Am I a cheap bastard my Angel, he said smiling with that beautiful smile that made her heart beat faster.
Of course, not she answered while throwing herself into his arms. How are you, she whispered her head buried against his collarbones.
I am well and so happy to see you in a single piece, he said.
She found out that he had been informed about Abdelkader’s visit and his intention to see her and scare her off. She also found out that the Head of Boko Haram in Nigeria had asked both Abdelkader and Manas to step up the operations in the UK. It would seem that they wanted to have a significant event on the 5th of May at Westminster to mark their stronghold in the UK. The earlier bombing had not been significant enough and they had received confirmation that the bombing had not been strong enough to completely destroy the tracks and Transport for London would be repairing everything in a matter of weeks. They had hoped to cause more damage than that and that is why the Boko Haram cell in Nigeria was connecting with the followers in London to inflict more damage, especially at that date as the next day would see the crowning of the new King. They wanted to make sure those plans were thwarted.
- Why are you telling me this, she said
- I am telling you so that you do not take the tube that day and the day after as more attacks may follow above ground.
- What if I told the ATU or the local authorities
- If you tell them then we will both be dead. There are several Muslim policemen and a few of them are followers of Boko Haram although you would not know this by looking at them. The information is bound to come back to them and if they identify you then this would lead them straight to me and they would report me to the cell in Cameroon or Nigeria.
- I can imagine I would be dead but why you`? Aren’t you their leader in Cameroon?
- My credibility took a blow when you informed the authorities about the projected bombing of Westminster after I had informed you. This time I will not be able to escape suspicion as most of the cell members know that you are my girlfriend. They will be sure that it was me who informed you.
- Why do you not forego this life my love. I am sure that if you gave it up the ATU might actually be able to use your skills to catch other terrorists. You are an incredibly intelligent man and I know you have the physical capacity to keep up with ATU members
- I cannot do that my Angel. This is the life I have chosen for myself because our countries have suffered under the colons and Muslims have been repressed for so long. In Cameroon the situation flares up sometimes and we have to make ourselves heard. We have to be a force to reckon with so that the West may listen to our demands.
- I thought it was all about killing kafireen and increasing the number of Muslims
- That too, my Angel but also letting the countries that do not allow Muslims to practice their faith properly know that they may not continue what they do.
- But the UK is not one of those countries.
- The UK has another purpose. It is an important financial center. Our purpose is to cripple the most financial centers the West has and then put at the forefront those centers that Muslims are backing. This is also why I was in Dubai. It was possible to assess how far Dubai could go. I also went to Malaysia to assess whether they could take over parts of the operations.
She fell silent. She simply could not understand how a man as intelligent and loving as Manas was could be a terrorist and align with the dogma taught by them. She understood in part the anti-colonial aspect as she too came from two countries where colonialism had left deep scars in the countries and the looting by colons had impoverished them. Yet she could not see herself as capable of being a terrorist. Then again, if she kept quiet about the projected bombings, was that not terrorism by absence of communication to the authorities. If she did mention something, though, she would not even know if she was mentioning it to one of the followers of Boko Haram who had infiltrated the police. It could also be Al Shabab followers. Should she risk her own life in order to save people she had never met? Would it be possible for her to live life without any regrets if she did not mention it at all and attempt to stop it?
Manas could see she was torn between different decisions so he took her by the shoulders and told her that it would not change a thing as they would just change the date and both of them would be dead for nothing. He tried to make her see that it would all just be pointless and their families would also suffer from the fact that they would no longer be alive.
She pulled away from him. She felt all at once exasperated with his convictions and so drawn to him that she only wanted to be back against him again. She told him she was not sure she could just leave things as they were even though she risked being killed. She could not let him be killed though and she knew for having undergone it how horrible their methods were when punishing someone. They would no doubt punish him much more than they had punished her as he would have been the cause for their plans to fail. She threw her arms around him and cried against his chest. I know it is difficult for you he said and held her closer.
Wael Kfoury ... Kifik Ya Wajaai
A terrorist to love – part 10
12 February 2023
The driver grabbed her by the arm and took her to the cab. He lowered her head before pushing her into the cab. It was so symptomatic of how policemen put their prisoners into their police car that she wondered if he was a policeman on an errand for Boko Haram. She looked up at him after he had sat behind the wheel again. She could see in his eyes a flutter of recognition of what she was thinking. At the same time there passed in his eyes like a shadow of guilt and that persuaded her that he was indeed a policeman but perhaps also a hired gun for Boko Haram. He lowered his eyes so that she could not decipher anything in them.
- You are an English cop, right, she said
- I am in no mood for your mind games, he answered
- No mind games at all. I would just like to understand
- There is nothing to understand. I am a devout Muslim and am doing my part to cleanse the world of the kafireen (non believers). We will soon prevail. Our numbers are growing and we have struck into the heart of the financial system in the UK. The same will happen also in the US and other western countries who do not respect our religious beliefs.
- How can you kill people who are also God’s creatures. Is Allah not merciful and desirous of preserving the creatures he created?
- You know not what you say. Shut up you poor excuse for a Muslim. You have no right to speak of Allah and what Allah wishes for humanity. I know all about you and your involvement with the ATU. I also know how you bewitched Manas and weakened him first in Cameroon and then now in the UK. My superiors may not think much of your prowess, but I can see how you are bringing down a great man and an excellent strategist for our Jihad. If I were to have my way, you would not last long and Manas would then be fully occupied by our Sabil (way) to the higher realms.
She chose to keep quiet as she realized that the driver was a zealot and he might kill her if she went too far. He visibly had no respect for the Boko Haram hierarchy and was only drawn to the cause in order to be able to kill the most kafireen as he could. She had seen countless times men like him, so devout to the cause that they would take matters into their own hand regardless of whom they were supposed to answer to. Their leaders were of course unable to punish them overtly as they would then be questioned on their motives and might also lose a large part of their following if it were known that they had castigated a devout follower because he had killed a kafir. There were fine lines within Boko Haram just as there were in the ATU. In reality, the two organisations had quite a lot in common although they were working on opposing sides.
Her mind drifted back to her time at the ATU when she was charged with finding Manas and either bringing him to justice or making sure he died. It had been at a wedding of one of Manas’s cousins and she had yet gotten the order to take him down regardless of who else died with him. She had realised at that time that she would not be capable of doing that and hurting several people who were very likely innocent. There had not been any intel, indeed, on the cousin who was getting married and in all likelihood he had nothing to do with Boko Haram and most of the marriage party were but innocent bystanders. She remembered her boss’s anger at the fact that she had not planted a trigger and left but there was no way she could have done such a thing. She had killed many people but it had been during face-to-face confrontations with terrorists and other armed followers.
She lifted her eyes again and caught the driver looking at her. She looked away, not wishing to ignite again his fury against her and his anger at the thought that he was not allowed to kill her. She could see from the corner of her eye that he was still looking at her seemingly ruminating murderous thoughts about her but she chose to steadfastly look away waiting for them to pull up to her building. Soon enough she found herself next to the building and the driver came out, opened her door and tugged her out of the car unceremoniously. She let herself be hauled out and quickly started walking towards the building hoping that he was not following her. She heard the car start before pulling away and sighed a sigh of relief. When she reached her flat, she could see that someone had got in. The rocks that she put in front of the door to check whether someone had got in were moved about. She opened gingerly the door and looked into the room. She did not have any weapon with her. She decided that if anybody would have wanted to kill her it would have already been done by Abdelkader, Younes or one of their followers. She went right into the flat yelling come out now you cheap bastards. Her heart skipped a beat as Manas emerged slowly from between the plants on the balcony…
Sweet Blasphemy – Dhafer Youssef
Elixir part 5 – A new generation of Melancholists29 January 2023
Courtesy pinterest.com
The Supreme Guard of the Melancholists reached out to Amelia in the early hours of the next night saying they would escort her from her home to Melancholy, ensuring that she would not be bothered by General Stein or his men. Although this seemed like a great solution for her safety, she also realized it would mean her giving up the secret of her second home to the Supreme Guard and she would then be either under surveillance or easily taken out of her home with no possibility to react in time as they would have the knowledge of exactly where she lived.
She phoned them back saying she would meet them in front of the second exit of Melancholy to the back with all the vials she had made. In the end, they had to accept her conditions as she was the one who held the solution to the chronic problem of dying teenagers in Melancholy. Amelia took all the vials of Elixir and put them in a couple of plastic bags which she placed carefully in her sling bag. She headed out of her apartment from the window of the 1st floor which gave directly on a straight ledge and slowly lowered herself to the ground from the pipe that was tapered to the wall leading down from the ledge. She looked around but could see neither the General nor his men. It was true that she had only rented this home a fortnight ago so nobody would know about her whereabouts yet.
As soon as her feet had taken the first step outside of the security of her home, she quickened her pace almost breaking into a run. She walked hurriedly along the early risers in her town who were mostly farmers bringing in their crops from far away, bakers hurrying towards the making of the daily bread and beggars eager to catch a loaf of free bread or some groceries which were left over from the night or brought in by farmers. At the end of the street, she could see some people who looked like neither of these usual early risers; they looked like trained mercenaries. While it was mainly General Stein and his men who pursued her for the Elixir, she realized that there could be others who wanted to just steal some vials from her and sell them on the black market.
She rushed on, heading to Melancholy that stretched beyond, shining dazzling gold and green, sometimes rainbow colour as it shone on. She could now see the backs of General Stein’s men. She stomped on the Earth, trying to make as little noise as possible while she sunk into it. She counted several hundred meters before she emerged again, all the while alerting the Supreme Guard that she was penetrating the grounds of Melancholy. She always had to notify them that she would be stomping through as she would otherwise be electrocuted by the energy field they surrounded Melancholy with in the air and within the ground. They did not want anyone to sneak into Melancholy without them knowing it. As she emerged, she could see the Supreme Guard on one side and on the other side the Melancholists both young and old. She realized that these were only the Elders of Melancholy and their young teenagers.
Amelia rounded up the Melancholists present and told them to stay around her in a circle within the grounds of commemoration where a slab indicated yearly the sacrifices of the Melancholists. She asked them to open up their noses and mouths and to also press on their sides, concentrating on their hearts. She mentioned that it was necessary to do all of this at the same time to maximise the effect of the Elixir. She arranged the Elders to one side in a semi-circle and the teenagers to the other also in a semi-circle. They all silently did as they were told and waited around her with abated breath.
She took out of her bag three vials of the compounded Elixir and put them on a slab of stone in front of her. She prayed slowly the prayer of cosmic healing and broke the first vial. She could feel the Melancholists take in a sharp breath of the Elixir. She broke the second vial and could feel all the Melancholists chests dilate while their minds seemed to break into a humming of contentedness. She prayed again and broke the third vial of Elixir and could feel a pulse heave through the Melancholists before a wave of energy shot through the crowd of Melancholists and seemed to implode into their ranks then breaking through their ranks lending all their bodies a shiver. She looked around her at the Melancholists and all she could see was youth and beauty everywhere. She smiled and the Melancholists smiled back at her. This was now a new generation of Melancholists. Her potion was much more potent than she ever thought it could be…
Lisa Gerrard & Marcello De Francisci — 'Until We Meet Again' (Official Video)
She knew she had to alert the Terrorist unit that had been hers for so many years. She picked up her other mobile and called the head of the unit. After an exchange of salutations and a few pleasantries, he asked her what the purpose of her call was as she had been excluded from the unit by her boss who had asked the head of the unit to refrain from speaking with her anymore and to ensure other members of the unit also did not exchange with her. She answered that an attack might be imminent in Westminster but she did not know for sure there would be trouble. She explained that it was expected that individual cells from Boko Haram and ISWAP would meet at the station and perhaps things could go awry from there. He asked her for a few other details and finally told her not to worry and that the unit would be ready for them the whole day and the couple of days after that if they did not arrest them the same day.
After hanging up, she wondered whether it was really the best choice. She had no idea whether Manas would also join the Boko Haram cell. After all he was the head of Boko Haram in Cameroon and he might need to prove his value to the headquarters in Nigeria. She wondered whether she should call him and tell him not to join the meeting but she had already broken her burner sim and she was not sure she would have enough time to get a new sim so she just typed ATU coming on her phone and hoped that Manas would see it in time to avoid the Westminster meeting. After that she ran to the shop to purchase another sim which she used to call the other number for Manas. The phone rang several times but nobody picked up. She kept calling, all the time worried that something happened to him. Suddenly she saw a message flashing on her normal mobile. It said “OK, out”. She felt so relieved that he was no longer in any danger.
She wondered what was happening with the other members of the two cells. She tuned into the frequency that the members of her old unit used to use. The satellite phone she had was able to link into the frequency and she heard everything her old team was saying. Funny that they had not changed the frequency after her departure, she thought. The head of the unit probably thought she would not remember it but he visibly did not realise how good with numbers she was and underestimated her incredible capacity to learn strings of numbers without any problem. She was not just a tactical part of the team, her ability to leverage a person’s psychological issues in order to turn them away from what she wanted them to stop doing was considerable and had made her boss interested in deploying her in the Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU).
When she was in the ATU for Africa, she had been able to decipher several transfers of money using her pattern-matching capacities. It was thanks to this that she had been able to establish that several transfers coming from high-ranking officials in Qatar were funneled into an Islamic organization that professed to be a non-profit for building mosques and then routed through the disguise of Sadaqah, or charity towards the poor, to reach a similar organization in Nigeria and be distributed to what looked like ISWAP’s accounts in Nigeria. It was difficult in practice to establish that these accounts were indeed ISWAP’s accounts because the front was a non-profit that looked like a charitable organization but when you linked all the entities with the payments made and you realized that the individuals who received the payments were indeed suspected ISWAP members, you knew that these had to be ISWAP accounts. The only problem was that they could not establish for certain that these individuals were ISWAP members because they were perceived as God-fearing individuals who were devout Muslims and there was no actual proof of wrongdoing. In the time she worked with the ATU, she had never established a clear link and her unit was never able to bring the ISWAP down through the money trail as they had to proceed with caution, owing to local cultural and religious sensitivities
Enigma - The Rivers Of Belief
Elixir part 4 – Hope for a new way of life27 July 2022
Courtesy pinterest.com
Amelia took leave of the young Melancholists after making them swear that none of them would give up their life before she had returned. The young ones swore and though she was not certain whether they would indeed keep that promise, she had to go as there was so much to do. She also realized that the minute she left Melancholy she would not be under the protection of the Melancholists anymore and would have to find how to evade General Stein. She wondered if he was out there, waiting for her to come out of Melancholy. He probably knew that there were two exits to Melancholy and must have posted one of his acolytes on one side while he watched another. She would need to be creative in order to escape them.
Amelia stood near one of the exits and watched closely to see whether General Stein was there. It looked like he was not there and so she decided to take this exit instead of the other. She would not take it normally and be subjected to Stein’s men but she would play with her ability to go through the Earth. She stomped with one foot trying to make the least noise possible and immediately sank into Earth where she rode a large slab of rock, just beneath the dirt path outside Melancholy. She did not stop her sailing on the rock until she was sure that there were several hundred meters between her and Stein’s men. She bent her knees channeling the rock upwards and soon emerged from the Earth and started running. She wanted to put the maximum distance between her and General Stein and his men. She needed to be able to work in the greatest secrecy.
Amelia reached her second home shortly after midnight and went about her house preparing everything she needed for large quantities of Elixir of a special nature. Normally she used a basic version of the Elixir from which each vial was only fit to serve one person and grant them quasi eternal life. This time, she would be creating a type of Elixir so strong in its content that it would serve a large number of people, all at once. It only had to be sprayed in the vicinity of a large group and would be successful in extending their lives to a degree of quasi eternity. The secret of this type of Elixir was that she used the higher soul’s gift of eternal life, locking it into the bloodstream of the person sacrificing a certain number of years. In the other, more basic type of Elixir she only had the sacrifice of the person giving up the remaining years of their existence.
While one may wonder how this transformed into a quasi-eternity for the person receiving the Elixir this produced, it would just show that one was not aware of the deeper meaning of sacrifice and how it rooted itself into cosmic giving. It was this cosmic giving that Amanda tapped into and acted as a conduit of to develop the Elixir as a mixture of the life force of blood together with the expanse of cosmic giving. This made Elixir a sort of eternity in a bottle as it encompassed the vast nature of the cosmic giving Universe and the quality of mercy that ran through the blood of the ones sacrificing their remaining life.
She worked throughout a large part of the remaining hours of the night and dawn had her finally stretching out like a cat, happy with the result of her work, although quite tired from all the events of the night before and the great number of hours spent making the special type of Elixir. She called a member of the Supreme Guard of the Melancholists telling them that she had concocted a solution for the problem of Despair that affected the youngsters of Melancholy and that made them commit suicide. The Supreme Guard held a secret meeting with the Council of the Elders of Melancholy and they decided together that this must be kept secret until it was tried on a group of youngsters from Melancholy. All of them were quite thrilled with the prospect of being able to have their youngsters experience hope again. They looked at each other and smiled. Their hearts beat quicker and louder than they had ever beaten before. This was indeed a Hope for a new way of life.
Khamsa - Dhafer Youssef
Elixir part 3 – The paradoxes of Melancholy3 July 2022
Courtesy Adobe Stock
Amelia found a seat not far from the dead teenager and threw herself on it as she could hardly bear the crescendo of the wailing that emanated from the Melancholists. The wails subsided after a while and the Melancholists slowly exited the burial ground passing by the parents and other family of the young teenager and offering condolences to them. Amelia knew they would soon be gone to their dwellings all around Melancholy. She wished to see how they entered their dwellings that seemed hermetically shut and asked if she could follow them. The Melancholists accepted in hope of making of her an ally who could create the Elixir their breed needed so much. Even they, as a matter of fact, would do better with some drops of Elixir to make their lifeline longer and the beauty of their life greater.
Amelia followed a crowd of Melancholists back to their dwellings and she saw one family after the other slide into the slit that revealed itself to them and be gone into their mushroom-like dwellings. She realized that the slits would appear only to the owners of the mushroom and not anyone else – not even the other residents of Melancholy. One of the Melancholists by her side told her that it was only if the owners gave specific orders to the membrane that covered their dwelling that it would open to someone else. The orders had to be accompanied by a ritual if the dwelling was to open to a non-resident of Melancholy. This was to ensure a double protection from a potential non-resident of Melancholy trying to harm the Melancholists by forcing them to say the orders. Indeed, even if the orders could be given under constraint the ritual could only be made by someone who was free of all constraint.
Amelia watched them disappear one after another in their dwellings and realized that on the other side of Melancholy far from the burial grounds, there was a group gathered and whose collective sorrow seemed to draw her in like a magnet. After the last family had gone into their dwelling, she headed towards the group of sorrowful Melancholists. When she reached them, she realized that they were all youngsters, so beautiful that she could not identify who was the most beautiful of all. It was as if their features kept morphing and the one she looked at seemed always more beautiful than the one she had looked at just before. Despite so much beauty, they were full of an agonizing sorrow that seemed to be tearing them apart. They talked about their fallen friend in hushed voices and seemed to be betting on who would go next.
Amelia asked them why it was that they needed to shorten their lives and they answered as if surprised by the question that this had always been the case. Amelia assured them that they did not need to follow what had been done and that they did not need to shorten their lives. Somehow, they seemed to believe it was the only way that their parents could live longer and were happy to gift them with their lives. Besides, they said that while they were alive, all they could feel is sorrow and woe and they simply could not live with such a heavy burden. They were therefore doubly happy to gift their life away. Amelia asked them how they could possibly feel sorrow and woe in such a beautiful place and one of the taller ones answered that behind the beauty lay the thought of the death of their parents so they could only see the death and the beauty of the surroundings evaded them. It would seem like they had uncovered these feelings after they reached the age of twelve.
Amelia thought that it was such a strange paradox that the young ones should live in a place of beauty but shun it and concentrate on the sorrow and giving their life away for the elders while the elders of Melancholy not only found the place beautiful but were also able to get within it the gift of life from their youngsters. It was not a gift of extending the life eternally like the Elixir though but a gift of just a few more years. The Elders appreciated Melancholy and the gift of the youngsters but at the same time wept the passing of their youngsters and their gift that they so wanted to return and have their youngsters healed by the Elixir. It seemed like Melancholy was indeed a place of paradoxes.
Agnes Obel - The Curse
Amelia looked at the invitation card that a friend of her mother had given her earlier in the afternoon. It was an invitation to a private burial at Melancholy. In the world where she lived, not many people had the privilege of rubbing shoulders with the residents of Melancholy, the Melancholists, and even fewer had ever got an invitation to a private burial. It was the only place where the Melancholists let anyone see their true feelings of sorrow and in fact it was the only place where they showed any feelings at all. She remembered her mother telling her how the Melancholists had accepted her given all the work she was doing with their young children, trying to save them from their suicidal thoughts and their utter feeling of hopelessness.
She turned over the card. It was a beautifully engraved card which had the invitation on the front and a portrait of the deceased on the back side. She looked into somber eyes that seemed to follow her gaze as it trailed off to the edges. What a sad thing she thought to herself that such a beautiful child would want to die instead of enjoying a life of privilege. She wanted to go if not for anything else than paying homage to the child of her mother’s friend but at the same time she was aware that General Stein might be there. She knew that Melancholy was considered off grounds for any fights and that only the Melancholists Supreme Guard had the right to question or take away the liberty of any of the residents or their guests. General Stein was not a member of the Supreme Guard so he would not be able to harm her within Melancholy, but he would surely be waiting for her to come out of it to capture her.
Amelia decided to go to the funeral despite the risk she was taking. She had been given assurance of safe haven within Melancholy but also told she would be able to leave it without hassle. She donned her purple hooded coat and touched both the vial in the hem as well as the Infinity dagger she had hid near the vial. The Infinity dagger helped carve a quasi-infinite hole into a person it was dug into, making the cavity impossible to heal as it continued to remain open despite any number of stitches or other powdery substances burnt into it to make it heal. She knew that despite the assurances given to her, the General might well breach them as the stakes were really very high. Then again, if he breached the pact, the Melancholists or at least their Supreme Guard might not take to it very kindly.
She emerged from her car at the gates of Melancholy. It was indeed a beautiful place with the bright gardens, the mushroom-like dwellings that shone lily white in the night and the beautiful birds of all colours that flew from one side to the other of Melancholy. The jasmine in every corner of Melancholy exhaled a wonderful perfume that titillated the senses. Amelia made her way to the funeral hall which pillars were decorated with more jasmine and roses. At the back, between two pillars she saw a marble slab where lay a young teenager, face and limbs decorated as if he were going to a party. At the end of the slab, next to his feet, his mother was seated, sobbing. Amelia went right to her and attempted to hold her hand. The woman pulled away and concentrated her efforts on rubbing the feet of the dead teenager.
A man who appeared to be her husband rose and offered his hand to Amelia. He apologized for his wife’s behaviour and said that it was on account of Amelia not having shared the Elixir. Apparently, his wife had wished to get some from Amelia before the death of her son, but the General tasked with that mission had not gone through with it in the best way possible. Amelia made this known to the father. She said things could have been different if they had asked her themselves. She might have spoken a tad loud as she sensed the whole Assembly of Melancholists turn towards her with hope glimmering in their eyes. Somehow, this made a chill go through her spine. She realized that some might do anything to get the Elixir for their offspring. Would they go to extreme lengths just for one vial or would they maybe imprison her and force her to keep making the Elixir for them? It was hard to say. She kept her eyes fixated on the teenager. He was so beautiful, it seemed unfair that he should not live anymore. His lifeless corpse still radiated an incredibly sad beauty, like a deer doomed to be slaughtered by a huntsman. All around, the Melancholists had started their mourning with wails that grew stronger, slowly but surely, reaching a pinnacle of sorrow expressed in that unified cry. It was as if the graveyard itself had started to cry, heaving and seething with an uncontrollable sorrow.
Rebirth - Solace
She thought back to those dark moments when she had been tortured while Manas was in captivity. It had seemed to last ages although it was only two weeks as she had discovered later. At the beginning of the torture, she was full of the resolve to fight and avoid giving crucial information, but it did not seem like they were searching for any information at all. They had put her feet in a bucket of water and periodically one of the three torturers present would put a wire in the bucket making her experience what seemed like a thousand shockwaves jolting through her body. They had kept doing it systematically until she lost consciousness. She could hear the prayers throughout the day while she was being tortured and that gave her the sense of what time of the day it was.
She was never left alone, even during the time for prayers, as there was always one guard watching over her. The second day they had attached wires to her genitalia and every time the electricity went through it felt like her genitalia were on fire. Later, when she attempted to urinate, she found it was even more excruciating to pass urine than to suffer the electricity going through her genitalia as the effect of the burning lasted. She pleaded for a bucket of water but there was no moving them it seemed, even though she had started pleading in Arabic and invoking the name of Allah in her request. At last, one woman she had not seen before came to her and gave her a sponge filled with water so that she may wipe herself. This apparent mercy was no doubt due to the fact she had invoked the name of Allah and had done so in Arabic.
That temporary mercy did not last long though and they resumed torturing her. This time she was whipped repeatedly until she lost consciousness. She was then awakened with salts and whipped again. She could feel the skin on her back tear in smaller pieces than she could imagine possible. At the same time, they were repeatedly telling her something in a language she could not understand. A few moments later, one of the torturers who had understood her plea in Arabic came forward and said that she was being punished because she had persuaded Manas to give himself up. She understood from him that Manas was their leader and him going to prison exposed them all to getting caught if Manas talked under torture in prison. She answered that it had been necessary to keep him from being killed. She tried to explain to the man that being in a Cameroonian prison was a better option than him being caught by the US anti-terrorist squad operating in Cameroon. This did not end her ordeal though and she was tortured day after day with only a few hours of rest in the evening when they went to rest leaving only one guard watching her.
One day, without any warning, she was given new clothes and taken into a house that was in front of the shed where she had been tortured. The woman who had given her the sponge earlier took her to a bathing room where she was cuffed at both the hands and the ankles before the woman gently eased her into a bathtub full of warm water. Instead of soothing her, the contact with the water just seared the scars all over her body. She did not complain though as she realized they may be reaching an ending of some sort. It could be that they would kill her or that they would release her. She prayed it would be the latter and indeed, after slowly applying the sponge all over her body gently and attempting to clean her skin as much as she could on the back and with a bit more vigor on her front side, the woman asked her to stand up. As she stood up, the woman applied gently a balm to her back and gave her some asking her to apply it to her genitalia.
She was then clothed gently with a white linen shirt and a matching flowing white linen skirt. She was then blindfolded and left in front of the US embassy where her boss had taken over from the embassy officials and told her she would be leaving in a day or two to Dubai. Her thoughts were immediately for Manas and she wondered whether she would ever see him again. She felt saddened and at the same time angry at her boss for his lack of empathy considering what she had endured. She also wondered: was Manas the person who had ordered her to be tortured in that way? Could it possibly mean that he did not love her anymore? She tried to soothe herself by thinking back to the days when they were together and to how much she had been happy with him. No, undoubtedly, Manas had not been the one to order her torture. She closed her eyes and could see behind her closed lids the beautiful image of Manas smiling at her. It was only that which had kept her sane during the torture.
Fadl Shaker &Yara Akhedni Maak فضل شاكر و يارا - خدنى معك
She was walking for almost an hour now, always with the Thames by her side. Her thoughts went back to Manas and how she had met him first in a small hut-like construction in Cameroon. She had landed quite abruptly in the field near his house and had hid the parachute under the sand and foliage beneath the trees. She had removed her jumping gear and shoved it under the sand before straightening her clothes. She could not see the remaining members of her team and remembered that she had seen no member of her team jump after her. She knew what her mission was anyway: look for and then report Manas once she had identified him. She had headed towards the house and found the household in great agitation and fuss, celebrating a marriage.
Without further warning, she had been whisked into the cohort and had become part of the celebration. With her local clothes on, nobody suspected her of any ulterior motive than just the wedding celebration. She had looked around for Manas and identified him sitting next to the bride. She looked at the wristwatch with the small camera, but the camera place seemed damaged. She had turned it nevertheless towards Manas and the bride, hoping that the camera would transmit the images of Manas to her team in the airplane that seemed to have vanished in the skies.
They probably will come back after viewing the images sent by her camera she had thought. She had sunk into a small couch next to several other women and joined the celebrations, keen to keep her identity safe. Manas had walked over towards her, his smile engaging and charming like she was told it would be. Her boss had predicted accurately that she would be Manas’ type and that this would lead him to bring his guard down. Manas had bowed towards her, with his hand extended, inviting her to dance alongside him like the Muslims in Cameroon did. She had stood up and had slowly been taken by the banter and the dance and almost forgotten what she had come here to do.
She looked back at the Thames and threw a stone in it, watching the ripples grow as the water was displaced by the impact. One of the images that haunted her mind was Manas standing in front of the policemen in Cameroon where she had taken him, and he had not fled. He was free now, walking sometimes in the streets of London when he needed to but all she could think of was the Manas in chains in Cameroon smiling at her, with his followers at his side. She realized that the only reason Manas was free now was because some policemen in Cameroon admired his jihadism and one of them had released him making use of the lax state of security in Cameroonian prisons.
Her story with Manas had been a very controversial one when her boss realized that she was actually falling in love with the man she was supposed to bring to justice. She had been demoted and was no longer on the anti-terrorist team so she resigned and joined the private sector. She thought back to how the story had evolved. It seemed so long ago now while it had only been 6 months since she had first met him. She remembered how he had reached out to her when he had first got out of prison. She had wondered how he had found her in London as she was not on the phonebook and not a registered voter. She threw another stone in the Thames and realized that it was raining, making more ripples than with just her stone. Her love story with Manas had begun in a very strange way so it was probably just as well that it could lead to strange things. She let her mind drift…
Alternate Realities – Chapter Nine : Housing the Mother
27 September 2020
Courtesy pinterest.com
It had been a while since the incident of the bushfire and surely enough as Horus had told her, it was eventually subdued by the rain although not without some serious consequences. She thought to herself that they should train the dragons more but perhaps in less arid lands with trees that were less prone to catch and spread wildfire. Horus had been visiting her often and she also realized that she was undergoing a lot of changes. Outwards, she seemed unchanged and serene but inside of her a lot was happening. She had already undergone the third segmentation of her mind and knew from Horus that she was fully ready to house the Mother.
He had inspired her during dreamtime a series of dances that were meant to draw the shakti power more deeply into her. When he had first come to her during dreamtime she had asked him why he could not just explain it to her with words so that she could follow them but he told her that the shakti dances were based on vibration and the flow of poses that involved a certain configuration of the body and the hands in symbolic gestures that were meant to harness the cosmic power. These could not be taught in words but had to be experienced visually and there was nothing better than dreamtime communication for that.
On the last of the dreamtime episodes, the Mother showed her the shakti dances to follow in full thereby communicating on a vibrational level the full extent of the dances’ power. She had understood from her interactions in dreamtime with Horus that the dances were not to be followed step by step in full but had to flow according to the configuration of her own bodily manifestation as her DNA had to be aligned with the cosmic power in its own special way. She therefore needed to understand the vibrational undertone but adapt this to the coding of her DNA in a way that allowed the realignment to flow so that she could house the Mother without damaging herself. She knew implicitly that this would happen automatically when she interpreted the shakti dances.
Several weeks of dancing had gone by and at each dance she could feel herself get more of the consciousness of the Mother stream within her. At the end of the sixth week of dancing, she felt fully the Mother within her. She had not been sure what to expect when the Mother would be fully within her but perhaps she had expected something dramatic and magical to happen. Instead, all she could feel was a mixture of sadness and peace. It was a bit bewildering that she was not able to just change everything with a magic wand. Horus told her that the Mother did not want to break the laws of this world and what she mainly wanted to do was dilute the effect of patriarchy. She was slightly unsettled that it would not be quick but he reassured her that the Mother had already been flowing partly through her and that is why every environment she had been in had evolved into one with less dominance of patriarchy and with better conditions for women in general.
Horus told her that it would be a task that could take several years depending upon how open Humanity was to embrace that change but that it would unfold as Mother had already seen it happen. She knew from her own personal experience that indeed there were several occurrences where the balance of power had changed with women being less suppressed even in very male dominated societies where she had lived. She breathed in deeply and vowed to carry on the task Mother wanted to realise through her. When balance was achieved, Mother could once again walk the Earth freely without the undeserving labels bestowed upon her by patriarchy. She had been depicted as Lilith or the whore of Babylon in her earlier manifestations as patriarchy had twisted history to make her seem like a demon to fear rather than a bringer of light and wisdom. History was indeed always rewritten by the victors but soon that was about to change…
