Voices surrounded me, thick and tangled like a storm. I couldn’t tell where I was or what was happening. My body trembled—not from cold, but from something deeper, something that gripped the core of me: fear, confusion, the shadow of death brushing close.
I couldn’t see a thing—just darkness pressing in. Then, a hand forced one of my eyes open. A sharp beam of light stabbed through the fog, making me flinch. Then, the other eye. A coldness slid through my arms and legs. My thoughts scattered. Nothing made sense.
Was I dreaming? Dying?
“She’s coming back to us,” someone whispered near my ear.
Coming back to what?
“Am I dead?” I wondered silently. “Or just too tired to know the difference?”
The words scraped from my throat. “Water… I need water…”
It felt like I was speaking from someone else’s body. My tongue was dry and heavy; my lips cracked open like desert clay. My fingers clawed at the thin, hole-ridden sheet that clung to my skin. It brought no comfort.
I couldn’t tell if I was the one crying or if the voice belonged to someone else, far away.
“I’m not dead,” I thought. “I’m just thirsty.”
I wasn’t in Heaven—there were no angels. I wasn’t in Hell—there was no fire. I wasn’t buried underground. I was still here. Still breathing.
I forced my eyes open again. Sand filled my mouth, my nose, my teeth. A face hovered above me—blurred and unfamiliar.
“Thank God you’re safe,” the voice said.
“Water,” I begged, lips barely moving.
He called out for someone and then helped me sit up. I leaned against him like a crumbling wall. He pressed a small cup to my lips. The taste of rust, blood, and something metallic clung to the water. Still, I drank. The thirst was louder than the pain. I drifted again.
When I opened my eyes, I tried to speak. Nothing came. The man was still beside me.
“You’re in a hospital,” he said gently. “I’m Dr. Mousa.”
His voice faded, and I fell back into sleep.
A child’s cry pulled me out of the haze. Sand blew against my face. The child had wings. He rose into the sky, laughing as he vanished into the sun. I tried to scream. No sound came—just a jolt of pain in my arm. I was waking again.
I opened my eyes to a dull, gray ceiling. Everything felt distant. I saw people I did not recognize.
Then the thirst returned, deeper than it had been before. An aged woman stepped forward, holding a glass bottle wrapped in burlap. She poured water into a tin cup and handed it to me. I drank like an animal, then reached for more. She gave me all she had. But it wasn’t enough. Even as my stomach filled, my throat burned. Something inside me refused to be satisfied. She wrapped the blanket around me with care. Her voice was barely more than breath.
“Oh, poor child, you’ve been granted another chance at life.”
She sat at the edge of the bed and gently dried my chest with the edges of her long dress. Her words were full of sorrow:
“Praise be to God for your safety.”
I tried to remember.
“Another chance at life?”
I turned my head and asked weakly, “Where are the others?”
But my voice vanished. My chest, clogged with dust and silence, refused to release a scream. No answer. Only silence. Heavy, unbearable silence.
I tried to remember. I clutched at my memory, squeezing it like a dry sponge.
The van. The journey. The people.
We were five: the old man, his daughter-in-law, her infant son, the driver, and me. We had left the city behind, bound for our distant village, cutting across the vast desert. The asphalt sliced through the sand like a black serpent. The baby’s laughter echoed. The old man played with him, his joy soft and calm. The mother sat still, quiet, eyes full of worry. A cassette played old local songs. The driver turned off the road. And the road vanished. There was only desert. Mountains are like sleeping beasts. Scattered thorns. Burning silence. The sun leaning toward the west.
The fuel ran out. Then, the water. The driver tried to find the road again, but it seemed to move farther each time. Like the desert was swallowing us whole. Our supplies disappeared. Only our faith remained.
The old man whispered, “May we meet our loved ones—not here, but in Paradise.”
He led us in prayer after our feet had grown numb, searching for any sign of life. When I prostrated, I whispered to God, begging for forgiveness, for grace. I lifted my hands. I couldn’t recall a single verse from the Qur’an. My mind was blank. Hollow.
I turned my head and asked the wind, “Where is the Angel of Death?”
And somehow, I hoped he’d take his time.
I stopped feeling my body. Even the heat of the sand no longer touched me. Breathing became a battle. My world shrank into silence.
Then, in the stillness, I saw a barefoot girl in my mind, dashing this way and that. Sometimes she ran, sometimes she slowed, at times lifting one foot while lowering the other, then collapsing to the ground, pulling her dress down to shield her feet from the scorching earth. She would wrap her legs in the long fabric, making a barrier between her tender skin and the sunlit sand. Then, once rested, she would rise and run again. And when the fire in the ground grew too much, she’d sit once more, wrap her feet again, and try once more to stand.
I wished I were like her. But my body refused to move.
I curled into myself, using scraps of cloth to shield my skin. Still, my mind wandered.
I didn’t want to die.
“If God gives me one more chance,” I thought, “I’ll prepare better for death.”
Then, I saw water.
“There’s water!” I cried.
The old man looked gently at me. “No, my child. It’s just a mirage.”
Suddenly, I remembered what the people of my village call this: Lucifer’s Flock. A name for those who chase mirages. A name for those who are too late to return.
I wanted to follow it anyway, even if it killed me. Even if it wasn’t real.
But a painful gasp stopped me. The mother was holding her baby’s lifeless body. She didn’t cry. Perhaps she had found peace in the belief that he was now in Paradise, drinking from its rivers and waiting for her to join him.
The old man closed the child’s eyes. His voice trembled as he recited verses. He laid the boy into the sand, then stretched himself beside the tiny grave. He placed his turban under his head and wrapped his arms around the mound of sand like he was embracing his grandson one last time. His eyes closed. A white prayer bead circled his fragile wrist.
Vultures circled overhead. Their shadows passed over us like warnings.
I crawled to the old man. His soul had already returned to its Creator. I took his prayer beads and wrapped them around my neck.
Then I shook the driver awake. Together, we dug. We had no energy for words, no strength for a funeral prayer. My throat burned. The sun blistered my back. Still, I kept digging. Each time a vulture passed over me, I dug faster.
When we finished, I stopped feeling anything. I couldn’t tell who was alive or who was gone.
I could no longer open my eyes. I couldn’t feel my body. I saw shadows. I heard voices from the corners of my fading consciousness. Breathing stopped being natural. I slipped away. Everything inside me went blank. White. And I felt the Angel of Death sitting beside me.
I woke to the sound of my own voice, mumbling nonsense. A doctor leaned over me with a needle in hand.
“You’ll be alright,” he said softly.
Before the warm wave of medicine swept over me, I reached for my neck. The prayer beads were still there. And deep inside, something stirred—something reaching for the meaning of being spared, hoping to return to life once more.
Nafisa Sharfi is a language instructor and a PhD student in Curriculum Studies at DePaul. She has over six years of experience teaching Arabic at the college level, along with previous teaching at the high school level. Her creative work includes three published books in Arabic, and she also writes a regular column for an online Sudanese newspaper. One of her short stories, from the collection The Elegant Sins, was recently read and discussed by Arabic minor students at Northwestern University.