>>  Fiction - Short Stories

 A cracked granite fishbowl filled his view.

 The crack ran from top to bottom, less than the thickness of his little finger.  There was no place wide enough to find hold, to climb out: just a hairline crack to taunt him.  Midway between his head and the fishbowl entrance spun a miniature tornado.  In the gray light it glowed a dull yellow, the grains of sand it held luminescing gently.

 Three days.  His throat cracked and ripped when he tried to swallow.  A thick tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.  Itchy eyeballs throbbed.  The dusty wind sucked the moisture from his body.  He couldn’t be sure how much longer he had, but the outcome as inevitable.  Death by dehydration.

 The realization that he was dead, only waiting for his heart to stop beating, hung over him.  The unfairness.  Lips cracked and bleeding, throat tearing at the effort, he screamed to the sky.

 “Why, God?”

 His body trembled from the exertion.  He held on, eyes shut, palms flat against the cool rock.  The trembling came again, but not him.  Looking into the swirling sand, he watched it shift slightly.  The pattern flowed.  Small patches of light danced to the wail of the wind.

 The ground Shook slightly.  Dusty motes drifted down on him.

 “Because you have been chosen.”  The voice echoed throughout the fishbowl.

 His world turned fuzzy and dark as he fainted away.

     #

 “Copy Algiers.  Arrival 15 minutes.  Williams out,” he said in a crisp, flawless, slightly American-accented Arabic.

Captain Stan Williams relaxed his throat mike.  His hand gently caressed the yoke.  Less than a hundred feet beneath him the Great Western Erg leapt by at Mach 1.5.  He skimmed over a waterless sea.

Then everything stopped.  Dead.

There were no turbulents before the flameout, no flaky readings before the instruments died, no mushiness before the hydraulics froze.  Nothing.  One moment gracefully streaking, the next falling from the sky like a brick.

The bolts exploded, the canopy fired.  He hit the slipstream, unconscious before his head even snapped back.  The blackness lifted while he spun between blue and brown.  The brown growing closer, he stabilized.  The black smoke and hot engine from his downed jet would be easily detectable to the Resc Sat.  He knew that a team from Algiers would be there before he could even walk to the wreckage.  Spinning through a full 360, he couldn’t spot the smoke.  A flash caught his eyes.  He saw the impossible.  Screaming out at maximum climb, flame from its tail, his jet raced toward the horizon.

 Bad luck, but not insurmountable.  The beeper in his harness would bring the rescue team to him no matter where the jet finally crashed.

 The ground came up fast.  He had just a moment to glance down at the beeper strapped to his belt.

 He saw a darkened green light.  He banged it once.  Nothing.  He banged it again and still nothing.

 Looking down at the rough, mountainous terrain, he realized the beeper problem would have to wait until he landed.  It was difficult to tell just where he should put down.

 As he dropped into a narrow canyon, the winds grabbed his chute and rushed him along the rock wall.  The end of the canyon hurtled towards him.  He panicked, arms jerking up to shield his face – little as he expected to survive the impact.

 The instant before he smashed into the wall, the wind sucked him down – and, still falling, he was engulfed in darkness.  His stomach churned as he fell – and then he was lying on a rock-hard floor, twisted in lines and chute.  He hit the snaps, releasing the harness.  When the last buckle popped, a powerful gust of wind took the chute.  Sailing up into the gloom, it vanished into a small patch of blue sky.

 He looked around.  He stood in a roughly spherical chamber.  The walls tapered inward to the entrance some 200 feet above his head.  He was going nowhere unless someone got him out, and that possibility looked remote.

 Three days crawled by while he awaited his death of thirst and watched the dull glow of the spinning sand above his head.
 “Williams,” a voice called through the darkness in a thick and strong Arabic accent.

 The blackness turned gray.  He felt the cold stone beneath him.

 “Williams,” the voice called again.

 Williams stirred, opening his eyes.  Through the gloom he could see a blue patch of sky.

 “Down here!” he shouted.  The harsh and guttural Arabic tore his throat.

 “I see you.”

 Williams’s eyes strained.  He couldn’t see anyone at the edge of the opening.

 “I can’t see you,” he called out.  “Come closer to the edge.”

 Perhaps the suspended sand blocked his view.  He sat up, his head held back so he could watch the sky.

 “You are looking at me,” the voice said.

 He saw nothing.

 “I can’t see you.  All I see is that damned sand!”

 “You are looking at me,” the voice repeated.

 “Who are you?”

 Only the roar of the wind answered.  Williams waited.  The scream of the wind and his thumping heart were the only sounds.  Finally the voice spoke.

 “I have many names.”

 Williams slumped down.  Who had found him?  Certainly not his own people.  Maybe a Pan-Arabian commando team.  But that would be impossible this far behind the lines.  Besides, if it were them, a grenade would have been their only response, or perhaps a little gasoline and a burning cigarette if they were feeling playful.

 Perhaps it was a Bedouin.  But the accent sounded strange and removed from the Bedouins he knew.  He shrugged, realizing the position he was in.  He would have to play along.

 “Tell me some of your names,” Williams called out.  As he spoke, something struck him.  The voice had called him by name.  Who in the middle of the desert would know his name?

 “I have been called the Voice of the Desert, or more often, simply the Wind.  I am a servant of Allah.”

 Williams shook his head.  His long years in the Arab world, studying their words and ways, had taught him the dangers of dealing with religious zealots.

 “Can you get me out of here?”

 Silence answered him.  He almost asked again when the voice finally spoke.

 “You are here by Allah’s will.”

 Williams slammed his fist against the rock.  He did not like being played with.

 “How do you know my name?”

 “It was carried on the wind.”

 Probably monitoring communications as I came in, thought Williams.  But those were scrambled.  How could some demented Bedouin decode those transmissions?

 “You do not understand,” the voice said.

 Williams smiled, his lips cracking.  He understood.  He was talking with a desert-crazed Bedouin.

 “You have mistaken me for a man.”

 “Not a man,” said Williams.

 “I flow directly above your head.  I am called the Wind.”

 Williams’s eyes had been focused on the lip of the cave.  He now watched the suspended sand.

 “Perhaps my old names do not convey meaning to you.  I can describe myself in the worlds of your culture.  I am a synthesis of the wind funnel and colloidal sand suspension.”

 With each word and inflection, the sand shifted in texture, the colors flowed.  Exhausted and dying, Williams could only shake his head in disgust.  Delirium.  He knew this to be simply a fevered dream.

 “I see that you do not believe me,” the voice said.  “Allah has chosen well.  You are a man of question and reason.  Yet I am surprised that you are not of the faith.  You do not follow the teachings of Mohammed?”

 Williams decided to talk with the delusion.  Perhaps in this delirious state he could discover some real way to escape both the nightmare and the cave.  “No, I am not a Moslem.”

 “Strange,” it replied, “but the ways of Allah are not always understood.”  The voice paused for some moments.  “You think that I exist only within your mind?”

 “That’s right,” said Williams.

 “It has often been the way.  Those of great learning often thought me a spirit of their own minds.  You do not believe the wind can speak?”

 “You’re the first wind I’ve ever talked to,” Williams said, “or at least the first I’ve gotten an answer from.”

 “I will tell you how I came to be.  That may convince you.”

 “Please yourself,” said Williams.

 “When I came to exist I do not know.  The wind of this cave is constant, the funnel perfect.  The suspended sand twirls and spins in a pattern.  It was out of this pattern that a mind formed.  But the mind was empty and without reason.  It was much like a newborn of your species.  Then many ages ago the Prophet Armedea, guided by the hand of Allah, came to enlighten me.  He taught me the ways of man.  You hear through compression of air impinging on your eardrums.  I can generate those compressions.  My sands resonate to the compressions you send out so I can both see and hear you.  Existence then took on meaning.  Men came to seek my advice.  They said I was a god.”

 “Then I heard the Word, the voce of the Prophet Mohammed.  Thee was but on God.  Since men confused me with the one true God, I knew that I could no longer speak to them.  From that day of enlightenment I have lived in silence.”

 Williams lay on his back, laced fingers behind his head.  The idea of a tornado taking a vow of silence made him chuckle.

 “However,” continued to Wind, “I do speak to the dead.”

 The chuckle faded to a raspy rattle in Williams’s throat.  He knew the Wind was not referring to some disembodied spirit, but to the living dead – himself.

 “Through my long centuries of silence Allah has rewarded my sacrifice by sending me those such as yourself.  Whether you think me a god, a spirit, or a nightmare of your own creation really doesn’t matter.  Soon you will be dead and nothing will matter to you.  All that your are, bones and flesh, will turn to dust and become a part of me.  You are just one more in a long line that Allah has brought to relieve my boredom.”  The cave echoed with the Wind’s throaty roar.  “Now, tell me your story.”
 The Wind spoke with the righteous tones of those who never question themselves.  This entire discussion was being generated from his own fevered nightmare, but Williams knew if he had any chance for escape, no matter how slim, he would have to take control of this nightmare.  Besides, if he couldn’t escape he’d at least have the satisfaction of beating a little humility into this fantasy.

 “You are not worthy of my story,” Williams said sharply.

 For just an instant the smoothly flowing tornado paused in its perfect flow.  Wisps of green dust twinkled sharply.

 “I have been the servant of Allah for a time longer than you could ever imagine.”  The rumbling voice seethed with arrogance.  “I have proven my worthiness through my prayer and silence.”

 Williams knew he would have to provoke the Wind to gain control.  “You have proved only two things in the eyes of Allah.”  Williams paused waiting for a response.  The Wind spun silently.

 “You have proved yourself both arrogant and ignorant.”

 The Wind raced wildly.  Small lightning bolts shot through the maelstrom to the accompaniment of crackling thunder.

 The Wind screamed, “And who are you, heathen dog, to speak to me of the things that the eyes of Allah perceive?”

 “I am the Instrument of Allah.”

 “You dare claim servitude to Allah!” the wind shrieked.  “You are a dog not even of the faith.  Only the faithful can serve!”

 “You told me yourself that the ways of Allah are not always to be understood.  Even your small mind was able to grasp that.”

 Williams paused, letting that sink in.  “In your arrogance do you now claim to know the working of Allah’s plans?”

 “You twist my words!”

 Williams smiled a wicked smile through cracked, gummy lips.  If your enfeebled mind can hold you voice for a moment, I will enlighten you.”

 Thunder rolled through the cave.  “Speak.”

 “First to your arrogance,” Williams said with a gentle deliberateness. “For these past centuries you have lived in a self-imposed silence because you claim that man confused you with Allah?”

 “Yes!” the Wind screamed not quite so loudly as it had before.

 Sweat dripped down Williams’s forehead.  The Wind had fallen into his trap.  “You have the arrogance to compare yourself to Allah,” he said.  “You have the audacity to claim that a creature as simple as even man does not have the vision to see the greatness of Allah over the howl of the Wind?”

 “No!” the Wind shouted.

 He closed in for the final attack.  “Now I’ll turn to your ignorance.”

 Dusty turbulents shuddered.

 “Allah overlooked your sin of pride and arrogance and in His greatness sent me to redeem you.  I held the key to your salvation.  But in your ignorance all you could do was spin above my head, sucking at my moisture, waiting for me to wither and die.  You were so stupid as to not even recognize me as the Instrument of Allah.”  Williams shook his head in pity.  “Allah is truly merciful to still wish to use one like you in His plans.”  The Wind’s howl grew.  Williams screamed into it, “Is he not merciful?”

 “His name is Mercy!”

 “Can your unworthy, feeble mind understand my words?  Can you receive his revelations?”

 Williams could feel the fever in his face.  His head throbbed, his ears buzzed.  The words flowed from him, strange and unfamiliar as he listened to them echo throughout the cave.

 “While you have spun in this cave cloaked in your arrogance and stupidity, the world of Islam has been corrupted and splintered by heathen manipulation.  The brothers of Islam have lost the true vision of Mohammed’s words.  They strive for power and worldly goods as their souls rot.  You have been chosen to be the Prophet of Allah to redeem them!”

 The tornado convulsed, slamming into the side of the cave.  Rocks and dust poured down.  Slowly it righted itself.

 Williams knew things he had never dreamed of.  “You have seen the world as no man can grasp it.  Trough the centuries Allah has sent His messengers to tell you their stories, recount their lives.  Their lives have become your life.  Your history is now the history of Islam.  You must tell your story to the world.  Your words will renew the vigor of Islam.”  He paused, the cave spinning before him as his head rocked back and forth.  His face, flushed and swollen, dripped sweat.  “Your story will light the world afire!”

 “How will they hear my words?” cried the Wind.

 “This cave will record your history.  Write your words on these rock walls.”

 “But how will my story carry outside these walls?” moaned the Wind.

 “There!” shouted the Instrument of Allah, his finger pointing to the crack in the cave wall.  “You will bring down this wall to set me free.  I will bring the faithful to this cave to read your words.  This spot will be the new Mecca!”

 Williams shook.  His shuddering legs could not support him.  He collapsed to the rock floor.

 “It is Allah’s will!” screamed the Wind.

 The echoing voice silenced.  Only the rush of the Wind could be heard.  Williams leaned his swirling head back, closing his eyes.

 He felt the rock floor quiver.  Opening his eyes he looked into the heart of the tornado.  It spun faster, growing wider, tearing into the side of the cave like a sand blaster.  The ground shook.  Rocks and dust rained down.

 “My time is done, Williams,” the Wind roared.  “I give you the message to renew the fait and to cleanse the world of Islam through fire and sword!”

 The quake grew in intensity, rocks pouring down.  The crack in the wall grew.  With a thunderous snapping sound the side of the granite fishbowl began to splinter.

 Williams scrambled away from the shattering wall and falling rocks.  The dirt and dust choked him.  The cave turned to night in the dusty downpour.

 While the cavern collapsed, the swirling sand spun faster and faster, blasting into the cave wall.  The sand etched small pits into the rock.  With the very stuff of its life the Wind wrote its history into the stone.

 With one final tremor, the quake stopped.  The entire side of the cavern had collapsed to reveal an opening.  Light from the hard blue sky spilled in.  Because of this new opening the Wind in the cave began to die.  The twirling sands could not maintain the pattern, could not hold consciousness.  Slowly at first, then with growing speed, the colloidal suspension collapsed.  The sands rained down.  The floor of the cave was littered with the dying Wind.

 Williams squinted into the bright light.  Half-walking, half-stumbling, he worked his way through the rubble.

 Outside, he propped himself up against a rock.  Raising his hand to shade his eyes, he surveyed the canyon.  A momentary glint caught his attention.  A Recvac helicopter stood no more than a thousand yards up the canyon.  He could see the rescue team working their way towards him.  Above, dust and sand still billowed up from the cave entrance, a signal for anyone to see.

 Looking back into the dimly lit cave he could see the flowing Arabic on the smooth rock wall sparking in the glancing sunlight.

This is the history of Islam as told by one who has lived it.  Williams, the Instrument of Allah, has revealed my destiny and I in turn reveal your destiny.  The Faith of Islam shall be renewed.

 Beneath this bold inscription words covered the entire fall wall of the cave.  He leaned back, the hard rock reinforcing the reality of the growing voices of the rescue team.

 It had all been real.

 The past three days already began to take on a dreamlike quality.  The nightmare seemed to fade in the sunlight.  The dying jet, broken beeper, dropping into the cave, and even the intelligent Wind seemed to be losing their feeling of impossibility.

 All the strangeness of the past several days seemed to be fading away – except for one bright, white-hot impossibility that blinded his every thought.  It had been his voice which had forced the Wind to make its ultimate sacrifice and allow his escape, but the words came from somewhere deeper, somewhere faraway.  He had called himself the Instrument of Allah.