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You won’t believe me, but an angel visits me in my dreams. It tells me of things to come, of events unfolding both nearby and far away, of imminent tidings both good and bad. Because of this, I know whether my life is following the path that was mapped out for me.
I know you won’t believe it, because there was a time when nobody did. My own father called me a filthy swine-liar when I told him that a small red berry in his sister’s head would grow larger and redder until it burst and scattered her brain into dozens of berries, only for him to swallow down his words when my same aunt died of an aneurysm the following week. Next, I told my mother which servant girl’s pillowcase to search if she wanted to find her missing gold chain. And when naysayers continued to doubt my veracity, I told my uncle to start hiding himself in his youngest daughter’s wardrobe on Saturday nights if he wanted to know the reason behind the child’s recent violent fits of rage. No one disbelieved me after he finally witnessed, through a crack in the wardrobe door, his new son-in-law creeping into her bed while she was dead to the world in sleep.
All this is because of my angel. He has visited my dreams since I was a child. At first it was just a voice, a decidedly male voice, a honeyed, hypnotic voice, murmuring things I ought to remember. In time, the voice took on a form too beautiful for words. The face shone with a spellbinding radiance, gold-spun scaly wings encompassing the horizon against which he stood, eyes whose color were a gradient of hues, all iridescent with a glistening like sea foam.
I was the youngest child and a girl at that. I would have been shunned, overlooked, even maltreated had it not been for my angel, and indeed, before I started relaying his visions, I was. Once my words began to be believed, they were heard, even minded. Everyone accepted that I had the gift of knowing what was to come. Now, when my siblings found me playing with a rabbit or vole, their heads would swivel up and their eyes would search the skies to see if a hawk or kite loomed overhead. I was afforded special freedoms, was allowed to make certain requests my sisters were not. I grew up as one valued and sought after. Every night, in my dreams, I thank my angel for this.
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I became betrothed to Morteza last summer following my twenty-first birthday. Everyone from all sides of our families had heartily approved of the match as he was hardworking and handsome and strong. He came from one of the few families in our town that could afford a car. However, my parents wouldn’t have thought of uniting us had it not been for my own request. For, as you might have guessed, my angel had guided me towards him, too. As children, I hadn’t deigned to look twice at him, and there were other boys I preferred to play with. But I know my angel would not lead me astray. And so I asked for our parents’ blessings, and I allowed Morteza to court me.
And he did a rather fine job of it. He began by cycling over to our house with deliveries of freshly baked treats from his mother, and sat talking with my family in our living room for hours before I ever made an appearance. Once I descended the stairs, being sure to remain demure, he bowed his head before every adult and led me outside. He took me to get ice cream and we would eat it sitting on swings in the park. When he saw me admire colorful trinkets on display behind shop windows, he made sure to go in and buy them for me. He called the house phone without fail on Friday nights, careful to do so before my father locked our gates, a signal that all the women in the house were to retire to bed. On Sundays, he took me to his home to let me play with his nieces and nephews. And, a few months to the date that our families had sat across from each other and toasted to our union for the first time, he arrived at my door with a newborn lamb cradled in his arms for my own. My mother and sisters gushed and cooed at the silken ears, the dewy black gaze. Even I failed to subdue the delight in my eyes.
That night, rather than the park, the two of us stole away to the river. We undressed each other and I clutched at his back as he dragged kisses along my neck and navel. His hands kneaded my hips and I bit down on his shoulder, amazed at my own propensity for the carnal when all my life, there was nothing I yearned for more than sleep. We lay swaddled in my veil for hours afterwards, coming up with explanations we would give for why our clothes were so muddied.
From then on, we’ve done this every time we found a chance. The thrill of knowing we could be killed for this only adds to our hunger for one another. Whenever I shut my eyes and listen to the pounding of his strong, exhilarated heart as he is on his back panting, I almost forget that I am destined to lose him.
For that was what my angel had revealed to me, you see. In my dream last summer, this was his message:
You will seek out the eldest son of one of the wealthiest families in town, the one with the brownest eyes of them all. He will love you in ways you have yet to know. He will teach you things about yourself that many women never discover the pleasure of learning. You will be grateful for him. However, he is to be in your life only a short while. You will never experience matrimony with him. He serves a finite purpose, after which you will achieve something greater.
Nothing my angel has prophesied has not come true. I don’t know when my bond with Morteza will be torn asunder, or how. But it no doubt will, and after it does, I believe my angel will finally materialize before me. Not merely in dreams, but in consciousness. I’ve waited two decades to see him in life, and when he reveals himself, I dearly hope he does not regret choosing me for my gift.
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Today Morteza is taking me for a ride in his family’s car. He’s done so before, but this is the first time the two of us will be alone in it. The wedding is only a few weeks away. Our families feel assured that they can relax some of their rules. I’m excited myself. I’ve never been in a passenger seat before.
We are cruising along the gravelly roads, sand and stones crunching under the tires. Morteza does not drive too fast. We pass boutiques, food carts, street vendors, children climbing trees. We plan to drive around town and then find a field on the outskirts where we can eat the food we brought, like a picnic. I personally want a place like the river, but more secluded. I like how we lose control there. We’ve made it out of town now, and are driving up around hilly inclines, surrounded by grassy plains.
Something stumbles onto the road—a foal? A goat? An injured bird? It does not matter. Morteza swerves to the left to avoid hitting it, and even I can tell that in this instant, he has lost control. The car skids and whirls in many circles, jostling us about on the inside, and suddenly it’s flipped onto its side and skews all the way off the far side of the road, which also happens to be the edge of a precipice.
I black out for either a few seconds or hours, I can’t tell which, before I start to come to. My ears are whirring like a teakettle, my vision misty. But I can see out of the cracked windshield. The car teeters precariously over the ledge, half-on and half-off. I’ve banged up my head pretty badly; I feel something trickling behind my ears and I know it’s blood. Both mine and Morteza’s windows are shattered. That’s when I notice he isn’t in the car. I try to lurch forward to the driver’s seat, and a strangled yell escapes my lips: the movement feels like ramming a rod through my solar plexus. Haltingly, breathing through puffed cheeks as though I am pushing out a child, I unbuckle my seatbelt and crawl to the back of the car. Forcing open the door of the backseat, I tumble out, howling in pain as I land on the ground; somewhere, my body is fractured. Half-delirious, I continue to inch forward to look past the edge of the cliff.
I lean over and am staggered by what I see.
Morteza hangs below, bloodied hands gripping the branch of a tree that is growing sideways from where it has sprouted beneath the cliff. His face is desperate and its color is waning, scarlet cuts adorn his forehead and cheeks. His legs dangle, thrashing helplessly. Upon seeing me appear, he gives a shout, somewhere between shock and triumph. He is alive.
Alive! My heart leaps; I was certain he was done for. With what appears to be herculean effort, he lifts one hand from the branch and raises it towards me.
“Shauzia!”
I see what he wants me to do. I reach my hand down, as far as it will go, but suddenly realize with a twinge of dismay that it’s no use. This is it, the last prophecy the angel sent me, which he had forbidden me from ever sharing: this is how I will lose Morteza. A sob is drawn from my body as though freed out of a long-secret place. This is the end; I am to be the widow before I ever married. Our love will be remembered as all the more beautiful for its tragedy.
I watch, crestfallen as my betrothed struggles futilely against the brambles. There’s no way I can run or cry for help nor is there time. I can barely move. Morteza grasps onto my sleeve, his flesh meets mine. I begin to weep, knowing that despite how valiantly he tries, it’ll all be for naught. I squeeze his hand as best I can, wanting to preserve this last touch before it’s ripped from me. Tears flood my face, rinsing it clean of the blood; pink droplets rain onto his head. He’s taking in breaths, steady and deep, teeth bared, face wrought with concentration. Suddenly, he swings upward from the branch and seizes my wrist with his other hand.
This surprises me. My sobs pause. How can this be? Could he be defying the destiny that’s already mapped out for him? Eagerness etched in his face, he begins to climb up my arm. He meets my gaze with a stretched smile. Alarm drenches my insides. No, this isn’t how it’s meant to happen. My angel was clear. Impulse takes over, my body reacts on its own. My arm twitches violently, causing him to wobble. He is startled, but not distracted. He continues, bent on pulling himself upward, and then I can’t stand it and give my arm a mighty shake, inflaming my abdomen and almost sending him flying.
Now he cries out and stares up at me, speechless. The brown eyes I have learned to love, almost yellow, no, gold in their sun-painted amber, meet mine. Hurt and bewilderment lie there.
“Shauzia?”
“Morteza.”
How can I say it, tell him that this is what needs to happen? That though I love him, it isn’t to be, that I can’t achieve what I was truly made for without him out of the way? That my angel cannot be wrong, that if he is, my gift is false, if he is, I’ll cease to dream of him, he may never appear before me? I see the glassy moisture forming in Morteza’s beseeching eyes now, sorrow that he hadn’t allowed to consume him until he realized I was no longer on his side, and my own sobs begin anew. His hand is slipping lower. His lips are trying to form words; I realize I can’t let myself be swayed by them. Even now, part of me craves to fling myself down with him. Instead, I grit my teeth. I tear my eyes away from his and shut them as I release my grip.
⸛
I lie on my back, one hand clamped over my crushed diaphragm, the other stretched up above towards the sky. The noonday sun shines against my hand’s silhouette, gleaming off the slick, dark wetness it’s soaked in. I gasp for air, each movement sending shooting pains through me, but I’m smiling. Even as I cough up blood, I know I will survive.
This was a test, it must be. My angel wanted to see if I would ensure that he was never wrong. He needed to know that I was finally worthy of this power he has given me, the sole reason why my life has always been so much sweeter than what it could have been. I needed to earn this reward, to see him in life at last, to have my powers multiply. My vision is once again fading, but I think I see wings eclipsing the sun now, soaring towards me. The sound of beating feathers is the one thing that distracts me from the memory of anguished, pleading yells that filled my ears moments ago. I shut my eyes to wait, waves of exhaustion submerging me to protect from the ever-mounting pain, much as I fight to stay awake.
I regret nothing. Because even though what I’d just sacrificed was more precious than anything I’d had before, I was made for something greater. Something greater than gold.
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Areej Quraishi's fiction appears or is forthcoming in Entropy, Indiana Review, Parentheses Journal, Identity Theory, Cola Literary Review, JMWW and Reservoir Road. It has received accolades and finalist spots from Glimmer Train Press, CRAFT Literary, Salamander Magazine and New Millennium Writings. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington-Seattle and is a Black Mountain Institute fellow and PhD candidate at UNLV. She is the Editor of Witness Magazine.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska