‘I dunno. She hasn’t been saying much.’ The young man was crossing his arms and not making eye contact. He paused as an elderly man with an untended beard stumbled out from the cardboard construction that served as his home.
‘A name?’
‘I think . . . I think she said Sahar.’
‘Generally that’s the first thing someone should say when they’re asked who someone is.’
‘Jesus, why do you always have to be so nitpicky?’
The girl smiled at him, crooked teeth gleaming. ‘It’s fun. I’ll go in and talk to her. You can go and catch a fish in the creek or something.’
‘Hey, Tammy, hold up. Why do you think you’ll be any luckier than I was?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘What?’
‘Well, Timbo, you’re a little . . . how does one put it . . . terrifying.’
‘What?’
‘There you go, anyone outside us two would think you’re about to beat me up. That’s the problem. Did you even smile at her?’ Silence, and a mocking smile later. ‘Thought not.’
She walked the plains, a wanderer. ‘Not all who wander are lost’ – well, not in this case. She was as lost as a bird in war; overwhelmed by senses that couldn’t exist. There was no wind.
The mountains always seemed to be surrounding her, no matter how far she walked or which way she went. They loomed over her, shading the light, like they were providing some sort of mocking comfort. Imprisonment was in her best interests, they thought.
‘No. I will make this journey.’
The mountains continued to loom, grey as everything else, grey that tasted like soot. The wind didn’t start.
She stepped forward.
The tattered flap of the makeshift tent was lifted to reveal a girl with ridiculously frizzy blonde hair and blue eyes, eyes that collided with brown ones.
‘My name is Tamara, though Tim, the dickhead outside, will call me Tammy no matter what I say.’
Sahar flinched.
‘Is it the swearing? I’m sorry –’
‘That’s not . . . it’s this.’
‘What?’
‘This. I feel like I’ve been captured by ruffians or bandits or something. This place,’ she waved her arms in some abstract gesture, ‘is wrong to me. It feels like another country, and one I want to be out of straightaway.’
‘We could help you with that – if you told us what’s going on.’
Sahar mumbled.
‘Louder?’
‘I can’t go back! Okay? There’s no one who will take me in, or whatever your way of talking is.’
‘There’s no need to be dramatic.’
‘Dramatic?’
‘Okay, maybe the wrong word . . . but this isn’t the be all and end all. The government exists. It does its best to support everyone. You’re able to get help.’
‘Then why are you still here?’
‘Good point, but different situations. I’m not going back to my family. Full stop. You look like you have a reason though. I won’t ask,’ she quickly put her hands up. ‘You also look like the sort that doesn’t want to be asked.’
‘And your reason?’
‘Not a reason they’d accept. I’m not a fan of their system either.’
Sahar did not look any less wary, her lips firmly pressed together.
‘Look, you don’t have to like us. I often don’t love me very much either,’ Tamara said, laughing. ‘But we’re gonna look after you till they help you, whether you like it or not. I mean, you could run off, but that’d be stupid.’
At this, Tamara couldn’t tell the expression on the girl – but she definitely felt like Sahar was amused and simultaneously afraid; like she was watching some sort of funny train wreck waiting to happen.
‘I guess there’s nowhere else to go,’ decided Sahar.
Tamara grinned. ‘Welcome to the family.’
Dirty clouds hid a white sun. The ground was cracked into beige polygons. The air tasted like salt.
Sweaty knees hit the ground, and dusty black hair hung around her face, shutting off the surroundings.
‘I can’t go on,’ she said to the polygons. ‘There’s no point in living.’
I can’t even cry, she thought. The salt has dried up everything.
The resignation felt good, felt final. Things could end. Things should end.
Then, an ocean crashed on her skin. Her eyes shot up, wide and hesitant.
The wind had started.
Sahar looked behind her. There stood a tree that had not been there before. Branches reached outwards, like a believer in religious ecstasy.
It was gnarled. Leafless. Lifeless.
Except for a single apple that hung off the rightmost branch. It was red.
She lifted her body, her burden, onto one knee, then began to stagger-run towards the solitary tree. It only took a few minutes, yet it felt like the end of a journey. This would be her revelation. She was sure of it.
Except . . . except there was something else. Orange. Orange fabric hung off that branch, fluttering, twirling, embedded with sparkling orange tears.
Sahar stopped, stared, and ceased to move, hardly daring to breathe.
The clouds in the sky began to coalesce, forming into one wispy helix. Still she could not move.
Without warning, an olive-skinned hand, wearing a golden bangle, burst through the helix’s centre with the speed and force of an angry god’s wrath. It carefully plucked the fabric into its giant fingers, before elevating again into the sky, returning to a higher existence beyond any human reach.
Sahar did not notice that the force of the hand had pushed her away, forwards, to where she had been before.
She did notice, however, that her face was wet.
‘I will go on,’ she screamed. There was no point in living, not yet, but there was no point in dying either.
‘You have got to be kidding me.’
‘Honestly, it’s not that bad. I mean it looks really bad, but I promise it’s only mildly bad.’
‘It’s a dumpster.’
‘Suit yourself then.’
Sahar watched as Tamara eagerly climbed into the dumpster. Her hair, done into a bun, was barely restrained by a hairband that had probably been used by several generations, while she wore a hoodie covered in multiple stains. Tamara had given Sahar a hoodie with a large tear in the side to wear.
No matter how much Sahar wore it, it still felt wrong to her.
They were behind a supermarket. Sahar had shopped here before, once every few weeks. Whenever her mother ordered her to, due to ‘great savings’. Mum always had been a bargain freak.
Tamara took about twenty minutes. The smell wasn’t as bad as Sahar had expected. It was still bad, though.
‘Not the best today. Lots of plastic and off stuff. But hey, look, zucchinis! Moderately good bread! And thank the heavens, nice plums!’
‘Are you freaking out over nice-looking dumpster food?’
Tamara took the lead, and Sahar trailed behind her.
‘There’s always that op shop dumpster. You’ll be fine with that one.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Just try it at least once, alright?’
Sahar sighed exasperatedly. ‘You’re very persistent.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yes, Tammy.’
Tamara shook her head. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, Sa.’
‘That really doesn’t work.’
Tamara helped Sahar up, the latter girl gingerly making her way onto the dumpster.
Considering it was an op shop, it had a distressing amount of rubbish. They sifted through piles of clothing – tattered shirts with missing buttons, broken fabric – while sitting on the edges of the dumpster, on opposite sides.
‘Not so bad, is it?’
She didn’t give smug Tamara an answer. Her eyes were focused somewhere else.
‘Sahar?’
Between the rags, there was a flash of orange. Orange, orange, with sparkling orange sequins . . .
Shaking hands drew the fabric from its burrow. For a moment, Sahar’s face was empty. Climbing off the dumpster, she kneeled on the concrete. She drew the fabric around her head, covering her hair, taking time to perfect everything.
Abruptly, Sahar pulled it off and began to punch it. Tamara flinched, stranded, watching this confusing performance art.
Sahar punched the hijab until the sequins fell off.
In every religion it seemed to be a cave, a cave that started it all. This was a cave like any other, brittle and damp. However it was not dark; the cave stood atop a peak, sunlight filtering through a great hole.
Was this Hira, the cave where Gabriel appeared to Muhammad?
‘Is anyone here?’
As if she’d uttered blasphemy, Sahar was engulfed by a presence. It was as Muhammad had been: overwhelmed, terrified. A dull buzzing scream bounced off the walls.
Then, in a second and simultaneously an eternity, the presence seemed to step away, but nevertheless it poked her, as if it wasn’t quite sure what it had been brought. She didn’t feel like a pilgrim or a prophet anymore, but like prey. Is this what the prophet had felt? Taunted? A play-thing of superior beings?
‘I can’t be a prophet. I’m a sinner.’
She didn’t mean to say it out loud. A paranoid voice in her head whispered that she had been forced to say her thoughts, that the being would know anyway. It just wanted to humiliate her.
Now it was moving towards her. It was less like seeing it, more like feeling it crawl. More humiliation.
There was nowhere to go, and everything was inevitable. So there was nothing stopping her from shouting.
‘Why?’
‘Am I a sinner?’
‘Were my parents sinners? Please don’t make them suffer . . . don’t make them go to hell. They are still good people!’
The being stopped.
‘Please tell me it’s real. Show me it’s real.’
It seemed like, for a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes, even though she couldn’t see any. Then, she felt a soft touch tracing her shoulder blades, over and over, coaxing wings out from her skin.
An angel.
‘You truly are a good god. I was foolish to not trust your words. Please forgive me.’
She ran to the cave entrance, before jumping. It felt like being on autopilot, flying over the painting-landscape. And like a painting, the lines began to fade, until she was flying over a canvas, the only lines being hers. An infinite canvas, never-ever-never ending, where her wings left an ugly black smear – tainted black evil black engulfing black – and she was falling, or was she rising? She couldn’t tell anymore. But worst of all, maybe she was just flying, with no path or end, into nothingnothingnothing.
The nothingness began to erode, until Sahar could feel the tent nylon beneath her fists, and see the red dye through unfocused eyes, her head touching the floor.
She was praying.
That made her laugh. Until she was crying, her palm line rivers flooding.
‘Are you okay?’
Tamara was standing at the entrance, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, and beyond that, obviously concerned.
‘I failed. I don’t know anything more than before. I can tell there’s no more. This is it,’ Sahar said, trying to get control of her limbs. Unsuccessfully. Tamara was by her side in a moment, lifting her up.
‘You can’t find the truth that way.’
‘Why not?’ Sahar was indignant. ‘It felt real – realer than anything.’
‘Imagine a salt shaker.’
‘Doing my best.’
‘It’s pure chemical. Just like the DMT. Obviously, they’re different. But why would one reveal the truth?’
‘Why wouldn’t it? You don’t know.’
‘Well, no. I don’t know, just like everyone else on this planet.’
Sahar sobbed. ‘Then how will I find the truth?’
This was it. Now she was laid bare, a knife poised above an altar sacrifice.
‘What, you expect me to know?’
It wasn’t the answer she expected, but it was the answer she should’ve expected. This girl was not an angel, or a prophet, or a messiah, though in that moment she could’ve believed it. She was just some homeless girl, impermanent and ignorant.
‘You know what your problem is? I bet you’ve been told what to do your whole life. The streets are shit, but it has silver linings, one being freedom. You could leave or steal, help others – it’s your choice how you go about things.’
‘Your whole life, this is what you’ve believed – but don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s all a lie. It just means things can change. It means you have a choice. I heard you talking. Well, I don’t know what happened, but you’re no sinner.’
‘Don’t you talk to me about sin! You’re a heretic!’ Sahar stepped back, suddenly fearful.
‘I’m not what your past was.’
Sahar was alone. Again.
When I used to have trouble sleeping, I thought. I thought hard. I thought until my brain gave up, until my brain said, ‘You win’, exasperatedly, and I slept. Or I’d drink some pills. It had always made things easier.
Now, I had no pills, and I couldn’t give up.
So I went outside, silently stepping between the tents and cardboard dens, like they were sleeping beasts. A quiet kind of thrill set itself in my bloodstream. Out here, I could forget. I could forget.
The thought wasn’t helped by the figure standing on the creek bank.
Tamara turned around before I could sneak away. ‘Sahar.’
The voice was weary. I turned back and stepped through the grass, it lapping at my knees.
‘I’m sorry for shouting at you.’
‘I know.’
There was a light breeze navigating its way through the reeds and the leaves, over and over. A perfect cycle. A peace.
‘I’m just . . . I don’t know who I am or where I’m meant to go. I could distract myself before. Now I have so many glaring problems.’
‘They have to come out one day.’
I quirked my lip. ‘I suppose.’
‘You’ll find your way. I’m still finding my way. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.’
‘I guess that’s one way to look at it. It’s just – I want this to be over and it feels like nothing will ever change.’
‘It will.’
The stars shone on the water. Sahar smiled.
‘Let’s go to bed.’
Veronica is a fifteen-year-old girl from suburban Sydney. She’s been writing fiction for most of her life. Other than writing, she likes a lot of things: debating, human and animal rights activism, philosophy, running (away), admiring good cinematography, screaming over good poetry, fencing and thinking too much. She can recommend some good mental health professionals.
Veronica would like to have a scientific or humanitarian career, and alongside that, continue writing. One of Veronica’s main aims in writing is to make her audience feel and philosophise. However, in her eyes, there is a more important aim: she believes that writing is one of the greatest ways for a human being to express and cope with their own suffering and, in turn, give comfort and validation to others who suffer.