‘Leave as soon as you can,’ said Light
‘But there are guards posted all the way from my front door to the entry of the Caliph’s palace’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just get up and leave’
‘The guards will stop me from leaving my chambers’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just get up and leave’
‘They will stop me from leaving’
‘Disguised yourself as the Caliph’s son and walk past them. They will let you through’
‘I can’t breathe easily’
‘Take just one step at a time’
‘I don’t know’
‘Take just one step. And then another. And then another’
‘I don’t know’
‘You can do it’
‘I’ll try’
‘There is no such thing as trying. You either do it or you don’t’
‘I’ll try’
‘Just one step. And then another. And then another’
‘ I don’t know’
‘The choice has to be yours’
‘I want to’
‘Then do it’
‘I can’t,’ wailed the little boy
‘What will I do once I leave the palace? I haven’t been out of my chambers in an eternity’
‘Run towards the Eternal City of Light’
‘How will I find the route?’
‘Follow the sun,’ said Light
After one hundred and eight years had coursed through both their lives, the little boy finally discovered that he could indeed run away from his parents. And he did so, in the light of the noonday sun
‘What I have been unable to acquire here, maybe I shall find there.’
The little boy stepped out of the front door of his Fortress of Dark. The sunlight hit his naked eyes with a force. It blinded his eyes, and he staggered to find his feet. He slowly breathed in and out. In and out. In and out. And in the dull orange glow in his eyes, he saw dancing shadows in black. The Caliph’s men. The Caliph’s men. They were everywhere. They were everywhere. With his eyes swivelling in all directions, his feet incapable of motion, he stood still. He didn’t know what to do. It was the first time in an eternity he was outdoors
His vision started coming back in fits and spurts. He saw the sun blazing overhead. He saw trees, their leaves wafting in the breeze. He heard birds chirping. He looked at his hands. And with a jolt, he realised he could feel the sun’s warmth again. He broke into a cold sweat. He shivered. And he wondered where he was now to go
He looked to the left, and he looked to the right. He looked behind. There seemed nowhere to go. He panicked. After an eternity, he finally looked straight ahead. And spotted the opening staring him in the face. Staring at him right in the face, waiting for him to notice it. It was then that he caught sight of his breath, wreathed in the mists of his heart, trailing his garb of white, standing next to him. He was breathing slowly, in and out, in and out. He quietly inched closer and closer to him
And Lo! He caught his breath by the hand. And they ran
He ran. He and his breath, hand in hand, they ran. Heart pounding, lungs heaving, body trembling, yet faith resolute, they ran. The road that lead out of the Fortress confused him. He suddenly came to a crossroads, with roads in a million and one directions forking from it. And he wondered which fork he was to take.The summer clouds that floated above him, thick and snowy, whispered directions in his ear. And under their hovering safety, he found his path again
He heard noises. He heard shrieks. He heard hoarse yells. He heard the clamour of the world. They were behind him. They were behind him. They were all behind him. The world was chasing him. The whole world. He looked behind him. He saw the world he had just left behind. They were all staring at him. They began to give chase. They were all the Caliph’s men. All the Caliph’s horses, and all the Caliph’s men. All the Caliph’s horses and all the Caliph’s men. The Caliph, the world, the Caliph, the world. It chased him. They chased him. And he ran
The Caliph surrounded him. the Caliph’s men surrounded him. The Caliph’s men were everywhere. They were all around him. In every chariot that passed him, in every mansion and tavern he passed, in every face he glanced at, he saw the thugs grin in all their evil. He shrieked. The thugs chased him down the roads, they chased him down the boulevards, they chased him down the river banks. He would look back and he would see the faces, the million and one faces of the million and one thugs. He would see the Caliph’s chariots glinting in the sunlight and gaining, gaining on him. He would hear the crack of their whips as the thugs goaded their horses on. Faster, faster they would yell in their hoarse voices. And he would shriek at the sound. He would look back. He would hear the Caliph’s voice come booming down from the skies, thundering in his ears, commanding him to return to the fortress. His breath would plead with him to return. And yet he ran on
‘Why are they chasing me?’ he wondered to himself. And he flipped the switch into his new world
‘My parents are testing my mettle’, he thought. And hand in hand with his breath, he ran just that bit faster
He ran to the bazaars. The crowds thronged the stalls. He looked at the merchants, he looked at the folk. They looked upon the running boy with bland indifference. He expected no sympathy there. They were but all the Caliph’s men, in disguise. They were trying to trap him with their faces. No, he would not look at them. He clamped his hands to his ears to drown out the Caliph’s booming voice, that thundered down at him from the skies. The Queen’s screeches rose above the din in an ever-increasing crescendo. And he would shriek when he heard her. His breath would wail out to him in despair to return to the fortress. And yet he ran on
But Lo! A pierrot gave him an apple to eat, a voice from the choir sang the way forward, and a naked clown gave him a mask to wear. Members of the pantomime joined hands with him. The harlequins. They ran together with him. They all ran together with him. Others of their ilk joined them, still more of their ilk closed ranks around them. The boy became hidden from view. And together they all ran on, forming a smudge of colour that ran in step through the crowded grey markets
Aghast, the throngs of monochrome parted to let them through. And once the coloruful circus had crossed the market square, the shrieking multitudes swept back again into the frightened square in a cacophony of grey. And prevented the Caliph’s men from crossing through
The boy and his new family ran through the afternoon, and they ran through the evening. Twilight approached, and then the sun, heaving a sign of relief, slowly set on the boy’s last day under the Caliph’s thumb. They ran on now under the cover of the moonlight. And they finally reached the egoistic and avaricious Mountains of Aiiiii
The boy saw the insurmountable mountains that lay before him, separating the Kingdom, that lay in the shadow of its peaks, from the lands that lay beyond. Lands shrouded in mystery. Eons ago the malevolent mountains had been trampled down into the earth by a venerable Sage, that light may enter into the Kingdom. But they had grown tall and proud once again. And the boy wondered how he would get through
His faithful comrades would not let him down. Having brought him thus far, they joyfully set about hoisting over these self-obsessed mountains, built of the earth’s black tears.The harlequins formed a human pyramid, they were all acrobats. And with subtle gyrations of their body, they lifted the boy so he could scale their human wall of colour and clamber to the top. Standing on the shoulders of the last two, he finally, finally the little boy stood up straight
Lo! Between the peaks of these mountains, he glimpsed rolling fields upon fields of lime green that stretched all the way up to the tall, tall glass spires of the Eternal City of Light. He had read about the Eternal City of Light in the books of his childhood. Wreathed as it was in the mists of time, it had slowly passed into the realm of his fables and fantasies. He looked upon it in awe; it would seem his imagination had come true
The spark within his cupped hands gave a dull flicker as it recognised its source within the twinkling flames of the City of Eternal Light. The stream within the meadow in his mind surged ever so slightly in recognition. And he wept. In gratitude