basin. The jinin within her, already moving after the draft, began to stir in earnest. She felt as though it meant to register its protest at the ritual.

“I’ll have none of that,” she said aloud. “This is meant for me and I will have it. I mean it.” She continued the bath.

The feel of the Miah against her skin ignited a sensation, its touch an invigorating jolt of life that thrilled her. She had not expected this. Perhaps for this reason her forefathers kept the Waters safe over the generations. She moved with haste now as her skin hungered for the bath.

The jinin alshaytan within her kicked and punched, scratching and objecting to the cleansing. She felt his effort double in a few minutes.

“No, you’ll not have this. After all the grief and suffering you’ve caused, I will prevail. Soon, soon – as the Waters stand fast, I will have my liberation from your memory. And you. Your evil will be wiped clean.”

Looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, the Waters had made her glow. She saw a light surround her. She looked at her hands, rotating them before her eyes, marveling at the luminous shine.

Now looking to her feet, she saw that they did more than glow. They began to burn. Why did her feet feel on fire?

The fetus moved with more violence, pushing and punching with such force as drop her to the tiled floor. She fell on her butt, her legs splayed outward.

Searing pain burst from her lower extremities, from her toes upward. Reaching toward her feet, she saw them darken, turning gray, then ashen, then black. Her skin crackled as it blackened with flakes and bits of skin peeling away from her body, the matter of her being uncreated itself, becoming undone. She watched her body decay before her eyes, decomposing while she looked on.

“Oh my,” she gasped as she gazed at her feet. They had begun to disappear, burning without flame to charred stubs then evaporating into the air. She smelled methyl sulfide.

While she watched her legs begin to rot, they darkened then turned an ashen grey before drifting into the air as dust. The pain consumed her, the torment unlike any she had ever experienced. She could feel the cells deaden and decay as the process proceeded, the breakdown of her body paining her inch by intolerable inch.

Then the rotting moved upward toward her head. The deterioration edging across her thighs toward her groin. The whole room smelled of rotten eggs. It felt as though each cell, each molecule of her being, decomposed, as though microscopic invisible whirling blades chopped her skin piece by blood-soaked piece, grinding her into a forced decomposition.

She watched as her body rotted before her, almost as though it cremated – broke down, degenerated then disintegrated – in an instant. Even without the actual fire, it felt like a blowtorch against her body.

Now passing her pelvis, the march of decomposition crept upward beyond her now decaying genitalia. The pain making her blink at the tears that flowed unrestrained.

“Oh,” she cried at the feeling, “oohh.”

The tissue of her abdomen rotted, blackening into putrescence. From within her, the fetus began to punch, to kick, she felt the skin of her belly pulled from the inside as the devil clawed its way out. It pulled and grabbed at the meat of her body to emerge from within her.

The skin of her belly blackened then evaporated into the air as the fetus, the jinin alshaytan, pulled itself from beneath, its grasping fists full of her black, rotting tissue. It moved like a bloated slug on her exposed womb, now open to the air. Its mottled skin black and indigo by turns, its surface moving, changing in color by the moment. Wet and slimy, it slid and slipped about to face her, opening its eyes as she watched. A stale, musty odor, of the kind she smelled every month before her pregnancy, met her senses. The abomination from within her held her gaze with the hate of eternity. As she stared back at the loathsome being she once bore, she saw its evil in all its awful perfidy. The torture of her psyche now matched the pain her body underwent, the iniquitous monstrosity she had carried now leveled its animus toward her.

Then it crawled toward her head.

With slow deliberation, the hateful fetus inched to her, pulling itself up across the front of her body, grabbing her loose, dissolving skin in impossible clutches. It grappled her abdomen then her breasts in a perverse mockery of an infant’s cuddle.

In measured movements, it grappled upward toward her face, its red, glaring eyes full of unbearable antipathy. While her abdomen rotted, the jinin had managed to escape the decomposition to now present itself as an unstoppable being of evil.

“No,” she moaned.

She watched the tendrils that had emerged from within her before now appear from inside the baby. Transparent though black, they writhed and reached around in the air above its tiny body. It used the horrid arms to pull itself closer to her, closer to her face.

The arms pulled, the jinin’s body sliding up her chest, its rank smell blinding her as much as her inconceivable pain of the living decomposition which now came like wave upon wave of convulsion. The thing crawling, its movements slow, clawing and inexorable. The smell weakened her even as her desperation to breathe air grew beyond her limits. She needed to breathe, to take in restorative oxygen but the stench that surrounded her – the decay, the slime, the fetus and even the afterbirth, now open to the air, all exuded an odor that made breathing itself repellant.

Still, the obscenity from her womb moved upward toward her using its tendrils to haul its loathsome form to across her breasts. Rushes of agony belted her body as the procession, along with the dissolution of her frame, brought continuous waves of anguish without end. Now her pelvis began to burn away in the rot of unrelenting purification. She saw particles of black material – the substance of her being, her very cells – float upward, drifting into the room like black ash from a bonfire. 

The decaying sped up; the process of her disintegration started to increase. The stench of feces filled the air. She felt her stomach then her chest cavity break away from her, the meat of her body now ash and soot for the air.

Then, the jinin, the atrocity, lay full on her face, its fetid breath worse than the malodorous stench already in the air. It placed its toothless mouth on the skin of her cheek.

Now it began to suck. She heard the gulping of its swallows as it consumed the skin then the meat of her face. Beyond the image so close to her eyes, her body continued to decay at an increasing rate, now flying into the air with no limits, the smell, dead tissue and decomp, overpowering her.

Then the devil, the jinin alshaytan, evaporated into the room as the last of her body followed it. She realized her wish for oblivion futile, pointless even as it came to fruition.

She died as the cosmos obliterated her existence. Her desire for freedom fulfilled, the Waters had brought oblivion – but not the sort that affected memory, the oblivion from reality itself.

“With Oblivion death goes hand in hand.”

The Tale of Sadak and Kalasrade