Why Are You Here ?

{ Denise gracefully hosts Six Sentence Stories, where writers unleash their magic under one simple rule: in no more or no less than 6 sentences.
A second offering for this week. The prompt word is : COFFEE }

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“I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.
Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.”
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Why Are You Here?

Contrary to what you may think, I am not covered in sweat as I walk barefoot in the world’s hottest desert; at +50˚C / 122˚F with zero humidity any water from my body manages to escape the eccrine sweat glands, evaporates instantly leaving me with a deadly I-got-this fatuity.

Optical illusions begin to make their appearance from the periphery of my eyesight, the expected puddles of water due to light refracting when it passes through two layers of air with different temperatures; this one though, is no mirage I have heard of, as a figure covered in loose black garments from head to toe, stands still on top of the sand dune I am climbing.

Figment she is not, her words, As-Salaam u Alaikum reach my ears and her astounding eyes render me equally bewildered, barely managing to murmur Wa-Alaikum-Salaam; for seconds or hours these eyes bare my soul…
… لماذا أنت هنا {why are you here?} her utterance as she beckons to me.

(photo by Sidhra Ibrahim on Unsplash)

From faraway I come to marvel at the wonders of your land…my reply comes in a reflex manner, a concealer of my effort to create favorable circumstances on my behalf, even though I have absolutely no idea what those wonders might be, if any…my expectations shuttered, as she echoes herself…لماذا أنت هنا

Exhausted, not as much from the scorching desert but from her uncanny power to see right through to my predatory nature that has served me well in the civilized world, I consign to oblivion…why am I here…to collect trophies I will demonstrate on my apathetic wall, to create opportunities for them (for me) to prosper (to become filthy rich) and share the accomplishments of modern technology (by depleting every ounce of their natural resources)…she looks at me once again…no more lies… لماذا أنت هنا   …   I am here to find out why I am here.

Enwombed by time held in suspension, I pause…her garments dance freely with the desert wind and I am lost in the darkness of a moonless night…close your eyes, idle your mind…the path you seek cannot be seen by trying harder to unearth it…participate instead of pretending, engage instead of denying, embrace instead of poisoning …
the way ahead is now mine (should I choose) to claim, as simply & as clear as the path emerging in a moonless night after you close your eyes for a while.

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