

THE CITY OF DARKNESS

Written by Ahmed Ibrahim Ismael.

Translated and edited by Samah Soliman.
COPYRIGHTS

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any electronic or mechanical form, including photocopying, recording tapes, CDs, or any other publication method, including recorded and retrieved information, without the prior written permission of both the author and the translator.
EPIGRAPH

"When the knight is but a sword, the radio is but a fraud, the whole is but an excess, the quantity is but a quality, the host is but a guest, the year is but a summer and the lover is but a ghost; you shall find me."

"And what are you?"

"I'm "But" that fought to stay; an exception I regret being."

\- Ibrahim, The Herbalist.
DEDICATION

To "The Underdogs" and "The Passenger", my apologies if the drawer is a bit suffocating. I'll open a window soon...very soon.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To improvisation. To Mustapha AL-Sharnoupy, to his pharmacy's warehouse and plastic tea cups. To Ahmed Samir and his car. To Belal Mosque and the single room in Hassan Ben Ali st... And to the 51 days.

PROLOGUE

Arriving here with them wasn't strange. The fact that they thought it to be normal was. We hadn't died after all. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse! The Light can pass now. The gate is more beautiful without guards and the houses are adjacent and mostly unoccupied except by a few. They call me The Remainder. Maybe, at some point, houses would be more inhabited, and the inhabitants would become more concerned with each other than they are with my name, the past and what they've missed. They ask about the rubble in the square, about the remains of the old building—cherished only for it is where I usually sit, about trees they've never seen and have only heard of their fruits from me, about the remains of the big disc and the huge rocks. They ask about the sounds of the night and my astonishment at hearing the words "morning" and "her" for the first time; words they've heard me repeat to myself at times. I've come to love those new ones in spite of all this exhaustion. The comfort of this being the last phase of my life is only spoiled by my fear; the fear that it isn't the last phase and it's just me who is the last. But, the new ones—they move, waiting by the gate, repeating the sounds they hear, and they consider "maybe" a synonym of life. That soothes some of my melancholy and my memories of past phases...and The Departed.

The House...they grew to love it when they saw me residing there, talking to it about things they'd never understand. They called it the House of Maybe and put a stone there for me, in sympathy of my old-age. Those new ones are quite beautiful, they're so benevolent towards me and my female that I can't help but wish for this phase to be the longest and the last. Witnessing numerous phases killed this city, and the time has come for the new ones to grant it a long rest. The idea of life giving you a break in your last days, satisfied with the oblation of your lifelong anguish, is...kind of comforting. Unjust. Yet...comforting. Life cut this city some slack in the end by creating the new ones. They see, smell and wait for the light and the stories. Not fearing the huge rocks and tree remains. Not dreading the old building; still angry—lurking, and eager to return. No wonder that it makes me happy, those had been sins in the past phases of the city. I laugh hard whenever I remember their ancestors and what was of the building, how it began and how it turned out at the end of the story. Life is such a bitch to change our minds like that...doesn't deter it from being fun though! Maybe it'd been our fault; being content with the routine...maybe!

If only he'd been here to tell them about all the things they wish to hear from me! If only he'd been here to be their last remainder and exempt me from enduring all the repercussions of his departure! Just imagining him amongst us now makes this place seem much better and the closure much more exciting. Perhaps his departure contributed to piecing the story together this way. The new ones owe him their existence though they've never seen him or heard a complete story about him. The story was so oddly pieced together that it makes me uncertain of everything. Although he would've hated it, had he been alive somewhere, I'm not going to give it much thought.

I don't know if all this really did happen. Am I really living with her in this phase? Did I really commit that deed in that faraway night in the distant past? Are we really surrounded by the light, the new ones, the remains of the building and trees and the adjacent houses after everything? Or is it just the "death wish" he once told me they have in "There"; the thing that makes them incredibly insolent? It seems like my death wish has over-grown reality somehow. Everything becomes hazy in a way that forces you to doubt all the past when you are senescent. The fact that I am the only remainder of an entire nation is terrifying...being the one entrusted with the storytelling is even more so. It is fortunate to die along others; everything that is overcrowded is exhausting except in death, it's the most comforting. You are safest when forgotten. "Memory is a noble executioner", he once told me, and I couldn't comprehend. He told me to never miss anyone, never reveal a weakness. Feelings become deeper when revealed. "Memory is a sly creature, it's tame as long as it's locked inside. But once unleashed, you'd become its first prey", he told me that, too. He told me everything, taught me to interpret things I could never fathom. But he had never told me what to do when I'm the only survivor.

I don't know how the city went through all these phases without folding me along one of them. And I don't know how everything arose again out of nowhere. When all of this crosses my mind, I convince myself that none of it happened. I'm old...and lonely. I've somehow lost my mind...and I'm not surrounded...by anything. The new ones, this light and these remains of everything don't exist. Perhaps he, himself, had never crossed paths with me, had never told me all of this or left me a will capable of changing the history of the city this way. How I wish he hadn't told me his will, forcing me to do what I did! I would've quickly ceased to exist with the others...and...everything would've been...over! I would've died in the scramble.

What happened in those faraway days was completely unjust to him after all this. Such closure suits neither him nor the story. He left in the only time he was supposed to stay. He rebelled when we needed him more than his rebellion. His dreams, his recklessness and his disappointment in them led him to this fate, known to no one... not even her. Despite all the years that had gone by and all the bills that did or didn't continue to ring, he hasn't been forgotten...a proof that he added something.

Yes, I'm the only being who believed in that.

Yes, she did believe later on.

Yes, I'm the only one left to believe.

Yes, I do not know what he added exactly.

And yes, that wouldn't change a thing in the narration of the story.

Yet, he did...add something!

Something in my heart yearns to see him right now and tell him that he didn't deserve any of this. It's a proof that his departure wasn't so wrong and that in spite of everything, and that the "maybe" he once said wasn't so wrong either.

They hurt him so bad it summoned the plague. It's strange that he didn't forget to drop his will upon me that night. He'd eerily believed in it and he dropped it upon my shoulders like a rock..."All that is last is fatal; the last smile, the last word, the last look, the last will...It's why we deem death the biggest and most frightening tragedy of all. For it involves all of these horrors in one instance."

Despite all this and all those who perished, the question hasn't left my mind yet. Why didn't the plague come before his departure? Did he send it from where he went as a revenge for what happened? Or did the plague fear him, so it awaited his departure before coming? He told me once that the whole world would fear him one day, even fetuses. His features didn't betray any disbelief or vain babbling. He'd been dreadfully honest, just like the heart we stealthily ate together that day behind the others' backs; the heart, which according to him, must've belonged to a lover. When I asked him how he figured that, he said that it was easy to swallow...a proof that it had been chewed before, either by an unrequited love or a lost battle—a heart of a rejected lover or a betrayed warrior. When I told him that part of it was still beating, he said it was them both...them both.

I don't know who to miss now...if I am to miss anyone.

Him or them? His awkwardness or their dullness? His rebellion or their persistent passiveness? His departure or their dwelling? His outspokenness or their silence? The night he mounted the wall or the night they prostrated before the idol? His drunkenness of blood or their drunkenness without it? His unknown fate after all these years or their fate, known for all these years?

Everything seems gray when you want to see, everything turns mute when you're willing to listen and...everything revolts against you when you get old. This is the fate of the longevous—living past their loved ones, wretched in their arrival, foolish for not killing themselves right then and there, foolish for allowing their hearts to beat for so much longer afterwards. Memories that manage to remain with us in our old-age are the only ones worthy of staying, the only ones worthy of being told to the little ones and the only ones worthy of accompanying us to the Wicked World we were once told existed somewhere.

The rest of what we forget is for nothing but helping those memories survive this long despite our idiocy in considering them the minor incidents. He told me all of this one day when we were eating a crusty heart. He told me it was a heart used to loss. When I expressed my hunger and lack of interest in the heart's owner and whom he lost, he smiled and told me that I would live long enough to forget everything in my old age, and that they wouldn't let me live to arrive There. I wish he would've taken me with him to that "There", where he would finally confess his sins and repent. He was noble enough to do all of that without chiding me like he used to. He never ate anything but the heart...only the heart and he stepped over anything but. When I asked him why, he said because the heart was the nub of disease and damnation. If it was broken, so was its owner. And if it was healed, so was its owner. "This little quid is capable of your demise and survival at the same time, a merciful murderer, and a murderous mercy". He told me all those things that I couldn't comprehend. Eventually, I came to think that all of this perhaps meant "delicious food" in "There" language...maybe!

All he knew about himself was that he despised queues, that he disbelieved their stories of Wicked World and Beautiful World, talked more than the allowed 20 words, took pride in having the devil's red blood running through his veins, liked The Drunk the most, dreaded his nights at The Skinny's the worst—nights he spent there willingly—and that he was citizen 2000 in a nation of 2001 citizens. He believed he had the right to number 1. A number no one considered a supremacy, except for being superior to me, just because I was the citizen 2001.

He confessed to have considered me a friend in a rare moment of weakness. I don't know why he chose me out of 2000 creatures. Most probably because I was the last citizen in a city where he happened to be the one before the last. I'm the one who came after everyone. I saved him from "the last" title that kept haunting him until I came to the world; a title that meant nothing to me. So, I didn't hate him for it...I saw something in him bigger than me, bigger than him and bigger than them. Something like love. Something like...him!

"When they draw you seventy routes to walk, walk for the far desert. You might die before you reach it. Let them call you a lunatic...There, you shall find the seventy-first route... it's the right one" His talk was strange to our city. Everyone considered him a lunatic and told stories about the torture he'd face in Beautiful World. I got to hear all of this later on..."This home is too wide to fit a leader's wealth and too narrow to suffocate a child's dream." I couldn't fathom the word "home", which he later on confessed to have heard from Ibrahim's friends.

He wanted me to call him Ibrahim. Such a weird name! Not a citizen in the city has ever been called anything but a number. Citizen 2000, however, decided that day that his name was Ibrahim; a name he told me to have liked. The original holder of the name seemed to be a stranger, just like him. Ibrahim told me that the stranger came to the city when he'd been the last citizen still, before I was born. The stranger was only accompanied by two friends who left him at the gate and wrote some stuff, like all the visitors of our city do. Ibrahim said that he heard the one writing the words reading them aloud, saying things like: "I didn't have the time to leave in a way that'd make them miss me. Actually, I had no desire to.", along with words like: Home, Her, There, The Ban, The Triumphant and The Wall. He heard all that absurdity during their talk about the stranger and kept repeating most of it to me later on. I didn't really understand it, but I loved hearing it nonetheless. He was unique in his narration, in his cursing, in his anger and in his desire to abandon them time after time after time. I've missed my fellow citizen Ibrahim. I've missed his uniqueness. Me, who had never missed anyone...his story made it inevitable, though he never wanted to be missed.

"Who? Who are we? Who exactly are we, Ibrahim?", I asked him that last night, after his will got us there. I asked him, and he turned silent for a little while, then, all hell broke loose...
CHAPTER ONE

The City of Darkness...We never really knew what "darkness" was until they told us it was the opposite of "light". And when we asked what "light" was, they told us that it was an evil, evil thing that doesn't reach our city thanks to our government's protection. Later on, citizen 2000 told me that darkness was the color black. When I asked him what those two words meant, he told me it was how we'd been living: seeing nothing.

We feed on what they call "hunger"...that feeling we get at the lack of food; a stomachache and a desire to acquire the unattainable. They told us that hunger was created by our Merciful God to prevent us from dying. During winter, the government provides warmth by pumping cold air. They sate our need for water by pumping something called "thirst". Pain has become the cure to our patients throughout the year. All this combination is made by our Merciful God to service us. The government exerts an extraordinary effort to pump it in the air of our city through huge pumps, under which the citizens align daily.

The City of Darkness is the only beautiful part of Wicked World. God placed it in the universe and made it our home after creating us with his mercy, his patience, and some of his wrath. Our Merciful God is the best thing about The City of Darkness. He blessed us with hunger to eat, thirst to drink, cold to warm up, and pain to heal. God's mercy exceeds all, and he shall grant us more of his provisions of hunger, thirst, cold and pain when we reach Wicked World. This is what he promised us; what we wait for and work towards.

From time to time, some visitors arrive. Their companions leave them behind, abandoning them. They are then carried towards the ruler's palace by guards. Sometimes, if the visitors are a bit on the heavy side, citizens are assigned to help carrying them. After the visitor stays in there for a while, the government invites citizens to a banquet of the visitor's leftovers in the main square. They say that the government imports them to help the citizens feel a stronger hunger later on.

First, the bigger parts are taken to the palace where they are crushed into the pumps to suffice the daily inhalation dose for all citizens until the arrival of another visitor. Leftovers are then served for citizens to eat. The same happens to the huge tree leaves when ambassadors bring them from abroad: most of them are taken to the palace to be burnt in chimneys and added to the combination, leftovers are then given to citizens to feel colder. I must admit, we celebrate it like a feast. When we eat the visitors' leftovers, our hunger is more satisfactory than that we feel after daily inhalation doses from the pumps. The same goes for the cold we feel from the leaves and how it differs from that of pumps. Obviously, no one can articulate that thought, I mean... no one could ever be that blasphemous!

The City of Darkness is the world. Citizen One rules the world. The government is the government of the world and the citizens are the people of the world. Our Merciful God sends us visitors and tree leaves from an unknown treasury, created, only, to keep us alive. The elders tell stories of a world that used to be larger than our city thousands of years ago. But those who lived then ruined the world and brought the wrath of Merciful God upon themselves. They believed in things like: "satiety", "warmth", "hydration" and "cure" along with other strange words that God forbade, words we've come to not understand or even know by time. Only the people of The City of Darkness obeyed Citizen One, the government and God at the time. God rewarded them by stripping the means of life from everywhere but the city. Ever since, the world has become The City of Darkness.

At the beginning of each 100 days, the government adds a new substance to the inhaling combination. They say it helps the city survive longer; it extends the lives of citizens and improves their breeding. 200 bill rings ago, they added something called "waiting". Citizen Three, the government spokesman, said it meant not rushing, that it triples our life spans. You must wait for everything without pursuing anything; it'll come anyways because God is merciful. Wait for hunger. Wait for thirst. Wait for cold. Wait for pain. Wait. For. Everything. Waiting delays the fate God has destined us and ordered Citizen One to deliver. You are not going to die until you fulfill your destiny. Thus, waiting delays death. God revealed to Citizen One that he wanted us to live longer, so the government added waiting to the inhaling combination... A while later, everyone noticed the delay in the arrival of visitors and tree leaves.

Fear...that's what we inhaled a 100 bill rings ago. Citizen Three said that "fear" meant "guarding" the city and your life. You must fear everything to live longer. Fear makes the City of Darkness capable of surviving long enough to reach 10000 citizens and thus Wicked World.

Previously, they added "hypocrisy", which meant "courtesy". It helped in prevailing peace and diminishing quarrels... the palace was more eligible for this addition, then the government, then citizens.

"Misery" means the maximum degree of comfort we'd ever achieve in Wicked World. The government granted us a small fraction of it in motivation to go all the way there.

It's been 20 days since the beginning of the new 100 bill rings. They made us inhale something called "hatred". At first, they said it meant "less love". Later on, they agreed upon calling it "regulated love". Do not love anyone or anything dearly. Only you and the City of Darkness deserve a love of such nature. You'd live longer and have more children and the population would reach 10000 citizens. The nation would then be able to immigrate to Wicked World and live in eternal misery where God's mercy is endless.

We grow Delusion; the only type of trees our soil is fertile enough to cultivate. The government and the citizens so intensively plant them that the city streets and squares are loaded with them...that's what Father told me. He says that the city has streets and squares somewhere and that they used to be able to see them somehow back in the day. Anyways, delusion trees are more centered in Delusion Land. There, and every 20 bill rings, we prostrate all day in an exceptional ritual of worship. Their leaves are short and slender though, making them useless as a source of food or warmth. Still...God loves them and has ordered the government to grow them because they are the only plants in Wicked World. When it's harvest season, the government takes the leaves to the ruler's palace. They are then put into the chimneys, along with the visitors' flesh and the imported leaves and they are all burnt to make the cold and hunger formula for the inhalation dose. Here, Delusion is the only immortal truth... It's the only harvest, and it never delays. We owe it an awful lot for always keeping us hungry and cold; bringing us a few steps closer to Wicked World.

After citizen 1006 died of a hunger overdose, and a cold overdose killed citizen 840, the government recommended rationalizing our daily inhalation dose in order to peacefully reach the target population of 10000 citizens. When we reach 10000 virtuous citizens, we'll be shipped to Wicked World; a world of eternal misery. There, we'd be extremely hungry, extremely thirsty, extremely cold...we'd be in extreme pain, extreme fear...and we'd extremely wait...extremely hate... We experience the slightest of anguish here to be rewarded with extreme anguish There. That's what God has promised the government, and what the government keeps informing us of, generation after generation after generation. The five criteria of a virtuous citizen have yet to apply to 10000 people at the same time throughout out the history of our city. As long as you're alive, you're virtuous. Once corrupt, you die. Immediately. It's the mercy of God; His Mercy takes pity on us, being quick to seize the corrupt ones so that they wouldn't corrupt the rest. And so, we keep waiting...

The elders tell stories of a time when the population reached 9000 citizens, they started preparing to be shipped to Wicked World. They were only 1000 citizens away from Wicked World, rather an easy number to breed. Yet, one morning, and—to everyone's astonishment—6000 citizens died all at once after the inhalation dose... Our ancestors had been awfully corrupt! They had not been worthy of living There.

We prostrate before Citizen One and Merciful God seven times a day, these are the teachings of our religion. We are an extremely, extremely, religious nation...in fact, to very utmost extent of "extremely". Merciful God grants us more years, so we can live longer, breed more and eventually reach 10000 citizens...Citizen One assists. Merciful God provides us with hunger, thirst, cold, pain, wait, fear, hatred and everything that sustains our misery, Citizen One assists. Merciful God sends visitors and tree leaves from the treasury, Citizen One assists. Merciful God plants Delusion, Citizen One always assists... They do their best, so we can peacefully reach 10000 virtuous citizens. Yet, we keep disappointing them, generation after generation...how shameful! 500 bill rings ago, the government announced Citizen Four responsible for religious awareness, helping people to live longer by avoiding the wrath of Merciful God and Citizen One. He helps us to not deserve damnation. That will definitely speed up the achievement of the ten-thousand-citizen target.

We have never seen the members of the government; they are the sanctity personnel, sent by our Merciful God to help in managing the city as He intends, under the command of Citizen One. Citizen Three is the messenger of God, Citizen One and the government. He delivers everything. He is the voice of authority. When Citizen Four joined him, the governmental commandments became more eloquent and aloof. It's fortunate that someone is speaking in the name of God anyway, it's an incentive to hang on longer, to be more patient, more obedient, to live longer and wait longer... to be fine-er.

We exist here to live longer. We grow Delusion to burn its leaves into chimneys, to inhale it from the pumps...to live longer. We prostrate before Citizen One and God, to protect ourselves from corruption...to live longer. We feel cold, hunger, thirst, fear, we wait and hate...to live longer. We follow the instructions of Citizen Three and the orders of Citizen Four...to live longer. We love darkness and pray to our Merciful God to deliver us from that sordid thing called "light", so we don't perish...and live longer.

We're fine as long as we're alive. We are then the virtuous citizens worthy of Wicked World. We are a nation who dearly loves Stillness. According to Citizen Four, it's a part of being obedient. Being still means exerting more effort in getting the blessings of God and Citizen One. Be still and move less. Be still and talk less. Be still and think less. Be still and consume less doses. The most still is the most obedient. We all need to be as still as possible if we want to be rewarded by being as miserable as possible later in Wicked World...it's the best we can pray for.

My brother left us... I've never seen him. My parents say that he used to be very affectionate and very still, he was never irritated by the inhalation or harvest queues no matter how long they lasted. He was a model citizen, righteously eligible for Wicked World. It was my fault... the law dictates that any family must not have more than 3 members. When a fourth member is born, the youngest of the three must move out to make space for the newcomer. He then mingles with the crowds, who only ever meet in daily inhalation queues and yearly delusion harvest queues...during both of which (and adhering to the Stillness Principle) no one is allowed to make conversations. We can only talk within the walls of our houses. Mother always tells me that she can smell him during queues, which means that he is still here. When I tell her that I don't smell anything distinct, she says it's a sense only mothers have. I never understood how to become a mother so that I can smell my brother...but I leave it be.

Each citizen is allowed only 20 words a day, we die immediately if we exceed them because God and Citizen One can see everything. The last six words must be: "Merciful God...Citizen One...The City", it's the law. We've never dared to utter an extra word. The houses of the city are built miles apart lest the citizens' resolve weakens, and they start talking to each other...that would violate the Stillness Principle and, consequently, infuriate God. He'd then claim their souls and we, all, would be denied reaching 10000 virtuous citizens. My brother, whom I've never seen or talked to, has been excluded for the common good. I think of him quite often, hoping that loneliness hasn't changed or corrupted him, leading to his death before he reached Wicked World. He deserves to be somewhere in the city now...alive. Maybe he stood in front of me once in a harvest queue or an inhalation queue, maybe he once nudged my shoulder to get past me... This is really sad!

This sun, shouldered by the ruler's palace, really is splendid and fierce. This huge disc is the source of darkness in our city and, thus, the world. We've never seen it, but we've always heard of its glory from Citizens Three and Four; it was built by our ancestors under divine commandments, after the disobedience of others (it was merely them left in the world). Had it not been for the palace sun, the outsider light would have invaded us, we would've...we would've all perished and... The City of Darkness would've been completely erased...forever. This dark disc has been protecting us, for centuries, from an invasion we could never withstand...we owe Merciful God and Citizen One an awful lot. I've forgiven the law for excluding my brother, so we can all live. This dark sun has stood above the palace for hundreds of years, playing a role of sorts. It is worthy of sacrifice, of being still and virtuous; so that it'd quickly lead us to Wicked World.

Light! It is our worst enemy, we shall not let it pass through to here...I'll make sure of it.

Forces...the hand of our Merciful God and the eyes of Citizen One. The most virtuous faction in the City of Darkness; and thus, the world. 300 citizens chosen by Merciful God on the recommendation of Citizen One, to, consistently and regularly, eliminate corruption. Forces is the only faction allowed to speak 50 words a day. They patrol the streets and squares of the city to detect those who are less virtuous. They perpetually enjoin waiting, fear, hatred and forgetfulness. The corrupt are reported to and terminated by the government. Forces even have the right to terminate some themselves; those who are so corrupt beyond limits that it may rapidly harm others. It's for the good of the city, so that corruption wouldn't prevail. It'd be a greater calamity to lose a larger number, it would keep us from achieving our 10000-citizen target. Forces are the most virtuous, the most loyal to the City of Darkness, and the most devoted in aspiring to reach Wicked World. When Citizen Three announced that God and Citizen One are recruiting for Forces, everyone was eager to be amongst the faction that shall not perish...the first to reach Wicked World. They are merely waiting for us to reach the target population number and they are consistently working on purging the city from the corrupt. My brother must be amongst them, I can tell from my parents' stories of him, which they never get to finish in one night due to the twenty-word law (which used to be only fourteen in the past). I'm glad that he's going to be the first of us to reach There. He deserves it because he is the most Stillness-abiding citizen in the city according to what Father once said.

We didn't have time to sin; we only get one thousand days to live here, after which we die. We lose everything and lose the chance to live in Wicked World unless we meet the target of a whole thousand murk points. Murk points are our passports to that world. When we're hungrier, we score a point...thirstier, another point...feeling colder, a point...fearing more, two points...more still, five points...more forgetful, another five.

Everyone's been competing to acquire stillness and forgetfulness points, proving to be the most still and forgetful.

We don't score points for doing. We score them for doing more. On the first of every ten days, a government delegation visits our houses to measure the murk points of citizens. I feel for those who cry stilly after the delegation leaves; they're getting closer to the thousandth day without scoring enough points, crying stilly in hopes of scoring five more points, which might somehow help. On my part, I'm doing fairly well; I excel with points of hunger, fear and sometimes forgetfulness (despite my young age). My parents are very proud every time the delegation leaves. The thing they take pride in the most is that I always forget everything. Everything they do for me, all of their agony for my brother's departure and even the happiness the complements of the delegation brings them. Maybe one day, I'd even, forget them, like...completely. I don't know how many points I might get for that, but it'd definitely be a huge deal! All of this brings us a sense of great comfort and optimism that this might lead me to the eternal misery...I feel my mom crying stilly, though, when she thinks I'm asleep.

We're guarded by the "less murky" towers, these pillars shouldering a glimpse of fire, allowing us a modest sight and preventing us from crashing into things. "Fire is a less degree of darkness. There is no such thing as opposites in this world.", Citizen Three once said. He said that opposites are the spirits of those who disobeyed Merciful God long ago; one was turned into "Light"; the opposite of Darkness, one was turned into "Noise"; the opposite of Stillness and another was turned into "Satiety"; the opposite of Hunger...he said too many awkward names to remember. These epidemic meanings grew more common amongst our ancestors as they continued their disobedience and became more deserving of the word of punishment. He preached about the atrocity of opposites, how they cause the conflict and cruelty that God dislikes. God forbade anything along the lines of light, satiety and noise, then placed them in the Beautiful World, where disobedients go.

There is darkness and less darkness, hunger and less hunger, hatred and less hatred and...until recently, the "less murky" towers used to guide us. Then, Citizen One assented to eliminating the towers from the entire city due to the abundance of our sins. This will achieve a stronger degree of murkiness. The absolute darkness of no sight whatsoever...thus the absolute stillness and absolute obedience.

You must make it as a virtuous (or at least, not a completely corrupt) citizen in these 1000 days. Corruption—and being caught or accused of it— condemns you to Beautiful World, where you'd be in utter misery in the absence of hunger, thirst, fear, waiting, stillness, forgetfulness and all those blessings. If you decide you can't make it to Wicked World, at least make it to the thousandth day without the ten thousand points. You'd then be dead and forgotten, you'd disappear in the isthmus, stuck between the two worlds. If you can't make it to Wicked World, try hard not to reach Beautiful World. Deprivation is less severe than excruciation...so we've been told.

Being unable to see all the "ugliness" and all these blessings is the most miserable thing here. The darkness surrounding us makes it impossible to see the city we dwell in. It's sad...not seeing the streets, the houses and the palace surrounded by myths. Mother told me once that females used to adorn themselves with "adornments", especially during mating seasons. Now, the non-existent sight makes it pointless. I won't deny that I've always wished to see Father and Mother, they sound very virtuous...it's okay though, no one really sees anything. It's enough that we memorize our way from and to the pumps, it's more than enough to live as Merciful God, Citizen One, The Government and Forces wish...more than enough.

This is a little about The City of Darkness: our shelter and what remained of the world, escaping God's wrath. Where the story began, developed so strangely and ended with me being here with the new ones after all this. We are incredibly miserable to belong to such place with its God and Citizen One. It's the best blessing life could've granted us at any point. Something we've never stopped being grateful for.
CHAPTER TWO

"I'm the son of the last house. I can see you", I was right behind him. In fact, I was behind everyone. I'm citizen 2001; the last citizen. I'm the last in any given queue. The darkness surrounding everyone and the stillness everyone was competing to apply to obtain 5 murk points made this ordeal a bit...strange. He left. I could hear his steps in front of me. Only his steps were distinct amongst two thousand and one citizens. Five steps, then...nothing. I don't know whether he reached his destination, or he just decided to have made enough noise for the time being. Five steps from the exit of the square led nowhere by any means... How strange!

We crawl to move. The friction of bodies against the ground makes no noise; that of feet does. Everyone needs stillness points, especially now, with the imminence of the thousandth day. The pounding of steps meant that someone decided to sacrifice. Someone doesn't care for murk points and, thus, doesn't really care for Wicked World. It could just be my exhaustion from standing in the queue for so long, or that I inhaled a condensed dose from the pump today and needed to repent... I kept crawling...

I strive to become hungrier, to still my scruples and to forget everything. Citizen Four said, "Become a newborn every moment. Don't let yourself remember anything that passed, even if it had just happened. An empty memory grants a longer life, a lighter heart and more loyalty in worshipping the ruler." Everyone here needed immemory. When Citizen Three said that crawling brings you closer to stillness, stillness brings you closer to murk points, murk points bring you closer to Wicked World, and Wicked World brings you closer to an eternal life under the care of Citizen One and Merciful God, everyone fell to their knees at once...as if we were born some feetless reptiles!

"I say the twenty-first word. I can see you", This time I didn't hear it next to me, but rather from above. This meant that the speaker was not crawling. It also meant that he could see me clearly, despite the darkness surrounding everything since the elimination of the less murky towers. I liked that. I won't deny that I miss hearing sounds, or even imagining to have heard them. Forty words to hear per day, spoken by two people only, and twenty to say for myself were never enough to fully experience life. I needed a third voice that would...somehow, make me feel alive... Dammit!

I've committed various sins during those moments and have quite possibly lost lots of my previously obtained murk points. It would kill not to make Mother proud at the departure of the delegation after the next inspection. Yet, still...I like this somehow and I look forward to hearing him a third time. The feeling of having something said, specifically, for you in the midst of deafening silence surely does bring a sense of..."life". It's joyful to have words accompanying you through a road you're used to walking by yourself.

I had forgotten about it. Today's queue had been exceptionally exhausting in way I think everyone suffered. I'm in a dire need to increase my dosage of stillness and forgetfulness. Mother must stay proud of me every time the delegation departs. Who knows! Maybe I'd join Forces one day...

That day, I told Father and Mother that I inhaled a lot of fear and hunger and a decent amount of waiting. When I decided to tell them about the non-crawling voice, I found myself at the eleventh word, with only three words left before the sacred six, so I said: " I hate you"... They hugged me, repeating the same.

The humongous distances separating the houses is a grace from Citizen One and our Merciful God. We've been told that the the city was designed this way to create more space for stillness and to prevent the inhabitants of each house from hearing anything but the conversation of their housemates. Some houses are inhabited by single people, those are truly lucky. They don't have to say the daily twenty words and are thus the biggest achievers of stillness murk points. They are also quite lucky for having parents not virtuous enough to have stayed longer, entailing conversations that would take away from their murk points.

When I felt the steps next to me, I stopped crawling. " I haven't inhaled in a hundred bill rings. I can see you." There was no doubt then that something creepy was happening. It could be a test from Forces to gauge the virtue of citizens. I decided to stay still and give no reaction that would make them deem me a corrupt citizen unworthy of reaching the thousandth day. I felt something touch my shoulder, a hand, probably. Touching is prohibited in The City of Darkness. Even handshaking. Only housemates are allowed such luxury; touching makes way for conversation, conversation takes away from Stillness and if Stillness decreases, we perish... Some, unintentional, contact may occur during queues and while leaving the square, we all ignore it lest we're forced to suffer more loss.

I felt death running through my veins when he touched me... I'm about to perish! this creepy citizen has somehow lost his mind! I crawled faster, in a hurry to get home. I could possibly get lost over this. For we now count our crawls to correctly reach our destination after the less murky towers had been removed. Doesn't matter though...better lost than killed by Forces, vanishing forever.

By the fiftieth bill ring after that day, I had already forgotten all about it. Bill rings announce the beginning of a new day, everyone heads for the pumps upon hearing them. Twenty rings after the 'touching incident', Forces announced the arrest and transfer of a corrupt citizen to Beautiful World, where he shall continue his punishment. On the fiftieth day, I found out that it wasn't him. I've stood behind him every day, in a queue where 1998 citizens stood ahead of us, inhaling the endowments of Merciful God and Citizen One. I recognized him by his special scent, I could smell it that day. His absence all this time ascertained me of his damnation to Beautiful World. I found myself scared to death of his return. How dare a citizen miss the inhalation queues for all this time? How is it that dose deprivation hadn't killed him already? How had he never been arrested?!

"When the queue is done, fifty crawls after your house... I'll be there."

I crawled very quickly and very much that day. For the first time in my life, I sacrificed my inhalation dose and, accordingly, some of the points that keep me alive. I crawled home and sacrificed a lot of wait points. Citizen 2000 was awfully cruel that day; an extent of cruelty I never came across in him later. He was awfully crazy, awfully reckless, awfully determined and awfully indifferent. He was awfully in need of something. He was awfully...Ibrahim.

He disappeared again, and so did his scent for sixteen bill rings or more. I thought he was the one slaughtered by Forces. The one whose corruption exceeded all limits and whose murder has been a necessity. Citizen Three said that, during a random visit of the delegation, a citizen had been caught with an extremely low balance of fear and forgetfulness. They discovered that he remembered the temporary malfunction of the hunger pump the previous day. What's worse, he didn't quiver at the sudden mention of the word "light". This is a level of corruption no citizen had committed in hundreds of bill rings! That's way he had to slaughtered; to rid the remaining virtuous citizen of him.

I thought it was him. I wished it were him and...wished it weren't him at the very same time. When the scent appeared again in front of me in the queue... I didn't know how to feel exactly. I resourced to stillness. I forced it upon my brain, so I wouldn't lose more points.

When Merciful God created "plunder", we prostrated before him and Citizen One one more time. Citizen Three said that it increased the chances of some of us in reaching Wicked World. All those who are approaching their thousandth day with no chance of obtaining the one hundred points could allow the youth to plunder their points. In return, they are to be eliminated by Forces and buried in the isthmus dividing the two worlds, meanwhile increasing the plunderers' chances of eternal misery in Wicked World.

Parents did that in the beginning; allowing their children to plunder them then, accordingly, they got murdered by Forces. We remember that three hundred citizens had been "plundered" in one day. The strange thing was that some of the children did it the other way around. No one really figured out whether their parents forced them to do it, or they just gave up early. The City of Darkness had been quite eccentric at the time...

I had a feeling that something went wrong in something that I didn't know. The number of citizens decreased remarkably. Yes, it increased the chances of some citizens in making it to Wicked World. But the decrease of population diminished the chances of others whose points remained the same. At the time, the government recommended pumping extra amounts of fear and wait and advised citizens to inhale them in multiplied dosage. Citizens felt somewhat reassured after the first post-plunder delegation visit. Apparently, there had been a remarkable increase in everyone's points, even those who plundered nothing. Citizens of The City of Darkness proved their ability to walk steadily towards Wicked World's misery more than any previous time.

I've lost too much...

I've come to feel death everyday time I inhale his scent in front of me when he attends queues. Guaranteed, it doesn't happen often, which makes the feeling of death even more prominent. I decided to accept his fourth invitation. I've nothing to lose but points, and I've already lost them. If things carry on this way, the loss will kill me. "The last house. After the queue... It shall be enough as a start." That was the first time I ever crawled past the house prior to the last; our house.

***

"Because you are the only one after me in this city, because I like breaking the rules, because you keep your secrets, and because I chose you to be my friend until I leave. That's all." I didn't reply then. I only listened. He was frighteningly mysterious and as obnoxious as the smell of his house.

"Oh, I forgot... I said the twenty first word. Yet, your merciful god and citizen one didn't bestow their curse upon me. This may somehow shake your faith."

I didn't utter a word. Actually, I wanted to preserve my twenty words for a conversation with my parents about my brother, the delegation, the fact that the hunger pump wasn't working quite well that day (we didn't feel enough hunger), what Mother remembers of the "adornments", or what my father remembered of the house fronts.

He was chewing on something, I figured as much from the sound breaking the silence after his talk.

"You can leave now."

I then heard steps towards the door, he opened it. I crawled.

"No one crawls at Ibrahim's... walk or die"

I heard his words and I couldn't fathom them. I tried to get up and I stumbled as if my legs were made of jelly or I'd forgotten to have owned them. He made a strange noise and I think it was directed at me. I felt a strong urge to kill him. When I reached the door, stepping over the threshold, I fell back on my knees crawling. As if the ability to walk was somehow only conditioned to being in this weird house.

"I don't feel like attending their queues for the next three rings. See you here after the third."

For a moment there I had the desire to see. See him and what he was chewing, see the kind of power he has that forces you to walk then fall outside, see the road to our house, see the houses and their similarity and the distance between them and the silence and everything Father has told me about, and see whether he was still here, or he'd left like my brother. I had the desire to see all of this, then I regretted committing the sin of wanting. It is the worst we've come to thus far. No, it wasn't regretting disobedience, or being blind to our surroundings, or glorifying silence. But wanting... wanting is the epitome of disobedience. wanting is the ultimate blasphemy. I prostrated at our house door and went in.

***

They will start enforcing breeding surveillance. There is no good in a city where every house has a son exiled due to the birth of his sibling. Having the streets and houses and queues of a city full of exiles, having houses hating their children (or... giving them "regulated love"), is heartbreaking.

When they announced that a deputy of Forces will take residence in every house inhabited by two spouses (overseeing the breeding procedure, lest more than one offspring is bred; corrupting the virtuous visions the government has for the city), they made us inhale something called "lust", it meant yielding our desires to those of Merciful God and Citizen One. When some spouses felt embarrassment in the beginning, they added something called "chastity" to the pumps. They said it meant shying from keeping anything from the government, who only wanted what was best for the city, sparing no effort to get us to Wicked World peacefully. In The City of Darkness, spouses do not mate to breed anymore. Only the childless do... in the presence and under the supervision of a Force deputy, who oversees the whole procedure and bestows the blessings of Merciful God and Citizen One upon it to guarantee the purity of the new offspring from any sins that might impede our advances to Wicked World.

We now have a fourth resident in the house. It was a bit awkward at the beginning, then we got used to it and grew accustomed to him. He doesn't leave the house, not even for queues. He is assigned to keep an eye on Father and Mother, ensuring that they don't breed new offspring. We've been grateful for that, my parents complied, continuing their path towards eternal misery.

Our sixty words are no longer of old adornments, or how the streets and houses used to look like, or my exiled brother, or the exhaustion of the day's queue, or Mother's fear of the inability to keep up for long. Our conversation is now either that of expressing gratitude to Merciful God, Citizen One and Forces, or vowing to ourselves that we shall exert extra effort to obtain stillness points. On the seventh bill ring after the announcement, we only uttered the six sacred words of the twenty we were allowed. That day, our deputy said that we are a virtuous family who deserved to stay in The City of Darkness for an extra while, then be transferred to Wicked World.

***

"I'm the skinny kid whose Grandmother named "there" and said "he would never arrive". Grandfather saw "after" more fitting and said I'd be late. Father didn't really bother, he said "map" and predicted that I'd be lost. Mother wanted to name me "here" and said that I would stay. They hated her and ignored it. Aunt "Maybe" said I looked retarded and would never make a clear decision. Uncle was quite sure that "arrival" suited my fallacious little features... After twenty years of namelessness, my beloved said that "together" seemed somewhat fitting, so we can commit all these idiocies. Now I am Together. I am the only descendant named by his younger beloved."

He said all this consecutively, without stopping and with no comprehension on my part. He was a stranger. He talked in a strange language, saying words I couldn't fathom.

"Visiting this skinny I fear is going to kill me someday."

He said whilst drinking something. I kept my stillness.

"Oh, you're here! Excuse me. I like your punctuality. I'm sure that idiot's presence in your house must've had a hand in that. You long for a bit of freedom... I like that a lot"

I heard him chewing and gulping something. I kept my silence... he carried on,

"It isn't true that I am different from you or them by any means. We were all born and raised the same way. It's just that I went to the gate and saw everything."

I was horrified by the words. As usual, I kept my silence.

"Leave now. Tomorrow, after the queue you honor so much, I'll be there, inhaling my own dose. Later. "

I heard the same strange voice at my departure as the last time. It wasn't talking, just a random consecutive sound that I liked and tried to hide the fact that I liked it.

"This is something none of you would ever know. Somewhere in the world, they call it laughter. I love it very much. I don't hate it... do you hear me? I. love. It. "

If he loves it, why repeat committing it!

I couldn't handle this much weirdness, so I intended for the door at hearing it being opened,

"You've already been told; no crawling here. Walk. Or. Die."

I walked. I wasn't ready to die yet. I don't know if it had been the right call.

***

Then, Merciful God created force and mixed it with plunder in one inhalation dose, making an amendment in the plunder law: "He who is able to plunder the life of others, shall have their murk points transferred to him automatically." They said that it was a temporary law to purge the city of the less virtuous elements. At that time, "virtue" became, only, the ability to plunder. The most virtuous became those who were the most plunderous. The scent of blood took over, covering even the smell of the pumps. I became citizen 1001, and the stranger became citizen 1000.

It was horrifying that the population of The City of Darkness had been cut in half. Citizen Three then said that Merciful God and Citizen One took pride in purging the city of all the corrupt ones. It was now a place worthy of heading towards the 'Beginning of the End' in a steady and promising way. I don't know if my father had really been corrupt. An anonymous killed him and plundered his points. Was it his secret talk of the old city and the house fronts? That would make me his murderer! It would also mean that I have to be more careful in my conversation with Mother lest she talks about the adornments. How horrifying!

That day, we found something falling off Mother's eyes. We didn't understand. We feared they were her points falling. That day, I didn't ask whether he would be buried in the isthmus or sent to Beautiful World... Oh, how I wanted to! That day, I felt like I wanted Father more than Mother. That day, I really felt like hearing all the stories I knew by heart about the old city and how it used to be like. Even though these stories had stopped so long ago I thought to have forgotten them. That day, I really missed seeing Father's face, the face I've never seen, the face I tried very hard to picture from his voice; a picture that came together the day he perished. That day, I waited for Forces deputy to leave us. Staying was no longer necessary... he didn't.

Twenty bill rings after that day, Citizen One issued a law prohibiting conversation between citizens of two different centennial generations. Citizens 1 to 100 can talk, citizens 101 to 200 can talk, and so on. I was with the last category, from citizen 900 to citizen 1001. It made more way to obtain stillness points, they said. Every house inhabited by a father, a mother and a child would no longer have conversation amongst its walls—the son is, definitely, from a different centennial generation. This law silenced sons forever. Deafened parents forever. There is nothing more despicable to do to a nation than keeping parents from listening to their children. I was quick to repent when such thought crossed my mind. My conversation with Mother was silenced... forever. But we loved it, for it shall protect her from talking to me about the adornments and my brother. We prostrated before Citizen One in gratitude for granting us more points.

***

"We are everything we've lost. We are everything we got and never really wanted, and everything we wanted and never got. We are everything we miss... everything we'd been warned of. We are the Light, sneaking through the gate with every new visitor; the light everyone hides from. We are the dark sun above the palace. We are in the dead center between "goodbye" and "see you", the dead center between "hello" and "farewell". Sometimes we lean more towards "yes" when it is "no" we desire, sometimes we prefer "maybe" when it's "no" we desire more. Someone planted us here, thinking he's done the world some good. He left to his home, leaving our nourishing to the soil. You know? The sad part isn't that he left us. The sad part is that the soil really did nourish us. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in the middle of all this chaos. What's worse, we are expected to keep going. That bastard passer-by must've been terribly evil to have created all this absurdity then going, leaving it behind, just because he missed his family. He must've been as cruel as our "no"... he must've fully resembled our partiality to "yes" and "maybe", Hassan."

He said all this in one shot. I didn't ask about "all this" that I didn't understand. He told me that he visited Ibrahim and the painting. I didn't inquire for more; I wanted to leave, but then... I realized that the same thing Mother shed, Ibrahim, too, had been shedding from his eyes just the same.

***
CHAPTER THREE

There were no queues that day. When everyone crawled for the square, no one heard the familiar voice of the pumps. Citizen Three interrupted our wait, saying there was a mission more sacred than dose-inhalation awaiting the children of Darkness; we shall build Obedience Idol.

Obedience Idol shall be the messenger of Merciful God and Citizen One for they are busy readjusting Wicked World, making it more miserable and worthy of the virtuous citizens of the city. Procuring enough hunger, fear, cold, thirst, stillness, wait, and plunder for the ten thousand citizens who shall take residence there one day, is, by no means, an easy task. Parallelly equipping Beautiful World with sufficient amounts of less hunger, less thirst, less cold, less fear, less stillness and less wait, is no less sacred or difficult than the former. Punishment is much more important than reward. Punishment is more asserting of sovereignty, more ensuring of continuous wellness, that's what Citizen Four once said and I still memorize.

Merciful God and Citizen One are exerting extraordinary efforts to appropriately prepare everything. Which means that the time of leaving for the two worlds is imminent. Now, everyone has to double their efforts in building Obedience Idol who will lead us there; taking the lead temporarily until the two Gods finish their preparations. Building Idol is the first test for everyone, determining which world they are to leave for... everyone is working hard.

The least 100 contributing citizens shall be executed, becoming the first inhabitants of Beautiful world. Merciful God and Citizen One are now preparing it for them in a journey of 100 days where they will eternally live... the most contributing 100 citizens? No one mentioned a thing about them. They are the first 100 citizens. They must be entitled to something... we preferred stillness and wait points to finding out what it was.

When we finished, the thirtieth most contributing citizen sacrificed three of his twenty words asking, "what's our reward?". Forces killed him immediately. Citizen Four said that demanding a reward for servicing The City of Darkness and building the partner of Merciful God and Citizen One (who left the city to provide the necessities of the imminent other life)... is corrupt. As a matter of fact, it is the most corrupt thing to condemn one to Beautiful World.

The moment they killed him and Citizen Three announced the accomplishment of the creation of our new God, we prostrated. In our prostration, we heard Citizen Four's decree from above; prostration shall continue for three bill rings... we prostrated for three whole days.

I'm now citizen 901. Why the Forces deputy is still dwelling in our house after Father died is beyond me. It's not like there is anyone left to breed for them to fear. the idea of asking him to replace Father with my brother, whom I didn't get to know, did cross my mind. We would be three again, not exceeding the allowed number of individuals in a house. I didn't ask... He didn't leave. When I visited the stranger yesterday, he told me that he would never leave, "State had entered houses... and it was going to stay there forever". He was going to surveil everything; our commitment to queues, our full inhalation of doses, our twenty words, and the things we shed from our eyes when we yearn. Forces deputy told me that it was God's wrath, a punishment for neglecting forgetfulness, that we must become more virtuous lest we get killed. Mother had been too corrupt in her inability to obey that...

Mother was killed by Forces deputy. I heard her weak "ah" while I lied face down as usual, waiting for him to accomplish his mission. He said he would copulate with her to breed a new offspring, purer than me. When he was done with her, he killed her and said she was a barren womb, unqualified to carry an offspring worthy of darkness and wickedness. The memory of that day... it haunts me. That day, he said I had to prostrate before Obedience Idol for an extra time, so I don't catch her corruption. In our prostration there, we are cleansed form any gesture of corruption that might deprive us of eternal misery. My future there, on the right side of the isthmus is much more important that Mother... so he said.

Forgetfulness now earned seven murk points and wait earned as mush... We needed it to be relieved from the memories of everything that happened. We needed to exert more effort if we wanted to reach Wicked World. The government promptly helped us by increasing the prostrations before Merciful God and Citizen One to ten and Obedience Idol's to seven. The increase of forgetfulness and wait points, along with Citizen Three's reminders that Merciful God and Citizen One had left thirty bell rings ago, made everyone aspire the sacred purpose of The City of Darkness since time immemorial... eternal misery.

Inhalation queues took less time now after the decrease of population to 901 citizens. When Obedience Idol noticed that, he decided to reward everyone by increasing the doses of hunger, thirst, fear, and, specifically, plunder. That made us spend more time at the pumps. That day, we prostrated before him for two extra times.

***

"Eat.", he ordered during my fifth visit, when I still limited myself to listening. The strange smell was very close that day. I drew back a little, he said,

"This is their food. The smell is just from storage".

"where...where did you get this?

I heard that voice he once told me would never be put into the pumps and is called laughter, then he said,

" 'where, where, did, you, get, this'. Hmmmm... It's good that you finally decided to sacrifice. Better yet, a whole quarter of your daily balance of words. Rather an okay result after five visits." Silence prevailed again, only the sound of his chewing could be heard before he went back to talking, "Here", he said, putting something in my hand that felt like meat. I felt it up, then ate it. I was in a dire need of feeling less hunger after the visitors' arrival tarried for a long while, making us depend solely on inhalations. I took it, ate it, and felt better. I really did need that.

"You know why I haven't fed you from the beginning?"

"w...why?"

"I'm not sure if they would count your stuttering as one word or two, but I like that you sacrificed more of your word balance nonetheless."

He was silent for a bit, chewing, then he said,

"Anyway... you didn't ask for food, even though you knew I was eating and even though you needed to... I liked that."

Silence and chewing again...

"I visited the drunk I like. He was very miserable tonight."

Silence and drinking...

"In tribunal,

Mother held a funeral.

Fake condolers spread,

A debate they held

For here I was,

Behind bars,

Her heart I took stealthily,

And she...

Fell for me,

Unwillingly.

"Silence!",

the judge said

to audience:

"Mother, defense,

Reporters, radio agents,

The girl's father; the wronged.

Plead your case",

judge says,

to the father, my prosecutor,

to guillotine, pushing me closer.

"This boy is but a thief,

Stealing a heart from my daughter.

His poetry starting a war within her,

Between his charm and care

For her and another,

Between his eloquence and fear,

And how much closer she went.

On love she came to reflect.

And his way a choice she sent,

"Love not the rhyme, but me... repent.

Or let poetry be enough,

throw away my love."

Of quitting poetry, he reported

then betrayed her heart and stole it.

Now without him she is

With her love he lives

And caused his madness her death

This, your honor is the case.

I now demand Justice,

And the guillotine."

"Silence! Defense."

"This boy, your honor,

A poet and a sweet-talker,

Both things,

inevitable and meritless.

He, I say, shall be sold

To the unemployed,

And those who of hope are void,

Or to radio agents

To break him apart

And be, for entertainment, sold

in a gallery

of yearning and joining, specially

or renouncement and criticism, alternately,

or love unescapable.

Money, it shall yield,

a compensation

to the girl

and her lost heart

that is now ancient."

"Silence! The Mother."

"Your honor,

If him you must kill,

Include me in the will.

Let the pond of his blood

Water the crops

Let its source be my heart

and his unpublished poems

and the starved bellies

and the nibs of birds

the branch inhabitants

That should be rather the middle

Between his memory and the kill

Rather fearless

Not a hunger filled injustice"

\- The father,

"I object,

It is all of him I want

A compensation

for my daughter and her heart"

\- Defense,

"Rather to pieces

be fractioned,

Between the ill, the unemployed and the runaway;

Divided."

A humming noise,

In his honor's chest,

In my rhymes,

Rather... in the entire court.

"Silence!", he said,

"He

a man who is free,

his heart telling him to revolt,

the only power he's got,

is but a plea to God,

to be by the revolution killed not,

and by karma hit not.

What I now see fit,

is for him to be executed,

by what to his nature is opposite.

Deny him the pen.

And the flag.

Tell him,

every detail about the girl and her lost heart.

No way to reach her will be allowed he.

This is my decree.

Allowed not his poetry,

is but death to the free.

To be by his words suffocated.

To love stealthily."

"All Rise!"

"Case dismissed."

Oh, la la la

Oh, la la la"

Silence...

The things that fall from the eyes...

"leave now, Hassan... Don't crawl."

I didn't know if he was addressing me, but I obeyed. At the door, he said, "Promise to stay my friend until tomorrow."

"why tomorrow exactly?"

"Do it!"

"o... okay. i promise."

"Leave."

I complied without even knowing what "friend" meant. He'd been very intimidating when I first met him... Ibrahim has always been intimidating, he'd been intimidating all the time I knew him.

***

"Why" is forbidden... those who say it shall be served an extra dose of less fear and less wait in Beautiful World. We don't even think it anymore for when we've made the Obedience Idol, we've built ginormous ears, enabling him to hear everything, even the unspoken. Obedience Idol is capable of hearing everything, even our unspoken thoughts. We've acknowledged this and believed in it when we built him like that. That's why forgetfulness is now of seven points; to erase even the possibility of any corrupt "whys".

Later on, a hundred citizens were executed. The government said that they disobeyed Idol; "why" crossed their minds at least once. I am now citizen 801... I am forgetful, and I am still.

The roads of the city are so narrow that they hardly fit two citizens side by side at the same time. That's what we know of the road back to our houses from the square. It must also be the case of other roads in the city, those we know nothing of and only Forces can walk in. we don't even know if there are other roads. Once inhalation queues are over, we return to our houses in another queue, a queue that gradually dwindles as each citizen enters their house. Father told me many things about the streets back in the day. Things I have forgotten to win murk points. Wicked World is more important than memories or anything that ought to move something inside us. This something has frequently moved within me, but I've always killed it by forcing myself to forget and become still to make mother proud after the delegation visits. This something used to move for my brother, for Mother, for Father, for the visitors' banquet and for point evaluations. It's gone now... I am forgetful, and I am still.

The houses are but a grant from Merciful God, he bestowed it upon the citizens of The City of Darkness for them to obtain as much stillness points as possible. The space of each house is made to fit the number of its inhabitants. When it is a family of three, the house is bigger. If it later decreased into a two-member family, a space is cut to fit only the two, and so on. The cut off space is then added to the distance between houses. The increased distance between houses allows a better opportunity for stillness.

I am now inhabiting a third of the space of our old house and sharing it with the Forces deputy. I do miss the gone two-thirds and the gone two partners and the brother I've never seen. Yes, I really do miss a creature I've never seen... I am forgetful, and I am still.

To the yearning that once seemed of value, I now see you for what you are... I am forgetful, and I am still.

The harvest season is approaching. Five bill rings and we're due to stand in the delusion harvesting queue and send it to the palace to be put into the pumps, refilling the cold and illness doses. We really are in a dire need for it now. Obedience Idol, Merciful God and First Citizen were merciful enough to hasten the harvest this time according to Citizen Three. Citizen Four said that we ought to increase our prostrations to twenty in gratitude. It's expected for the work load to be more exhausting now that we are only 800 citizens, ten of whom don't participate in the effort or the queues being government members. It was a bit hard with a work force of 2000. Now... it must kill, for sure.

Darkness Idol forbade "Ah!". He said it was as corrupt as "Why?". Those who utter it are complaining about servicing The City of Darkness, that is servicing themselves and their journey to Wicked World; a cogent evidence of corruption.

***

"I'm just like the world...there is bright place within me despite the darkness behind the gates. There is something that could be loved despite the presence of rulers. There is a desire to carry on despite all these corpses within me... and an inability to make all this look weird enough to be an excuse for asking for more. I didn't ask this world to make me as strong as it is, or as able to carry on. I didn't ask it to make me a place that hurts for just having a pin and a painting I don't like plastered to my walls. All I ever wanted was to be buried far far away, where no one would mourn or miss me. I'm just like love, Hassan... a victim and a murderer. Just like water... hydrating and drowning. I'm just like the big oak tree the original Ibrahim loved, it would overshadow you but never miss you. I'm all the "It's okay" said after disappointment. I'm all the "we'll meet" said at a grave. I'm all the "Good morning" said instead of "I miss you"... I'm all that nobody but me wanted, Hassan. I'm the paper; chopped off the battle history. The paper of the commander's love story that resulted in late offence... and defeat.

The heroic spy here is but a traitor there. The protector here is but a butcher there. I'm the border line between Here and There perhaps. Or... I think, I am the border line between a conflict-free Here and There. I'm pettier than witnessing a conflict over identity. I sometimes lie to myself in excessive confidence that I am the identity, and in excessive naivety that the world loves me and decided to distance me from conflict zones. I am going to lie and excessively believe it, for I awfully need it... Promise to stay my friend until tomorrow."

As usual, I didn't understand a word. I ate what he gave me. I felt what he shed from his eyes. I figured he visited the skinny he fears. I promised him what he asked...then I left. Not crawling.

***

We shall prostrate with our eyes closed. That's what Citizen Four said after delusion harvest. Though we are already uncapable of seeing anything and our eyes are now quite old and haven't been used in a long time, closing them has more stillness, especially at times of worship. Later on, Citizen Four said he "gouged" his eyes. We didn't know the meaning of the word "gouge", yet we discovered later that it meant to rid of one's eyes forever, for they are useless in a City of Darkness. When Citizen Three announced that every gouge of a pair of eyes will be followed by an increase in the murk points by ten points, everyone successively arrived at the inhalation square and Forces started the procedure of gouging eyes and granting points. We didn't say "Ah!" for it was forbidden, but it had been a very rough day. Citizen Four said that that day had been a source of the satisfaction to Merciful God, Citizen One and Obedience Idol. He said that its misery is but a fraction of the eternal misery of Wicked World everyone looks forward to.

***

"So, they've turned it to a city of blinds, then?", he said. He wasn't chewing that night. After a bit of silence, he continued, "Now I'm the only seeing amongst all of you... Very well then, it makes me feel special. I like it."

"h... how is it you don't die?", I said reluctantly, sacrificing some of my word balance. It's not like I have anyone to save it for anyway.

"Because I don't want to."

"i don't understand."

"It's just that I disobeyed some orders and went to the gate on the arrival of an old visitor. Everyone hid from the light and I loved it... no one noticed me. These people have come to firmly believe that no one in the city could ever disobey an order. That's how they rule you. The rule you by you."

Silence prevailed, so he said,

"Later, I started to wait for visitors' arrival and hide to go there. I even went to hear all the strange humming behind the gates when it wasn't yet the time for them to open. I once hid and went to the palace. Another time I hid and went behind the pumps. Again, and watched citizens three and four closely. I've come to master hiding and enjoy all this absurdity going on. As for food, I steal some of what's left for citizens in the square and store it. Sometimes, I follow Forces carrying it as one of them and take what I can during their last rest before entering the palace. The darkness surrounding the city allows me a decent amount of coverage to stay alive in the middle of all of this. That should be all... leave now." When I reached the door, he said what I'd been waiting for, "Promise to stay my friend until tomorrow."

***

The number of Forces will increase by another hundred, so the government announced; saying that Obedience Idol decided to reward the most virtuous one hundred citizens by recruiting them in Forces. The City of Darkness' population of 801 then consisted of ten of the government, four hundred of Forces and 391 citizens.

The first mission assigned to new Forces was to help citizens reorganizing the city. We tore houses down and rebuilt them so that they were narrower and the distance between them was more winding. Before that, the distance was long yet straight enough to make it easy to find our houses and those of other's easily. Now, one cannot find the house of others as easily. Citizen Three said that the city was now more organized from above; every house is located so that only its resident can find it by memorizing the road between it and the square. It makes room for more stillness and more points.

Seven bill rings later, the new mission was to build "walls" around every house so that the wall was three times as high as the house itself. The walls surrounded the house all around its four sides and had a small gate, behind which, the house is found after a big distance. Behind each gate stands a government deputy to protect the residents from themselves and kill those who seem corrupt. A deputy has the right to enter the house, wander around it, awake its resident, prohibit them from speaking and even lock them out and reside there instead of them. Forces are the true owners of houses, that's a given. They protect us, they sacrifice themselves at the gates for us; they fight Light, carry visitors and kill the corrupt. One who protects something is surly entitled to its ownership. I don't know if that's necessarily and completely the truth, but it's what they said, and they are never wrong. Forces are the indigenous proprietors of this city, we are but their guests. It's the divine allotment, and we dare not contradict Gods. The City of Darkness is now but lots of walls... and some houses.

***
CHAPTER FOUR

We shall celebrate and prostrate... there's no longer something called Citizen One; he is now called God Two. He is lordlier than being a mere citizen, He is the partner of Merciful God. He is the benefactor and the creator of Wicked World and its misery. Two gods, an idol and their pumps... that's all we have to do something that'd help us reach Wicked World. That day, we prostrated a thousand times in gratitude for Gods' graces. In the end, Forces executed fifty citizens who said "Ah" between the nine hundredth and the thousandth prostrations. We are now seven hundred and fifty-one citizens... and we are forgetful.

We inhale "Id"; it's their recent addition to the inhalation doses. Citizen Three said that it is the first creation of God Two as a start to his divine deeds. "Id" is the second most important thing we have after prostration. "Id" is the opposite of "thee". "Id" is the essence of Wicked World. "thee" is just like Light... a nemesis. "Thee" means that you see others. If you them, you think of them. If you think of them, you violate Stillness. "Id" shields you from all this, saves your points and keeps you in The City of Darkness longer. That's why we built the walls, said Citizen Three. Citizen Four told us to prostrate... and we forgot.

***

"w... why isn't there a deputy at your wall?", I said after hearing that weird sound they are never going to put into the pumps.

"You're now sitting above his grave."

I vaulted as if I'd seen the light. I heard the weird sound again, then he said: "I killed him. Sit. Sit."

"h...how?"

"Nothing. The real problem of the citizens of city of darkness is that they're oblivious to the fact that they are ruled by semi-creatures. They are weaker than you all think. You believe that your every move, breath, thought and word is watched. They make you inhale empty air, convincing you it was what's been keeping you alive. They herd you with delusion. I've been living amongst you for a long time; I don't attend queues, I exceed the twenty words by twenties more, I go to the gate, see Light, listen to the visitors' companions, take my food and what protects me from the cold. I visit Ibrahim and the drunk and the skinny whom I fear. It amuses me and kills me at the very same time. So, when they put someone to mess with all that... I killed him."

"they will butcher you."

"Watch out! You've just said the twelfth word... No one will know. I wear his cloths and sit in his place every day. All the citizens of the city of darkness are of the same shape and form, the darkness helps in concealing the minor differences. They want everyone to stay in their houses. Well, the house is empty and I'm outside. The new division of the city concealed a lot of houses from strangers and the possibility of being found, even by mistake. They wanted to make everyone here a separate city, oblivious to anything and anyone else. That helped me finish this without losses and even make them completely satisfied with it, too... I highly recommend you kill that sonofabitch at your wall, say more than twenty words a day and steal the visitors' meat."

"speaking of tearing down houses... didn't they find all the meat stash in house when it was destroyed?"

"I buried it all outside beforehand then took it back later... Simple."

I won't deny that food was very amazing. It made me feel more hunger than that of the pumps. Delusion leaves, too. Those he hides and gives me when I come by. They make me feel colder. I've become suspicious that this stranger's house is the Wicked World... or a piece of it, put as test to execute those who failed. Maybe I'm the first to be tested. I've perhaps failed. I'll forget this and prostrate fifty times before Idol's feet... should be safer.

***

Blood is the fuel to sins. Blood doesn't run in the veins of this city's virtuous... darkness does. Blood is the devil's water. He spews it into the corrupts during Purgation Night; that night of every year when the twenty most corrupt citizens in The City of Darkness, those who've been spewed with the devil's water, are executed. They never live for even one second after the spewing. All citizens are gathered in the square where Forces, led by Citizens Three and Four, patrol to kill the twenty they draw out by means known to none.

It's horrible; waiting for death. It's horrible not knowing how exactly they chose you, specifically, to die. It's horrible standing in a queue, waiting for it. Purgation Night had been the personal nightmare I've never admitted. I strived to exclude it from my thoughts, lest Obedience Idol hears them, and I'm found dead the next night. When Forces kill, rivers of blood are shed. Citizens undertake erasing its tracks by crawling and prostrating upon it without even seeing it.

It's the law of The City of Darkness; we are to crawl back and forth then prostrate at the end to erase blood tracks. We are then granted two points. Then we forget all about it and obtain five points. Not a drop of darkness has been shed from any citizen killed by Forces. Citizens used to be able to see this when the less murky towers had been around. Later, they'd inform us of every new murder and we'd prostrate before the Two Gods and the Idol in recognition of such a successful hunt. Having blood in the streets of The City of Darkness all the time is a cogent evidence that they are never unjust and always capable of hunting the corrupt amongst us. My skin was once gashed by the door and I felt something hot oozing diagonally. I couldn't see it after they gouged my eyes, but I prayed it was darkness that was oozing.

So, we've been eating our own words all this time then. Citizen Three declared that his advice of stillness and talking less was because Obedience Idol had been collecting all the unspoken words from our minds and adding them into the pumps to increase our hunger doses, especially during the times of visitors' delay. Everyone now strives to be more silent, more hungry.

The citizens of The City of Darkness had been willing to sacrifice just about anything to get their bellies filled. A full belly grants its owner a long life. It allows him more devotion in worshipping the people of the palace, it makes darkness, not blood, run in his veins and he is less likely to be killed for corruption and more likely to travel comfortably from here. All the poison lies in talking. Silence is the only available antidot.

***

"Ibrahim... he'd been brought here before you were born. At the time, I was still the last citizen in their statistics and queues, and I loved the gate's Light. They executed my mother and father one day before his arrival, for uttering the twenty-first word, they said. He was brought by two who still come to this day, despite all these years. Unlike the others, only accompanied once by many who never show up later."

" 'I didn't have the time to leave in a way that would make them miss me... actually, I had no desire to.', someone said, followed by a sound of carving into something solid. They had been awfully honest; him and the thing he was carving with. Hassan visits Ibrahim on regular basis, talking to him about how mush mess he's missing out There. I don't know which out and which there and what good could possibly be missed in a mess. He tells him that "Her" no longer gives a damn, that home is drinking wine at the palace's table, that the pen has escaped the drawer and is incredibly sorry for its inability to be the only one left standing. I didn't understand much of Hassan's words, but I understood that hunger, thirst, cold, fear, wait and forgetfulness are horrible things which destroyed Ibrahim and destroyed those surrounding him. I don't know how exactly, but it caused a tragedy of sorts. This Ibrahim guy had either been awfully crazy, awfully miserable, or awfully noble... only these three are despised by the world and its people. Only these three are capable of causing disturbance in the universe. Only these three live a long, long life.

From that day forward, I decided to become the Ibrahim of this place. From that day forward, I've been looking forward to Hassan's visit to his consumed friend. From that day forward, I've come to know a lot about something called "laughter", another called "crying", and another called "yearning". From that day forward, I only leave the gate to become the Ibrahim of elsewhere. From that day forward, I don't have the time to leave in way that would make them miss me. Actually, I have no desire to."

"that's why you named me Hassan?"

"I consider you a friend."

"what is a 'friend'?"

"Someone we don't fear."

"and 'home'?"

"Somewhere we don't fear."

"and 'Her'?"

"Both, Hassan... both."

"tell me about your parents?"

He turned silent for a bit, then I heard his exhale, and he said,

"I left the expanse of the house to the confinement of the world after them. Family is the only world where nothing is asked in return of making you okay. They used to save all their words just for me, there was no conversation between them due to that. I owe them so much... They left, taking the expanse of the house and leaving me the confinement of the world."

"their departure made you do all of this?"

"Warning did."

"i don't understand."

"Desiring the forbidden bares everything before your eyes. Don't allow anyone to warn you off anything. Go for it and allow it to kill you. Take pleasure in satisfying your curiosity. To be the casualty of your recklessness and passion is a million times better than being slayed by your unsatisfied curiosity.

They took everything from these people. So much so, it metamorphosed them into freaks afraid to even be afraid. They spent their lives in fear after fear. Those unwilling to be warned are those who miss not a word of the tale of life. They might live a relatively short life, but it's more than enough for them being present throughout all of it, not having it told to them behind walls."

"i'm not ashamed to admit that I don't understand half what you're saying. your words are strange. i've never heard them before. it could be a complete other language, that of some devil or something. i won't deny that I enjoy it though."

"Are you aware that you've exceeded thirty words and still are alive. You're becoming remarkably reckless.", he said, and I was dumbfounded by my calamity and leapt to my feet. He told me to sit and said,

"Nothing here is true. The only truth here is that they are delaying the only truth... death.

They bring it up at the slightest hint of comprehension and lock it in when they see Obedience Idol satisfied somehow. Nothing seems to be where it should be; love is for the unworthy, wait is for the never returning, obedience is for the unscrupulous, creed is for the retarded and death is for the unmute... Hmmmm, that last one seems to be a bit in place.

No one knows who is in charge of all this mess and why they did it? What would it have hurt if they placed every love in a heart inexpert in leaving? If they placed every wait in an absent uncapable of absence? Every obedience in a hand that feeds without holding death in the other hand? Creed in a head unweakened by prostrating? Every death in a body that doesn't... no, that part, especially, is just fine." He stayed silent for a little while then carried on,

"That part is fine, I no longer know where exactly death should be. Yet, in the middle of all this disappointment, I don't know if it is the one fair thing or the most unjust of all." Another silence, then,

"Did you know that somewhere in the world they consider hunger, cold and fear things that must be avoided?"

"what world? and who considers?"

"We are nothings in the big world. Just some creatures living in a forgotten piece of it. They reverse meanings here to herd you, generation after another. They don't reverse all meanings though; just those that serve only them and no one else. There are no opposites here. No plain truth you can extract from them. Everything is a floating grey except what they desire to make a solid black... there is nothing worse for a creature to live in."

A lot of silence this this time, after which he told me to leave then said,

" Promise to stay my friend until tomorrow."

***

That night, he taught me a lot about everything. I wished to inquire about the drunk and the skinny he fears and the "Oh la la la". I was his Hassan and he was my Ibrahim in way that took us both by surprise. He told me that this nation has some kind of power; the power of ignorance. Those who suffer all this agony and still hope for something must be powerful. The power of this nation is its ignorance of the fact that everything they go through is some sort of agony; not something to call hope. That night, I sneaked up the wall of my house. Deputy didn't notice it... or didn't expect it and thought I was inside. And, that day, I said my twenty-first word.

They made the day shorter... the bells ring sooner now. Two Gods had been very merciful to lessen the time between the inhalation queues. We prostrated in gratitude to them and to Obedience Idol and thanked the three of them a lot for all this exerted effort in sending us to Wicked World peacefully. Ibrahim laughed and told me it would lessen the time of the thousand days citizens are allowed. They wanted you to die faster, that's all. I forgot... I stilled.

Dreams are silent conversations. They forbade it... Obedience Idol can now hear everything after God Two granted him a third ear that we built for him. It can hear thoughts and dreams. Stillness is now of ten points and forgetfulness like wise. We stopped dreaming, thinking, and continued to forget. It'd been a very promising sign of being virtuous citizens.

The following days, they executed twenty citizens who dreamt in their sleep. Citizen Three said their dreams varied between inhaling bigger doses from the pumps and reaching Wicked World. Only one of them dreamt of prostrating before God Two and Merciful God and did not prostrate before Obedience Idol as prostration exhausted him. They started with him. Citizen Four said he shed the most blood of all twenty. Obedience Idol heard all this and reported to the two Gods and the government. Later on, what we wished to say after the twentieth word and didn't, fearing death, will be heard... Citizen Three assured.

The last visitor had been a bit precious; he came after a long wait in which we obtained lots of points. When everyone hid from the gate's light as usual (and while Ibrahim stayed by himself in his hideaway, watching) light spread in The Kingdom of Darkness, accompanied by a noise that frightened everyone and ended at closing the big door. They carried it to God Two's palace as usual. This time, leftovers weren't late to come out. Citizens ate like never before and felt hunger like never before and prostrated before the two Gods and the Idol a thousand times.

"A temporary victory, delaying death for a little while. Citizens must feel a small satisfaction every once in a while. It's useful. In order to still have people to be ruled. If the ruled die, the ruler dies...of boredom.", Ibrahim said while eating the heart of the last visitor, which he stole from the palace.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Was your departure an act of anger? reclusion? indulgence? Was it refraining? pity? helplessness? fear? greed? flee? coercion? Was it a victory? Surrender? Desire? A quest? Was it resentment? objection? reluctance? Was it out of stupidity? Or stupidity? Or stupidity? Was it a statement of power? boredom? blasphemy? A statement of love? Or love? Or love? Was it disappointment? Forgiveness? Was it stupid? Or stupid? Or stupid? Was it a sacrifice? dolefulness? purgation? revenge? Respect? Conflict? Was it love? Or love? Or love? Was it injustice? Or was it justice? A favor? Was it fate? Tediousness? Habit? Generosity? Senility? Was it lowness? Ignorance? Justice? Was your departure stupid? or stupid? or stupid?"

He said that and didn't hum "oh la la la". He seemed to be hurting. I knew he passed by 'her'. He faltered every time he went there. Something he didn't know threw him off balance. He told me he wasn't questioning his identity; he was happy to falter at this wall, saying it's the only thing making him feel like he didn't lose all our traits yet. When I told him that it meant he still belonged in our herd, he said that the way he falters when gets closer to the wall meant he truly loved. He said it's the only place where he doesn't regret faltering. "A male ashamed of faltering at his beloved's, acquires nothing of love but its lie".

His words were difficult for me to understand, but Ibrahim's voice was never this pleasant except when he was talking about "her" and his faltering at her walls. It was a voice pleading with something. A voice fit for singing or for a small conversation with a kid we love when we tell them that God loves them for being silent and obedient. Ibrahim's voice when he talked about "her" and his powerlessness at her wall was just like me... a virtuous citizen. That was enough to make me sense that he was suffering in some way.

"She has a brother who left because of her.", he said, then went on,

"She's like you. Fit for them, unfit for life. Her brother is a lowlife they think to be blessed in their wicked world. I didn't feel an ounce of guilt when I killed the moron."

"what moron?", I quaked.

"Her brother."

"so calmly?"

"I felt he caused her to live such a silent life, keeping all this sadness and regret inside. I could see it. No one is this silent except the afraid or the regretful. She is both. I'm but a noble lover."

"so you killed him."

"Exactly."

"Your face is the blank type. A face that doesn't travel or immorally dance in private. It's a face that'd seen so much, it either found silence sufficient or feared to act... either way, it's a dead face.", he said out of nowhere, so I preferred to stay silent. He was right about it anyway. I just didn't like my weakness, especially in front of him.

Silence again...

***

We are things... this land is no longer ours, we are guests of Two Gods, Idol and Forces. Our excessive corruption made us unworthy of belonging here anymore. We deserve to be deprived of the 'citizen' title... God Two was the one deciding to put us in a less rank instead of execution. We owe him so much. That day, we prostrated like never before. Nothing is worthier of gratitude than surviving death; being granted another chance at life and at reaching Wicked World. "Citizen" title no longer exists except for Forces. Anyone else is but a mere "thing". I am now thing number 350. In The City of Darkness, we are now 400 citizens, 350 things... and an Ibrahim.

When they did that, Citizen Three declared that God Two decided to grant us "crumps"; they are parts of the hairs and nails of the visitors we shall receive when food is late. Crumps shall keep us fully alive. It's a new grace from the two Gods; Merciful and Two. When we were given the first crump, we prostrated thirty times then returned to our houses, praising in gratitude. Ever since, we've come to love crumps, particularly of all the graces of Two Gods and Idol. For it was the only grace having to do with our bellies. We do love our bellies a lot.

They then forbade "want". Want indicates lack of confidence in the two Gods' ability to manage things properly. Don't want more hunger. The two gods know what's best for you and they shall provide you with it. Don't want more offspring. The two gods know what's best for you and shall provide you with it. The two gods know what's best. Period. And when you want, you imply that you'd like to amend the fate they've written. That's straight out blasphemy, with no retribution but execution. Six bell rings later, they executed four things for wanting. One wanted a smaller wait dose for it made him dizzy. One wanted an exceptional delusion leaf for cold doses weren't sufficing. The idea of wanting to see God Two passed across the mind of another. The Idol's extra ear heard him... he was first to be executed.

A pool of blood was shed after Purgation Night. It took us more time than usual to remove the traces of the executed twenty and crawl over it. The nineteenth and the twentieth fatalities had been a father and his daughter, the seventh and eighth a mother and her son. the worst thing about The City of Darkness now is that corruption is within the one family. This means that the devil has gotten smarter in his war against us. Despite all the efforts of the two Gods in separating houses and family members, the devil's water still finds its way to us... It's a shame that some citizens are still hot blooded after all this!

Chains will keep us safer... Citizen Three said that the government made chains for all 'things'... and just for things. We need more protection from the evil amongst us, those who have blood, not darkness, running in their veins. Chains protect us and allow us only the movement desired by Forces and abhorred by the hot-blooded evils. Crawling is for queues and delusion harvest only. Everything else is but mere absurdity. We now crawl in chains, we are bound by it to a hard thing they exported from the treasury and put in the inhalation square called "rocks". We're bound until we finish our inhalation, then we return to our houses, dragging our chains to be bound again to the rocks they put there. Chains are the creation of God Two. Rocks are brought by Obedience Idol. They've both proven to be the most caring of ensuring our survival, and the most aspiring to send us to Wicked World.

***

"The whole world will fear me one day... even fetuses.", he said out of nowhere when we were chewing some of what he stole, continuing, "I have an honest heart just like the one we're eating... this heart is of a lover."

"how would you know?"

"This heart is easy to swallow; a proof that it had been chewed before, over and over, either by an unrequited love or a defeat in battle. This is an unloved lover or a murdered warrior."

"it's still beating."

"It's them both... them both."

He turned silent. I remained silent.

"God created me from the mud of the bombarded land. Then dislodged me a little to make space for a flower that wasn't destroyed by the bombs. He made me spit on the mud around me then mad me regret it. He meant for me to keep doing this until I die in an upcoming bombardment. To look back to the remains of the house behind me and the armless puppet, walking towards them for a burial in the mud I spat on... God taught me the names of everything; "her" is the flower, "home" is the mud, "dream" is the house, and "citizen" is the puppet... when I asked him my name, he said I must supplicate excessively to get a name as suitable as theirs. I supplicated and 'her' bud sprouted. I supplicated more and more sprouted. More and more supplicating and more and more sprouting. I heard a voice saying: "She is worthy of you.". I am now the stone "She is worthy of you.". I await the bomb with "her", "home" and my spits and their exsiccation and what I buried in it."

"the skinny you fear?"

"You've come to understand me in a not half bad way."

We ate. He told me to leave, so I left. He stopped me at the door saying:

"Be careful when you go up the wall tonight lest their citizen sees you. I need a friend."

"you warn me for me or for you?"

"For me..."

He stayed silent a bit then said,

"Promise to stay my friend until tomorrow."

He was honest... rude. I loved that...Citizen Ibrahim had been the climax of the story of The City of Darkness. That night, the story of the misery we'd caused him arose somehow.

When I was climbing the wall, I lost my balance and fell. When the deputy caught me, I said that I wanted an extra unscheduled prostration. When I heard I female voice nearby, I didn't find strange that he left me, threatening if I ever do it again. When I crawled for about 2 inches in front of him, I heard a muted "Ah". Having my sight previously gouged, I saw nothing. The scent of Ibrahim was getting closer and he asked, "You okay?"

"yes, w... what happened?"

"I was watching to make sure you made it safely. I saw him stopping you. I came to rescue you... and killed him."

"w... what?!"

" I. Killed. Him... Goodnight.", he said, and I heard his steps moving away. I stopped him, he came back.

"you find it that simple? we will be executed!"

He laughed and said, "At least we'll have the chance to discover this 'beautiful world' of theirs."

"he had a female with him."

"Yeah. I might have noticed as much."

"and where did she go?"

"I don't know... probably fled. I wouldn't have killed her when she did nothing."

"are you insane?"

"Where did you learn that word? Huh?... Seems like you've been frequenting the gate behind my back. You've changed a lot, Hassan." He turned silent and I didn't reply so he said, " I feel a strong desire to sleep. I'm going to leave now. Sweet dre... I mean, sleep well."

***

He'd been incredibly weird that night. He'd just killed a Forces member. She who ought to out him escaped. And he just went to sleep and have the sweet dreams they'd forbidden! He probably started coveting them when they became forbidden... Definitely.

Forces came for me... I'd been waiting for them, waiting for them to murder me that night anyway. I waited loyally in hopes of obtaining a point or two that might steer them away and tell them that I'm a virtuous citizen worthier of Wicked World, that darkness runs in my veins and not blood, the devil's water.

They came and didn't bust the door. I automatically prostrated at their entry. I'm not sure whether it had been in a plea or faith or farewell. It had been instinct. Someone put a foot on my head. Probably in preparation for my slaughter. When they were appeased by my utter stillness, I doubted I was in Beautiful World, already murdered. I thought murder inflected some pain. It couldn't have been that easy to die. When someone dragged me by the feet, I knew I was still here. That night, they dragged me forever, so much so that I thought it was a different type of execution for the more corrupt... or the less. I wished for the later. And something in me insisted on the former. Those who barely do wrong, are barely good at dying quietly. The polite ones, the quite ones, the ridiculous ones who prefer the confinement of pavements to the expanse of streets, and attending queues to missing them, the ones who thrive in the praise of their potbellied neck-tied managers for not causing trouble. Those die faster... death comes after them reluctantly. For they are easy preys and death is but a valiant warrior, not to be satisfied by an easy battle, Ibrahim told me all that later on... when we were condemned to die together.

Fifty bill rings, twenty inhalation doses of fear and wait, and some meet to keep me live somewhere I didn't know later... someone came for me again and informed me that I was still in The City of Darkness and haven't left to Beautiful World yet.

"thing 351, lives alone and witnessed the corrupt murdering the Forces citizen. The only witness said he talked to the murderer briefly after the murder and didn't attempt to report the incident. female thing 314 heard them before she escaped and reported the incident. This means he has some sort of connection to the corrupt... Alright then.", I heard in front of me, then another voice ordered someone: "Put his hands in these chains. It shall charge him with the hundred-word power we are going to need during interrogation."

Chains give us power... we've heard and believed this earlier on from Citizen Four. This situation proves it to be the truth. I was about to tell him that I'd already said twenty-one words before and I probably could say a hundred without the chains, but something stopped me. I was convinced that that was merely a coincidence for Idol to turn a blind on it once due to his hatred of me.

"What do you know about thing 350?"

"h... he stands before me in queues and inhabits the last house."

"And?"

"doesn't crawl"

"AND?!"

"his eyes aren't gouged"

Silence prevailed for a moment. Perhaps in astonishment... or denial.

"Plunder half his points. Don't kill him yet... we'll need him."

I made sure not to lie. Even on the brink of death, I made sure to gather as many points as I could. It killed to end up like this despite all my sacrifice. I crawled. I starved. I suffered. I feared. I waited. I forgot. I built an Idol and prostrated before it. I did everything that qualifies me to be a virtuous citizen in their eyes and steer away from the evil hot-blooded ones. Even if I committed one sin by saying the twenty first word. I thought Obedience Idol exempted me from death that night because he hated me more than the rest. Everything was going perfectly fine one way or another until that arrogant light lover rule-breaker came to my life. Ibrahim killed me with his Light. Me. The virtuous who had always had darkness running in his veins!

I kept my prostration there. In that nameless place they put me in. it was awfully scary, despite me seeing not one iota of it. The chains were greatly reassuring. Chains in The City of Darkness ensure greater safety. You are alive because you are in chains. You are dead once you're free. I made sure to take advantage of the chains' presence around my limbs and use its power in gathering some points. they might be my intercession of the two Gods and the Idol.

Meanwhile, I heard two Force members behind one of the walls surrounding me talking about a new prohibition. They prohibited something called "justice". Justice is but a mere less injustice. God Two does not give "less". Injustice is Darkness' associate. Everyone experiencing Injustice have it combining with the Darkness within them, granting them longer life. Injustice here is a blessing from the Two Gods; a blessing worthy of gratitude and prostration. Justice is just like light and blood erupting in veins; enemies from Beautiful World.

During the next Forces' visits, I requested a double dose of Injustice. I need more Darkness in me if I'm going to win Idol's forgiveness, like the one he bestowed upon me on the night of the twenty-first word incident. He told me to prostrate and suffer more by putting my head under the rock of chains. Chains helped me prostrate more, plea more and talk about the wanted ibrahim more.

I heard from Forces behind the walls that he killed two more, those who went to execute him, and disappeared. He is the only citiz... I mean... thing who dared to do all this foolishness in the history of The City of Darkness. The strange thing was that Two Gods didn't kill him, and Idol didn't slaughter him. That ibrahim has become an incident that challenges everything they ever told us works... that's why he shall suffer double the punishment from God Two specifically.

CHAPTER SIX

I am now... free! This is the most appalling crime a "thing" could ever commit in The City of Darkness. Freedom means rebellion, rebellion means disobedience, disobedience means not prostrating, not prostrating means blasphemy... In The City of Darkness, freedom is blasphemy.

Citizen Three said this while parading me before the nation of Darkness, making an example of me. He said that all those without chains are free. The free are blasphemous. Darkness doesn't run in their veins, but rather lots and lots and lots of blood. That day, Citizen Four announced to the things of The City of Darkness that God Two came to the decision of adding another chain to protect them from the blasphemy of freedom and not prostrating, so that they wouldn't become like me and end up in Beautiful World. I was about to say that I've been extensively prostrating these days despite their claims of me being free, then I remembered they had withdrawn my word balance before they took me out, someone told me that while putting something I didn't understand around my head. That accusation really did hurt me. Free! How miserable! After all this history of prostration and chains and delusion harvest and fear sanctification, after my and my family's forgetfulness they accuse me of that?! That day, I felt like the most miserable thing in the history of The City of Darkness... I was right.

They pumped "despair" today. Despair kills want. Want is the mother of all sins. Despair is the creation of God Two and a blessing that called for a number of extra prostrations. Citizen Four said that despair helps to live longer. Exactly what we needed... "Hope" was forbidden; it's something said to shorten lifespans in this place. Especially in this place. Remarkably so. Hope makes you want for something. Want is the mother of sins. Want is forbidden. Conclusively so.

Why hadn't I lied? Why didn't I defend Ibrahim? Ibrahim, the one who offered me lots of company after the departure of my parents and lots of food after the delay of visitors' arrival and lots of weird conversations about home and "her" and Hassan and lots of thigs I never fathomed. Why hadn't I lied?!... I'm not sure. I was careful to gather as many murk points as I could. Not being as virtuous as my brother killed. I did everything they ordered and more. I prostrated. I built an Idol and worshiped it. I crawled. I hated. I starved. I hurt. I feared. I stilled. Then I forgot all about it... I did everything that would make me virtuous in this place. Ibrahim did everything that proves his veins to have boiling blood running in them. Now, I am in a place I heard them call "prison", protected by my chains, and he is still endangering himself with his freedom.

They haven't killed me yet. They interrogated me every day about him, telling me they charged me with a hundred words to reply. Every time I tell them the absolute truth, they never believe it. I wished to ask them why they don't ask Obedience Idol. He hears everything. He hears my thoughts and dreams and knows that I'm still a virtuous thing worthy of the chains and the darkness doses. I cowered every time. They may consider it rebellion or suggestion. I think they know everything, the idol's ear I participated in building must have told them everything. They are just testing me to prove that I carry darkness not blood in me. I am firmly proceeding in my way towards Wicked World and executing the thing ibrahim and sending him where he deserves, that's for sure.

During my next parade, it came to my knowledge that the inhabitants of The City of Darkness have descended to yet another level... they are now "zeros". Zeros seventeen and thirty-one were immediately executed because Darkness Idol heard them calling themselves 'things' in their dreams. The City of Darkness is now the city of prostrating, forgetful, crawling, and chained zeros.

God Two decided to keep granting them more chances despite their levity and their actions which more than warrant them to perish and be sent to Beautiful World. God Two awfully hates us and we hate him with passion. He is the reason we're still here. He was the one who planted us here and protected us with Merciful God from the destiny of the disobedient world long ago. When they said we were zeros, we prostrated in gratitude. Citizen Three said that the prostration increased by a hundred more and that starting the next ring, something called "danger" would be pumped...

Danger protects us from every absurdity we commit. We must always feel danger in order to stay under the protection of Obedience Idol and God Two longer. When zeros inhaled the first dose of danger, Citizen Three said that danger meant not feeling safe except in the presence of God Two, Merciful God and Darkness Idol. When he said God Two before Merciful God in a reversed order, everyone thought it was by mistake. But when he repeated it again saying that God Two, Merciful God and Obedience Idol have decided to put a small idol in each house to grant blessings, enforce silence and guarantee the permanence of feeling danger... we knew it was completely intentional and that some modification was applied to the chronology of the city's Gods.

My presence in queues was strange. The persistence of their test until now was strange. Not being instantly killed like the rest, had it not been a test, is the strangest. My only condolence was that Obedience Idol hears everything and knows everything. That was greatly reassuring. At least it would stop Forces from implementing my death sentence at the perfect time... the absolute perfect time.

"There is no time left for patience... where is the traitor?", when someone said that to me, I didn't know what that word meant... 'traitor'. But I realized it was meant for Ibrahim and that it meant corrupt perhaps, or free, or anything else than warrants being condemned to Beautiful World.

"i've... i've told you everything. perhaps... perhaps he is in the last house. he has enough food stored there to last him a long time in hiding. or... no, no... I think he might be in delusion land. he once told me he went there during other times than those of harvest because he loved the warrior trees... wait... wait... he must be at the gate... Yes!... the gate... he is insane and completely in love with light."

"You insist on the implementation of the suspended death sentence then."

"no, no... why... why don't you ask Obedience Idol about him? His ear I that helped building myself is capable of hearing every letter a citizen utters or thinks... I mean murk zero. Ask him even if I am honest or if I'm hiding anything. I deserve Obedience Idol's injustice... I deserve it. I'm not corrupt."

"Prepare him for execution before the zeros after the next ring."

I had no time to utter another thing. They tied the bandage and withdrew the word balance. I don't know whether they are going to make me say the six-word slogan or condemn me to have said enough already... "corrupt" being the last thing I say in this world is a sign of displeasure of the Two Gods and the Idol. Maybe I will be destined to a place worse than Beautiful World, a place made specifically for "inmates"... Maybe the two Gods created a place next to the two worlds and the isthmus where there is no hunger, no thirst, no fear, no waiting, no forgetfulness and no danger. A place that is not less miserable, but rather not miserable at all... how terrifying!

They put an extra chain around the neck. For a moment, I thought that I'm given an opportunity to gather some extra points that may save me in the last moment. Some hope wouldn't be so bad at times like this. Yes, I might lose some despair points, but chain points are more valuable; a good bargain for sure. If only they'd spared me a couple of words to beg for an extra chain or ten. It's okay... the next bell ring, when they take me to my execution, Darkness Idol, God Two and, perhaps, Merciful God are going to interfere and do something about it. They are merciful enough to turn a blind eye on the little hope overwhelming me now, they are the ones who made me do it and now they have to do something about it one way or another. They are Gods and they must be capable of it... inevitably.

I didn't view prison as a bad place. It seemed to be a good place that contains everything we need to stay longer in way that pleases the gods and the rulers; danger, fear, wait, stillness... the only thing ruining it and gods' satisfaction with us in it is that it, sometimes, contains a little hope. I wish that... dammit! I mean, I desire... no, not like that... I want... not that one either! God Two, I wait for you to remove hope from prison... this is a tolerable and sinless wording, I think.

His scent! I swear it's his. I know it and it hasn't left my nose yet. It was the drunk's scent this time. He'd gone there again. He had... he had... dammit! I'd overdone forgetfulness too much this time! Yes, I remember... he had yearned. He yearned and went and came back for some reason. Maybe because he wanted to. Maybe to die. Or, maybe, because he doesn't have the desire to leave in way that would make them miss him. This citizen is honest in a strange way. Honest although he deserves execution and despite all his insanity and weirdness.

Did he come back for 'her' whom he loved by smelling and attended the queues he believed were for fools and dumb ones for? Or did he want to amend something regarding our relationship? Ibrahim had been a "thing" whom you couldn't tell yourself or the world anything specific about. "You'll look like a chicken's butt in the end", I neither know what a chicken is neither do I know its butt, but he told me that one day. "you're a chicken's butt when you crawl and try to think of home at the same time"... Ibrahim is the corrupt air of The City of Darkness. Its gate in the moments of opening and hiding. He is all the missing fear doses in the pumps. He is every feeling of hunger and cold we disliked and hid the fact that we disliked it in order to gather points. He is our abstaining from hiding it and completely killing it when we created Idol's ear. Ibrahim is The City of Darkness... but not here. Ibrahim is The City of Darkness in Beautiful World.

"Yellow Occupation arrived,

on a mule...

stealing the taste of sugar and bribing it to deceive us of its taste,

sugar accepted...

we were deceived

it was rewarded with eternal sweetness.

Dark Thief arrive,

on mule...

stealing the taste of salt, bribing it to deceive us of its taste,

salt refused...

it was punished with eternal saline.

A hundred years after the two incidents,

Sugar was a song and present to kids...

And we named a disease after it...

A hundred years after the two incidents,

Salt was the cheapest ware...

And not a meal is made without it.

Oh, la la la

Oh, la la la "

My guess was right, he did visit the drunk. I found it strange that he chanted in a voice that Forces could easily hear. He came to be executed then. He wanted that and wanted to provoke them as his last mission. At some point, I wanted to warn him, of their presence outside, of the hope that hasn't left the place yet, of everything that can send him to Beautiful world. But they withdrew what was left of the word balance that could've saved him with a warning or me with a repentance. They didn't come. I didn't warn. He didn't shut up. I didn't even wake up... it's a good thing that I don't dream anyway. I couldn't handle more sins when I was clinging to the chains and danger to survive...

"Oh, la la la". It, terrifyingly, echoed through the prison, his steps steadily pounding across the ground with it. He was awfully insane and craving immediate decay. These actions only come from someone who awfully craves life, awfully craves death, or Ibrahim. It's the death knell. Now I understand everything... this is what they do to everyone awaiting execution. It's a game. I misunderstood. It's the music of Beautiful World. The music we love. The music of bliss. The words of comfort. The hymn of desire. The eternal deprivation of misery. They've been awfully cruel in that regard; cruel in making us see all this right before death... Meanwhile, I stopped prostrating and listening to him. I quietly waited for my execution and my journey to Beautiful World. There is no point in my pleas anymore. He came and ruined everything. As usual.

"Come. Let's go.", I heard it coming my way with the approach of the scent. Frightened, I didn't reply... "Come on, don't be scared... I killed the idiots outside." I was now certain it was him. I, internally, begged God Two to kill me right then and there... it's a convenient solution, pleasant to everyone. I'm still unable to speak and yell at him to go to the death he deserves away from me.

When he withdrew a bit and "oh, la la la" appeared again with his steps as if he'd hadn't been talking a moment ago, I stilled, then... unconsciousness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Were you dead, it wouldn't have taken you so long to come to", I heard to my right and wasn't yet ready to live longer. I arranged all my plans for the next stage after execution. "You're safe now... take this.", he said, and I smelled meat. I was in a dire need for food indeed and gave in. I was now keeping him company somewhere. We're most likely awaiting execution together and he decide to celebrate his way before leaving. I wanted to ask if they'd felt him. If they'd given him a word balance and three chains. Whether they were going to execute him with me or his interrogation wasn't over yet. If he, like me, was waiting for Idol's intervention and declaration of his virtue. Then I remembered he was already corrupt and won't wait for anything. I remembered there was no need for that in the first place. We will both be executed and sent to Beautiful World. Maybe we'd meet there, and he'd tell me all about what happened that I don't remember. I don't know whether or not there's a word balance in Beautiful World... we shall wait and see.

"You can talk.", he said, I didn't understand... and I didn't care. He was weird, and, at the moment, I was incapable of exerting any effort to understand him.

"Talk... you can talk, you moron." It's meant for me then and he completely meant what he was saying. He seemed frighteningly confident in that. I tried to open my mouth and feel it's opening and I found it wasn't that hard; my tongue, when I held it and took it out of my mouth, was similarly obedient. I tried talking...

"die...",

It was uttered.

"when are they going to carry out the execution?"

"They aren't going to carry out anything."

My tongue hurt a lot and the feeling that my mouth in general has become bigger than normal was annoying to the extent that I hoped... I mean begged God Two to... silence me forever, but I pressured myself after his strange reply.

"God Tow exempted us? or did Obedience Idol reveal everything?"

"He rather put up a reward of 200 murk points and a special place in Wicked World for anyone who leads to us.", he said, and I heard chewing. Frightened, I turned to him, unseeing. At first, I wandered at the lightness in my movement, I felt up my neck and felt no chains, it was then I knew he caused another disaster and brought it upon me, I was afraid to ask, so after he finished chewing, he said, "I killed the two forces' members after I knocked you out and freed you from your chains, then I carried you here... take this piece of heart; this visitor had been a prisoner, like you. It's easy to figure out; his heart is sweet and full of blood. It will make you yearn for something, desire something, and feel a bit guilty."

He said all this while bringing the meat closer to me without the slightest feeling of guilt for committing something that might be fatal. I heard him chewing again and had a strong desire to kill him... had they not forbade desire, I would've.

"do you realize what you're saying? you've killed us!"

"Had they been making you dinner here?"

"stop talking to me in stuff I don't understand. We're dead!"

The sound of something crashing into the ground frightened me before I found myself in his hands, strongly held by the neck, while he said, "You still don't get it? They lied to you about everything and I told you the truth of everything! If you say the twenty-first word, you die... I made you say it and you didn't die. You're deprived of talking forever, and you are now talking without falling dead!

They've killed your father and your mother. They fed you empty air with nothing in it. I fed you the hearts of lovers and the warriors and the bereaved and the drunks and jerks and the nobles. They gouged your eyes and chained your limps and made half of your life a prostration to an idol you've created yourself. They deprived you of dreams and desire and "thee". They made you hold danger and fear and stillness and forgetfulness and "Id" sacred.

I made you remember that you had feet, that crawling didn't suit you... where is your bother, huh? Where's your grief for your father and your mother and your memories of the old house before walls, huh? Where is everything you wanted but never got? What do you still want them for? You want to die more silently? This is all you've come to wait for in your life? Fine. Go to them. The way there is not long, you'll walk... pardon... you will crawl. You'll crawl 300 crawls to the right then descend stairs of fifty, seventy crawls to the left and another seventy straight ahead... you shall find them there. Turn yourself in and tell them about me; about Ibrahim who turned them into the freaks they've made you. Do all this and die silently... you slave!"

A bit of silence, then,

"- We shall live.

-why?

-To survive.

-like this?

-better.

-we will

-I doubt.

-idiot.

-obey.

-I'll think.

\- you'll forget.

-remind.

-you'll die.

-a bliss.

-I'll live.

-a blind.

-your terms?

-revolt.

-we'll die.

-fallow.

-safe.

-like this?

-better.

-I will.

-a girl?

-beauty.

-granted.

-complicated.

-you'll be broken.

-impossible.

-and your death?

-a life.

-with this?

-survival.

-by a mistake?

-by revolution.

-deluded

-pacifist

-I survived.

\- an ignorant.

-I will.

\- a fool.

-retarded.

-herded.

-and live.

\- a corpse.

-and you?

-thorns.

-in your throat.

-you'll suffer.

-from your existence.

-auspicious.

-inauspicious.

-for your safety?

-indeed.

-and mine?

-complicated.

-you'll live.

-and perish.

-decay.

-meaning?

-you'll find out.

-a threat?

\- your perseverance.

-renew.

-and prostrate?

-before my land.

-before the ruler!

-before my honor.

-farewell.

-to what?

-my love.

-like this?

-like revolution.

-indebted.

-safe.

-you'll live long, long, long, long, long... and die a coward."

Dancing again, and noise. "Oh, la la la", and a fascination with the drunk whom I don't know, whose name I don't understand the meaning of, neither do I understand the meaning of the words Ibrahim repeats after him. The sound of chewing and gulping and something crashing against the ground. The same state that makes him a devil reciting "poetry"; he told me once that these words he repeats a lot and I don't understand "humans" call them poetry. When I inquired about "humans", he said they were the citizens of "There". When I inquired about "there", he said it was where Ibrahim and the drunk and the skinny were before they came to us as visitors.

"You're still here?", he said after a long while, as if he'd just realized I was there.

"I've drank blood, recited poetry, ate the heart of the last lover that came yesterday; I did all this specifically to bid an appropriate farewell. I thought you went and betrayed the secret, so I held that celebration. I feel sorry for you; everything you did was in vain... it kills; getting ready to leave and not being able to... Kills."

I felt him sit next to me. he inhaled something, I heard him breathing, then he said," It's just air... there are no pumps here in the ruler's palace." His last word gutted me more than seeing Light. "th... the ruler's palace?"

"Yeah, we're in the ruler palace. It's the only place no one will look for us in."

"did y..."

"One more word and I'll execute you immediately and spare myself the trouble. I'm sick of you! I've killed many of them and won't hurt adding another one to the list."

I stilled...

"I'm leaving this city. They awfully hate me and I'm poor and lonely. Can you imagine, Hassan, that the two force members I killed said that I was the devil who spews blood in the veins of sinners and kills darkness? They said that when I strangled them, Hassan. They were awfully weak and miserable, I killed them crying. I'm kind, Hassan. I carry a loving heart... no?", he said and cried. I heard the things that fall from the eyes again. I found myself drawing closer, feeling for his head and saying,

"you are a virtuous zero, Ibrahim. i'm sorry."

"Zero?! Zero!! You know what's the worst thing about the city of darkness? You settle. Yeah... those who settle for a fraction of their rights are killed by their settling, and their rights don't attend their funerals."

"i don't understand."

"At first, everyone here is a citizen; citizen one and citizen two thousand. Then citizen one is a king and the rest are things. Then the king is a god and things are zeroes. There will come a day when he becomes the only god and you are the scattered dust of the city, paving roads for his forces to walk over. What's really pathetic is that none of you notices any of this. I have no idea why."

We stayed silent for a while... I asked him, "Tell me about the drunk and the skinny you fear and 'oh la la la' and there and humans and poetry and everything I don't understand, Ibrahim."

"Everything comes with the Light. Outside this world, there are various worlds that we know nothing of and I only know about from the visitors and my visits to the gate. As others bring them words and leave.

The drunk was brought with a very enormous leaf above his body that I stole without knowing what was written on it. When I visit the gate entrance he came from, I hear someone reciting something they call poetry, and crying, then saying that the liquor and the poetry and the markets miss him, and that the king ordered to obliterate his last trace because his poem about the curtain which the king and his weavers made had torn him. I didn't understand. I loved the drunk and his visitor for causing a ruler some aggravation. I liked that. As for the skinny I fear, he was brought by a big group, they put him in and left. No one has visited him ever since. His gate entrance is darker than the houses of our city. When I go there, I hear words from the inside, not from the outside like the rest. He's talking to himself. There's something left of him that the city of darkness hasn't consumed yet, something stuck there at the gate; pleading sometimes, cursing others, wistful once, angry another, and scaring me every single time."

"and humans?"

"They are some awfully horrible creatures behind the gates. Imagine this, they have something called a death wish! Did you ever imagine seeing anything more despicable?"

"and there?"

"It's where humans live. A world that has citizens and a palace and a king and drunks reciting poetry and cutting curtains and skinnies with many companions only at first and Hassan and Ibrahim and his 'her'."

"Is it Light that did all this to you and the other creatures?"

"Knowledge... knowledge intensifies your emptiness as much as it fills you up. It takes from below, where your heart is and adds noise up above, where a poor mind lies. It knows that bliss is an empty mind and a full heart... so it does the exact opposite."

We stayed silent for a while. I didn't understand a lot still. I needed to hear his silence more in those moments. He's strange either way. Strange and plays the part of the devil who spews blood in our veins a lot. When these thoughts crossed my mind, I was frightened, so I decided to go back to talking. There's a lot less horror in talking than there is in silence.

"did... did you see God Two?"

"Not yet. He's here somewhere for sure. I just don't know where. I saw citizens three and four the most. There's a room at the top of the palace, that they prohibit anyone from entering. Only they enter it. They say that God Two lives there and that they enter it every bill ring to listen to the new instructions and deliver them to citizens... I'll see him and kill him one day any way."

The word frightened me... "kill him?"

"Yes. And kill citizens three and four and reside in this palace as its citizen one and make you citizen two whom no one knows anything about... we're worthier of it."

The devil has come back to him...

"I am my son... I like to see myself take revenge for me...

I am my father... I like to see myself bask in glory before my friends...

I am my mother... I like to see myself not leaving...

I am my grandmother... I like to see myself not bored of narrating boring stories...

I am my sister... I like to see myself handsome in the eyes of my female friends...

I am my mentor... I like to see myself write more books and dedicate my first publish to me for I discovered me...

I am my doctor... I like to see myself not delaying the diabetes meds, so I don't die and be called a bad doctor...

I am my lover... I like having poetry written of me and spreading around..."

"I made a deal with the two hemispheres... the east hemisphere would undertake my early life. It would be nice to start my life with sunrise, the alarm, milk and coffee and the bus horn and an attendance sheet. It shall be good to start at the beginning... the western hemisphere suggested to take the first half. I would be unique to have the end be with the sun and the alarm; walking alone, opposite to the world, avoiding the crowd and looking like a blameless lunatic. I liked it. We carried it out, and when the part of sunset was over, and it was time for the eastern sun... signs of doom made an appearance...

Oh, la la la...

Oh, la la la..."
CHAPTER EIGHT

It's been a hundred bell rings since we took residence in the palace. It was strange that we didn't die all this time and that Darkness Idol didn't reveal our hideaway to Forces. I think he had given us another chance to repent. He must love me in a special way to abundantly overlook all my previous sins and continue to do so. He even gave me a free balance of words to convince Ibrahim of this. I was afraid to confess all this to him. I secretly prostrated when he wasn't around; visiting the gate and bringing hearts to eat, blood to drink and poetry for his pleasure and wellbeing... he told me that once and I didn't understand.

"O Allah, give me heat in my right side to make up for all the coldness in the other side, Allah. A scorching heat, Allah... a scorching heat.", he said in his usual awkwardness, so I asked, "who's 'allah'?"

"He is the only God in this world. He is the one who created the morning and her."

"what... what's a morning?"

"The light that comes from the gates, that they never made you love."

"and what is her?"

"She's like the morning."

"i don't understand."

"She's my beloved, Hassan. The citizen who forced me to attend all this silly and disgusting number of queues and inhalations. Just so that I can get a glimpse of her amongst you. Despite all the strength and indifference to what does or doesn't happen that you see in me, I'm at my weakest in her presence.

If you see someone screaming the world down for no obvious reason, hoping for someone to provoke him and starting a fight regardless so that he can prove that he is capable of winning something, not caring if he's being reckless or if he's fighting someone stronger and much more powerful than him by thousands of times, and abundantly cursing everyone he considers mongrel opposed to his pureblood, resenting them for getting everything he didn't, nonetheless. If you see all this in someone, Hassan, know that he's a jilted lover. You see me like that, no doubt. Did you know that I never spoke to her? Ha ha. Funny... and sad at the same time."

"where is she now?"

"Amongst them, prostrating and wearing chains. I don't know a name or number of her, I named her "her" after the beloved of Original Ibrahim, the beloved he didn't win, the one Hassan tells him through the gates about her indifference to everything. I still throw meat in her house behind the wall every day. I feel like she's going to see me climbing the wall one day. I hope she doesn't inform forces then. Not because I fear them, but because I fear the coldness of the left side. I fear that the heat I prayed Allah for will never make up for it then."

He was silent for a while, and said, as if he'd just remembered something, " If you ever fall in love, never settle for only a part of your beloved, Hassan. Either all or nothing. Those who abase themselves in love and war readily accept humiliation... they readily accept humiliation."

He turned silent for a long time—a long, long time, and I heard the things that fall from the eyes. Ibrahim was never as weak as I saw him that day. Something he told me was called yearning had befallen him.

"Yearning resembles us, Hassan. Yearning is not an evil thing, even if it seems to be so. We just need to look beyond its surface to discover some light within, perhaps... perhaps that of the departed."

"They've executed us.", he said out of nowhere and laughed. Then he kept chewing as if he hadn't been that yearning weak creature minutes ago. I was no longer thrown off by his weirdness anyway... so I said, "i don't' understand."

He laughed a lot when I said that, so much so that I heard blood splash on the ground, then he said, "See?"

"i don't understand that 'they've executed us'."

"I saw them executing two zeroes claiming they were us... citizen three announced to everyone that they succeeded in capturing us, and that darkness idol revealed our hideaway after he heard our thoughts of escaping."

I instinctively felt for my neck and said,"ar...are you sure those zeroes aren't you and me?"

"Have you lost your damn mind?! We are talking now. We are alive. Nothing happened to us."

"per...perhaps we're in Beautiful World or something"

"To that extent? You believe in them and question yourself to that extent? What the hell have they done to you to make you this ridiculous? This naive? This ugly? You are ugly, Hassan. Did you know that? You. Are. Ugly."

He scared me. I didn't say "I don't understand", even though I really did need it then. He had been awfully angry, and I tried not to anger him further lest he kills me again...i... i mean, kills me.

"wh... what made them do that?", I finally said after minutes of silence when I felt him calm down a bit.

"Because they had to. It's not logical for a corrupt to escape the punishment of god two and obedience idol. If our escape had lasted any longer, chaos would've broken out; we had to be slaughtered in the most terrible way. Everyone prostrated before the idol after our replicates had been slaughtered. I heard their hearts shaking so bad it almost ripped out of their chests and prostrated with them. They were still prostrating when I left. forces were completely successful in extinguishing the chaos of our rebellion... or so they think."

"what do you mean, 'so they think?"

"You'll find out later."

He was silent for a bit, then he said,

"Here... this is a crusty heart, familiar with loss."

"I don't care for the heart's owner, or whom he'd lost... I just need food now."

I heard a small laugh, then he said,

"You will live long... You'll live long and forget everything in your old-age."

Then, he went to his dancing. The "oh la la la" started again, before he said, 'promise to stay my friend until tomorrow'... and went back to dancing.

Ibrahim made me attend the rituals of visitors' arrival to the palace. He led me to a place where he could see everything; from the approach of the visitor, being carried from the gate, to the leftovers being carried to citizens. They cut the head and took it to God Two's room. Then they cut the arms and took them to God Two's room. Then they cut the legs and took them to God Two's room. Then the stomach, and off to God Two. When all that is left from the visitor was but fingers and grease, they took it to the citizens... I mean, zeroes.

The smell of blood transfers corruption. Do not inhale spilled blood lest you follow behind its owner to your own death. When they executed our duplicates, they followed them up with ten more citizens who, involuntarily, smelled the blood while they were removing its traces by crawling as usual. Inhaling was forbidden except that from the pumps. Do not inhale the food that comes with visitors. Or the leaves of Delusion trees. Not even a memory that is no longer here... memories have scents; that's why they combined smelling with forgetfulness... Citizen Four said so.

After forbidding smelling, they forbade tasting. They said it's linked to smelling and it opens the door for the devil to stuff us... I mean, stuff them with smell. When that became the norm, and the zeroes of The City of Darkness turned smell-less and taste-less, Ibrahim told me that only nails and hair were brought out to citizens... crumps were now the only food of The City of Darkness. No one dared to express their dissatisfaction with what they've been served. Not that they could smell or taste it. That would consequently mean that the devil has found his way to them, which meant he spewed his water and blood in them instead of darkness, which meant they are corrupt, which meant immediate execution.

Things are turning more and more atrocious. If things keep going this way, they city will perish except for Forces. Then Forces will perish, and the palace will be all that's left in our world. They are now 350 members of Forces versus 100 zeroes. It's been so long since anyone was executed or bred.

Everyone thought that things have settled. And that all that happened was just an extraordinary thing for The City of Darkness to move over some danger peacefully. No one understood then what to think of danger; was it something we needed, or something threatening the city? No one dared to ask with the guillotine standing next to Idol. No one understood "danger", and no one asked anymore. All that mattered was that the threat phase was over and the good thing about that is that a hundred bell rings passed by without the execution of one single zero.

Yes, a new chain was added to every single one of them. And, yes, it made them feed on nails and hair. And, yes, it made them exert some strenuous effort in harvesting delusion and not attaining any of it this year because the city was in 'danger'. And, yes, prostrations became too much to bear. And, yes, the rocks holding the chains have come to take up spaces with which it was very difficult to move, forcing its owners to sleep where they are once they enter their houses. Yet, the fact that the zeroes are still alive effaces all the above. That's everything a zero could ask for... to stay alive... it's more than enough to make the zeroes of The City of Darkness believe they are virtuous, and that Wicked World is not too far away...to achieve that, they are willing to endure anything that would make darkness run in their veins instead of blood.

The City of Darkness battling extinction... rapid propagation is crucial to save what can be saved. The new offspring must be more virtuous than this nation of corrupt zeroes who wasted all their chances.

Citizen Four said that there is a sacred mission awaiting the females of The City of Darkness; that is to breed the new nation on whom the unimpaired advance towards Wicked World depends. To guarantee the purity and unmarred virtue of this offspring, God Two, Merciful God and Darkness Idol assigned this new breeding mission to Citizen Three and Citizen Four. They are assigned to breed the females of the city as the two most virtuous citizens in it. They are the most suitable to plant their seed in the wombs of the females of the city.

All males have to go home after tomorrow's inhalation queue and wait for females to be divided into groups and then escorted to Citizens Three and Four successively to guarantee the birth of an offspring that combines both their virtues in one womb. That announced, ten male and five female citizens were executed as Darkness Idol heard their objection, though they never raised any. The following bill ring, the command was carried out. Ibrahim saw, from his hideaway, a queue of females standing at the door of God Two's room. They were blindfolded even though their eyes had been gouged during Purgation Night. Citizens Three and Four had gone in first to get ready. It was strange for such thing to take place in the room of a God. Maybe he will watch over everything to bless the new offspring and guarantee its purity from any blood that might mar it.

Ibrahim said something suspicious was going on. For the entirety of seven bill rings, and through seven inhalation queues only males attended. Females were standing at the door of God Two's room, waiting for their turn to be bred... the deed had been done; Citizens three and Four had copulated with every female in The City of Darkness. A grace of God Two... they prostrated before him along with their males and everyone strived to forget afterwards. Darkness Idol exceptionally multiplied their forgetfulness points that time as Citizen Four announced later on.

When enough time had passed for the new offspring to emerge, The City of Darkness started to celebrate the bliss in its future. Darkness Idol, with authorization from God Two, ordered for the walls around houses to be doubled in height, for an extra space to be added for delusion cultivation and be taken from houses, for the number of chains to be raised to five, and the points of hunger, forgetfulness, stillness and danger to be exceptionally raised. The old zeroes gave up their shares of two visitors in a row in favor of equipping the pumps with extra doses of everything to fill the bodies of the little ones with what will provide them with the right dark growth and bloodless virtue. Everyone had exceptionally sacrificed for Wicked World and the aim to reach it during the time. In pursuit of that, queues of childless females recurred at the door of God Two to receive the blessings of the two Gods and the Idol and the sperm of the two most virtuous citizens in the city.

***

"Nothing is worse than this, except trying to make it seem normal. Nothing is lower than living in The City of Darkness, except trying to make it look like salvation and a path to another life, no matter what that life is like.

What did these things do in their lives to go through all this? What could be more atrocious than walking in chains? They walk in five and consider it a blessing, prostrating in gratitude! What could be uglier than having your honor walked all over and believing it to be the only means to an eternal life of no suffering instead of defending it? The honor of this city has been brutally and utterly violated and abused just because they wanted to live a few more hours! What could be more audacious than darkening the walls of an innocent soul by splotching it with the one color unfit to join its original color in the portrait?

The government did all of that. They turned them into a herd of delusional sheep. Always imagining a wolf lurking behind the gates while the government is the shepherd entrusted with your protection; allowed to grill the disobedient of you to satisfy their hunger in exchange for that protection. The wolf never showed up, not even a howl... and the shepherd's hunger and grilling never stopped.

The government deems something sinful, it means the this "something" is the most virtuous of all. The government deems the city in danger, it means that the city is the safest it's ever been since its creation. The government deems the time not enough to survive, it means that time has never been more enough or right to survive... Our government, no doubt, must be the most squalid thing that happened to this earth in a thousand years.

O Allah, our true merciful God, they committed all this in your name and demanded we prostrate. You're innocent of such thing, my Lord, and I love you. You are capable of annihilating them, are you not? Do so, my Lord, and I'll forever be grateful. I know we aren't worthy of that, but you are Allah; we trust you with this, we leave it all in your hands. I love you, my merciful Lord. I don't know how to prove it, but I know you know I'm honest. I want my mother, my Lord. I want my mother and someone who would stay my friend until tomorrow..."

I didn't ask him what the wolf and the sheep and the grilling and the wall and the paint and violate and honor meant. I didn't ask what it meant for two colors to share the same portrait... he wasn't in a state that warranted my annoying 'I don't understand'. I preferred listening to his usual delirium. He stayed quite for a while, then said,  
"Hassan... promise me you will stay my friend until tomorrow. This tomorrow specifically, Hassan... this tomorrow specifically."
CHAPTER NINE

Tomorrow came... I tried to stay Ibrahim's friend this tomorrow specifically like he asked. I didn't know why he asked for friendship this tomorrow specifically, twice nonetheless, or why he didn't sleep, or why he didn't chew and chant his "oh la la la", or why he kept repeating "There has to be a beginning somewhere" so much.

And why, all of a sudden, did I remember everything?

Father, mother, the murderer who plundered points, my virtuous brother who's out there somewhere, the big house, mother's adornments which I've neither seen nor those whom they adorned, the twenty words and the happiness at delegation visit, the days when we were 2000 citizens, and life before the chains and the gouging and the removal of the less murky towers. The City of Darkness has never been as ugly as I now saw it. It was something I loved—I mean, hated. It was something I once loved... only now did I feel the things that fell from Mother's and Ibrahim's eyes come to me.

"What makes you cry?"

"i...i'm laughing... it's just the darkness hiding my mouth from you. Look closely, don't... don't you see that hole in my face getting wider, flashing its symmetrical whiteness and the blackness in the middle of it opening wide to my throat?"

"And this moisture falling from it, is it from laughing, too? And did holes become at the top of faces? Besides, tell me... when did you get two holes that laugh by simultaneously shedding water at the same time?"

I didn't reply, and he didn't say anything. He felt that I needed silence more. Ibrahim was extremely kindhearted whenever I needed it. He'd been the craziest creature I've ever loved... Actually, he was the only crazy creature.

"O conscience, you honest and powerful thing, would you take away this mirror you have in front me at all times? There's something wrong with it. It reveals the naked truth of everything... I want a new one.

O borderline, you thorny and powerful thing, would you take away this soil you're always surrounding me with? Something is wrong with it. It drinks blood and tap water equally well... I want a new one.

O mailbox, you well-listening and powerful thing, would you take away this ink you always surround my office with? Something is wrong with it and it only writes one name... I want a new one.

O world, you big and powerful thing, would you take me away from myself? I'm always surrounding me. something is wrong with me and I address lifeless things for they make me feel safer and never get fed up with listening... I want a new one.",

He said while I cried, until I stopped. As usual, I didn't understand, and I didn't ask. I got used to him turning silent on his own and telling me things I can't understand after he's done talking to the devil or the drunk or Ibrahim or the skinny he fears... he comes back to me in the end and that's what matters.

"We'll start today."

"i don't understand."... he used to laugh every time I said that. I didn't hear his laughter this time. He said, "There's no room or time to watch behind walls and observe from the hideaway anymore. They did us a great favor with this new offspring."

"explain more."

"This is our chance to make everything right."

"how?"

"I'll teach you everything... but first, promise me."

"i will stay your friend until tomorrow."

"No."

"what then?"

"Promise me you'll stay my friend today."

His words frightened me even if they were uttered with the same tone as the rest. Something in them frightened me.

"i...I promise."

"Come on."

"What are we going to do exactly?"

"We will steal every piece of the last survivor we can, we will spread his flesh in every house and flood the roads with his blood. The City of Darkness must reek of blood. Blood must prevail over the sun and its darkness in every way possible. It must become the city of blood, of the devil's water they're warned you off. Everyone must inhale it instead of the pumps, especially the newborns. It has to be blended into their formation, a blend that would never change. Everyone must eat and drink to make a space up above for their heads to do something. They've emptied stomachs to make them take the lead. If we give the "leading" title to the head, everything will change. Everyone must eat, do you understand?... if they do, revolution will erupt."

"Revolution? What's revolution?"

"It's something that joined "her" in killing Ibrahim."

"I don't understand."

"Everyone must eat from the ruler's food, Hassan. These people will only wake up when they realize that enduring hunger is neither heroic nor a devotion to their god."

"Do you realize the difficulty of what you intend to do, Ibrahim?"

"Fully so... And remember, you promised me to stay my friend today."

Silence...

"They are very poor, Hassan. They have no place to resort to and cry. Do you realize what a grave calamity that is? The City of Darkness didn't offer them that. Nothing is worse than wanting to cry and being unable to, or wanting to battle and being unable to, or wanting to love and being unable to, or weakness, Hassan... did you hear me? Or weakness... The home that always makes you unable is a vile home. The citizens of darkness could never do any of this... they were never alive in the first place."

Ibrahim had been extremely honest that time...I mean, that morning. He demanded I call it morning... He'd been extremely honest and extremely furious and extremely desiring of something. "Those who desire are capable if so they want to be"... he told me that, too.

"We'll enter the room of god two and steal the meat from there."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"There's no time left for me to steal the crumbs when they bring the next visitor. We need to be more daring. The desiring are capable if so they want like I told you. Desire just this one time. For me."

"We're going to die. Undoubtedly, Ibrahim. This is not the answer."

"Is the government expecting anything from us?"

"Ummmm... I don't think so."

"Are we expecting anything from ourselves?"

"Of course not."

"Then, we'll succeed...you arrive faster when you expect nothing...or, at least, you arrive... That should be enough, even temporarily."

"We are by no means ready for this."

"Desire is more important than preparation when you intend to commit fatuity."

"That doesn't mean we have to die."

"And what's wrong with that? You've been waiting for death for a decent amount of time, your utmost ambition was for that to be as painless as possible."

Silence...

"Don't be afraid... For once in your life, don't be afraid. Light will guide you there."

"Which there? Where "humans" and "poetry" and all those lunatics—who made you possessed by the devil and had him spew his blood in you—live?"

"Rather where you are going to live, or at least... the virtuous remains of you. You are dead, Hassan. You are dead, and they are dead. Citizens and government. I'm the only one alive in this place. I the only one who will stay alive. You love life, so Allah took it away from you. I love Allah, so he gave me life. This is the difference... I will do it alone. You go bask in your chains and your death."

That was somewhat enough for me to think about it. Think... well, that's another violation of the two gods' commandments. It's okay, it won't add much to the disaster of the already existing violations.

He said he would enter the room when everyone went to sleep and didn't utter a word afterwards. His scent was by my side all the time, this meant that 'when everyone went to sleep' wasn't here yet, then, a slight pounding of steps and an "oh la la la" stronger than any previous "oh la la la" and words I couldn't decipher. He was gathering every bit of strength he had in him. He was digging deep inside me for everything that could say " I'm with you in god's room and I will not fear for once, for you, and we will die together somehow."

Then the movement drew further away. Then I felt the need for 'at least the remaining virtue of me' to live... then I stopped him.

There is no one in the palace. There is no need for the palace and its god and its citizens three and four and the presence of forces or guards. Not even a grain of the outside dust above our heads dares to enter God Two's palace with him knowing. I really don't know how we got here. Maybe Idol's generosity... I think so.

We walked slowly, making no noise. He'd been leading the way until he said, "we're here."... he opened the door and said. "follow me.", then, we entered, a white shadow burned my gouged eyes and it almost killed me.

"wh... what is this?"

He didn't reply.

"Ibrahim!"

"it's...it's LIGHT... the place is fully lit!"

"this means we are now clearly seen."

He didn't reply...

"Ibrahim? Are you here?"

"Huh?... yes, yes."

"I'm saying we are now clearly seen."

"more than clearly."

"and what to do?"

"Follow me."

I followed him for a long time that day. I felt that maybe we've left the palace and not just the room. But the existence of Light, nearly killing me, constantly reminded me that we are still here, waiting for something that would send us to our execution faster.

"This room is as big as the rest of the palace at the very least.", he told me, so I said,

"I can conclude that."

"But, aren't you noticing something strange?"

"What?"

"We haven't heard a sound. And we haven't perished yet despite entering the most inviolable, untouched place in the city of darkness...We haven't even heard a single word or seen a single thing that indicates the existence of a 'god two' in the place."

"The place is capacious as you see. Maybe he didn't see us."

"A god who can't see his people?", he said, laughed, and didn't comment further... then we reached the scent of meat.

CHAPTER TEN

All the light, all the warmth, all the satiety, all the safety... all the apostasy lied in the room of God Two. He must have kept all this bane locked to protect the city and its zeroes. This crossed my mind and I was afraid to confess it to Ibrahim.

The meat was more than that of one visitor, or even that of twenty, Ibrahim said that before demanding that I be quick before the coldness surrounding the meat kills us. What is put into pumps, then, if all this meat is here. This crossed my mind and I was afraid to confess it to Ibrahim.

Darkness Idol could hear our thoughts, God Two is the Lord of Darkness Idol, so, God Two can hear everything we do or don't say. How come he didn't see us in his own kingdom? This crossed my mind and I was afraid to confess it to Ibrahim.

We carried everything that we could, then Ibrahim tied some meat with a rope around my neck and did the same to himself. We dragged the meat to the basement where we hid. We repeated that more than ten times all night long—he said it was called a "night" and it was something "humans" had, and that it liked memories and liked to remind of idiocies and to kill the lovers and the disappointed and the bereaved and the immigrants; a "night" means a miserable thing and it is the opposite of "morning".

"There's not much left. Perhaps one more time or two.", Ibrahim said while tying some meat around my neck before the sound of a door opening took us by surprise.

Ibrahim hit me in a way that knocked me to the ground then dragged me with a speed I've never seen in anyone before. We hid behind one of the pillars in an invisible angle of the palace-like room. It was Citizens Three and Four. I heard footsteps, which meant they weren't crawling. The steps were getting closer and Ibrahim was covering my mouth and nose with his hand.

"What is this?", Citizen Three said, looking at the hoard of meat and alerting Citizen Four who, bewilderedly cried, "Where... Where is the meat?"

"You're asking me?", he said before heading his way and holding him by the neck saying, "Where did you put it?"

"Are you crazy or something? We never split, not for a second."

"And how do I know that you didn't command someone from Forces to do it?"

"Who else in this world dares to come near the perimeter of this room even if we both tried to convince them it?"

Citizen Three let go of his partner's neck before taking another look at the meat, saying, "Dammit...Where did it go then... Has God Two eaten it or what?"

Citizen Four's boomed with laughter then said, " It seems like the disappearance of meat made you lose your mind."

"Do you realize the situation we're in? The meat hoard was stolen from the room of the 'god two' they collapse to their knees at the mention of. Someone dared to do that. This means the dismantle of our empire. The empire of our ancestors whom we inherited the secret from. You're joking? Taking this lightly after all that? Are you crazy?"

Silence prevailed for a few minutes, as if citizen four had finally realized the magnitude of their calamity before citizen three said,  
"Are you sure that these two rebels had died, or at least left the city?"

"What I know is that they weren't found in any inch of it; I've ordered forces to search every nook and cranny more than once."

"All zeroes must be gathered, double-check their number as well as Forces and their number. Pick ten you trust and order them not to leave a corner unsearched for a piece or even a smell of meat, and after they're done, gather all the zeroes and don't let anyone leave the square. I'm going to deliver a speech in the name of god two."

"Yes... straight away.", he said and they both left.

Ibrahim came out of his hideaway then I heard him laugh like never before. A laughter that lasted so long, I thought his time had come,

"merciful god, god two, darkness idol... How wicked! They're even more shrewd and vicious than I ever gave them credit for. Can you even comprehend the tragedy of having an entire nation ruled by a delusion, generation after generation?"

He turned silent for a while, then, as if talking to himself,

"What curse had been planted in our virgin city for all these bastards to tarnish it?"

Then he addressed me, "Follow me."

We went to the basement and spent some time cutting the meat into small pieces which we soaked in the goblets of blood we took from the cold place in the room. He ordered me to follow him again as we carried meat pieces and tied what we couldn't carry of it around our necks.

We went through houses, climbing their walls, throwing meat pieces and spewing blood. We were moving in the opposite direction of forces search to avoid falling in their hands and, accordingly, immediate assassination. We exerted a herculean effort that faraway night. One of the last nights in the story. In a few hours, the smell of meat and blood overwhelmed the city of darkness after we repeated that action ten times. Before he decided to play the drunk's role in public. He dashed through the streets of the city of darkness when he saw the zeroes eating meat and drinking blood in a speed and a desire never known of them; " Open your eyes and SEE... open your eyes. You are not blind. Open your eyes. They haven't gouged them yet. Open your eyes before you lose them for real...

OPEN YOUR EYES!"

In minutes he had spread that and repeated it and dragged me to hide in the basement... he had been a real devil that night.

I've never seen Ibrahim as furious as he'd been that day, not once until the day he left. In spite of all the time that passed after that faraway night in the history of the city of darkness, I still remember everything. I remember the house of "her" was his end and beginning. The only house where he threw two pieces of meat and four glasses of blood and waited and stayed above the walls, waiting for her to come out so that he could tell her that she was the only one keeping him here after all this. He was extremely honest that time and paid no mind to my warnings that forces were approaching in their search for us. When we left, and she still didn't come out, he told me that the city of darkness would perish forever that very day and cried. Then, when we returned to the basement, waiting things out and awaiting Allah's punishment (so he said), he cried again. He cried and cried and cried; as if he was only born to cry.

"We don't have it in us to tell home that it had wronged us and must apologize... it must realize that on its own. We don't have the energy to tell our loved ones that poems are no proof of love and that we are worthier of them than the poets who won them... they must realize that on their own. We don't have the conscience to tell the other that our sadness is our own and that we're capable of telling ourselves to "be patient"... they must realize that on their own. We don't have the time to resort to anyone but Allah... All of the above must realize that... on their own."

He said it and turned silent for a long time; as if he weren't yet born or as if he had perished long ago. I heard no more from Ibrahim until his last words to me at his departure before the plague.

Fear is no unwelcom guest to the city of darkness. They love it and consider it a friend who promises them every day to stay their friend until the next day. And does. A knight whom god sent for them in a blissful day to teach them that life is too short to waste by being brave and committing idiocies that bring them closer to death, so they believed.

They ate meat and drank blood and heard the call to open their eyes. They complied. They opened their eyes and saw. Then quickly closed them, fearing corruption. They trotted to the square, crawling, seeking the protection of their god and his government from he who aimed and fed them, he who cried and cured their deafness, he who advised and turned their blindness into sight. The people of darkness were a bunch of wretches who deserved death... Only death—in its absolute and ugliest form, no less— in that night in the history of the city. Some collected the murk points that fell in their hastened hearing by putting chains around their ears and mouth. Others collected the hunger and thirst points that fell in their recklessness to have eaten and drunk by wiping their mouths to remove what's left of the traces. Some exaggerated in their fear, might this make up for that, rolling their mouths into the mud, in prostration and a plea for forgiveness. Mouths had always been the root of every evil in the city of darkness, and always will be. Who owns the ability to control mouths, wins. The government has always succeeded in this for generations. No one else did.

They entered the square in prostration as the small of blood overwhelmed noses. Everyone strained in pretending not to care for the smell and not to realize it; the last thing they needed was to lose more points as smelling was forbidden. Someone exhaled audibly, suffocated by the smell, and vomited everything in his bowels of the meat and blood inside the stomachs and out. He was immediately killed. Everyone sucked in their breath and supplicated more with their "silence".... And everyone listened to Citizen Three...

"o zeroes... o virtuous nation of the city of darkness, the devil attacked us. Summoned by the blood running in the veins of the corrupt ones amongst us when it exceeded the limits, despite all the facilities God Two and Obedience Idol had granted. We brought this upon ourselves by our sins. God Two had tested you when he allowed the devil to enter and commit what he committed, he bewitched you and made you see momentarily. Now you are obedient blinds.", he said, and someone slyly looked at him. Citizen Three noticed and made a silent gesture for him to be killed, then carried on,

"Never mind, he is one of the corrupts amongst you, he had the devil's blood in his veins and still saw. He bewitched you and made you momentarily see and now you are blind. Completely blind. Obedient and virtuous blinds whom the Wicked World awaits. I'm pleased that you turned to the Idol's square when you felt danger. It's a good indication that the seed of virtue is still within you somewhere. We will keep prostrating here until God Two delivers us from this evil. Let everyone prostrate and supplicate in silence and fear and forgetfulness before God and Idol."

Everyone complied. The entirety of the city of darkness prostrating and blind and still and forgetful and quinarily chained. citizen four signaled for forces to spread and sweep the entire city for the devil and his meat and blood. Then he ordered others to apportion the gathering exceptional crumbs. When he saw that, Ibrahim barked a laugh that I don't know how no one heard, then he wailed a cry that I don't know how no one heard.

Ibrahim cried his eyes out that night and said, " I love here. Our land did nothing for them to gouge her eyes and make her a place for chains and prostration. How poor is she! She loves. I love here very very very very much, Allah. You are merciful, so grant me one of the two: either keep me here, a non-prostrator at their feet, or tear her away from me and let me leave... let me leave, Allah. Let me leave."

He was silent until I thought he'd died, then I saw him standing before me, saying,

"It's time for me to leave, Hassan. I will not demand again that you stay my friend until tomorrow."

"L—leave?"

"These people are not ones to desire. They will perish soon. I have no more energy to stay and fight. I'm leaving for the desert."

"Desert?"

"It's a part of There, where Light and humans and and poetry are. It's the Beautiful Part of There... where Ibrahim was."

Silence...

"When they draw you seventy paths to walk, walk for the far desert. You might die before you reach it. Let them call you a lunatic... There, you shall find the seventy-first path... it's the right one"

Silence...

"Leave with me?"

Silence...

"It's alright... I knew you still love here."

"Don't you?"

"Unfortunately."

"Can I ask a question?"

He gestured for me to go ahead,

"Aren't you proud of everything you've done?"

" Doing to take pride in what you've done is a futile futility, Hassan."

"Aren't you even proud of belonging to this faction?"

"Don't take pride in belonging to a faction. Make the faction take pride in the fact that you belong to it. This is worthier of working towards."

I turned silent, he intended for leaving before I stopped him again,

"Why ask me to be your friend only until tomorrow?"

"In a home like this, don't promise anything more than one tomorrow."

"Won't we still be friends in the other world you've told me about... at Allah's?"

"We don't know what's there. I don't promise something I don't know. Absurd if I did."

"Why not tell me that I could see and leave me blind all this time?"

"No one can make anyone blind, Hassan. Blinds do that to themselves. If you'd wanted to see, you would've, even if you'd been born with no eyes. I waited for you to... You never did."

"How you needed not to be different, Ibrahim!"

He smirked in mockery (I could see it)... then he said,

"I'm not... I walk. I talk. I love. I see. I run. I dream. I chant. I hate. I desire. I cry. I yearn. And yearn. And yearn. I complain. And plead. I wonder. Tire. Protest. Resent. Hope. Seek. I win. And sing. And sleep. I awaken. And awaken. And awaken. I clap. And spit. I hurt. And get hurt. I resort. I still. I underestimate. And detect. And borrow. And gain. I lose. And lose. And lose. I try. And despair. I thrive. I wait. I fear... I'm a normal creature. Just normal. You are the ones who deviated from God's creation and considered yourselves some breathing stones... Allah is mightier than creating such absurdity."

"I don't understand."

I was frightened by his sudden laughter, then his sudden wailing, then his sudden silence. Then he said,

"Maybe someday... Maybe!"

"I will miss you, Ibrahim."

"I won't. I desire a new life with no yearning. I will strive for it."

"You won't miss her?"

He didn't answer. Then he said,

"Be well, my friend. Make sure to find a friend for your tomorrow someday."

And carried on,

"Make sure to make her survive when the punishment comes, Hassan. Don't let 'her' perish, even if she deserved it. I don't deserve that. She has a white dot on her head you shall recognize her by. This is my only will to you."

He turned silent and I questioned no more. I knew he would answer with a new riddle I had no need for. He took his last steps to leave.

"Ibrahim!", I stopped him, he turned around,

"You won't bid the city of darkness a farewell?"

"It doesn't matter. I have no time to leave in a way that would make them miss me. Actually... I have no desire to.", he said and smiled in a sign I understood.

"You won't return?"

He turned silent for a while, then said with a meaningful smile,

"Maybe...",

He said and intended to leave the basement again without hearing my reply. I stopped him again...

"Who... Who are we? Who exactly are we, Ibrahim?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Only now does everything make sense. I don't know why he kept our truth from me all that time... we are the grave worms!

We are the worms is some grave, in some city, in some country, in some world, in some universe. We are nothing. Just imagining that all the tragedies we've been through are nothing to the universe is horrifying. Just imagining that we and our ancestors lived this delusion for generations is even more so. Ibrahim, Hassan, The Drunk, The Skinny and all of them are humongous species called "Humans". They are preached in their world, outside our city, that their destiny is to be brought to and eaten by us before their resurrection in another world. Citizen two-thousand told me that and said he heard it from the humans who visited the graves above in their conversations with their loved ones (the visitors we ate) while reading something called "Al-Fatihah" in humility. They write on hardened things, like the hearts of some of them and the faces of others, that are called gravestones. I don't know why the title of a "worm" horrified me, but I never liked it since that faraway night of our last encounter in the king's basement... I mean, the worm king.

Should I wait to go with him to the gates and find out? I wasn't capable of that. Should I wait to recite poetry with him and go meet the drunk and Ibrahim and the skinny he fears? I wasn't capable of that. Should I wait to love Light and walk with no crawling or chains? I wasn't capable of that. Should I wait to get my own 'her'? I've never been the worm capable of that.

Who wants to find out will find out. Who wants to live will live. Who wants to win will win. Who wants Allah will go and Allah will bring them closer. Only Ibrahim did all that, and the worms of the city of darkness hurt him until he left for the desert. Maybe a foot will crush him there. He told me that "humans" have very humongous bodies. I've seen them when they were carried. I used to think they were created this way; dead, for us to eat our fills.

When I imagined those bodies walking, running, laughing, crying, creating chaos, reciting poetry, going off to the desert and ripping the curtains of a king, it terrified me; the thought of living amongst them. How would Ibrahim ever make it? Maybe he went there to die and kept that from me. He was terribly sad when he left. I could see in his eyes, the look of someone going to his death. It's good for someone to feel safe in their death. He never found safety in the city of darkness... he might find it under "humans'" feet.

Things settled down after Ibrahim's departure through the gates he knew by heart. The worm zeroes of the city regressed to their former conducts; some executions of seeing worms, others of blood-smelling worms, and others of worms they claimed idol heard thinking to have desired meat. The new execution is now by crushing. They throw a big rock from a height on the worm chained down, leveling it with the ground, its corrupt blood spurting on the faces of the rest, who roll their heads in the mud in terror afterwards and beg for repentance from the bad omen. More prostration before god two who saved them from the devil. god two became god one, by the way, after winning some battle against merciful god, where god one was partial to the city of darkness and letting it live. After which, merciful god disappeared forever. For twenty bell rings, they prostrated until citizens three and four made certain the city was danger-free. The entirety of the new generation had been killed for it was soiled by what happened. Summoning females to the palace again for the breeding of new offspring. Then, completely banning breeding amongst worms. Assigning that mission to citizens three and four every 100 bell rings to guarantee the purity of the darkness' offspring from any blood or corruption.

Increasing the points of hunger, stillness, fear, forgetfulness and, especially, danger. Putting worms under lifelong house arrest with the exception of harvesting delusion trees and carrying visitors' bodies to the palace. citizen three said god one will make it so the pumps distribute their inhalation doses to houses and forces shall dole out meat when the time comes. The offspring is murdered once more because it'd been soiled—no one knew by what exactly. Females were summoned again. A son was born of citizen three and another of citizen four from two females whom they kept in confinement for themselves since the first time. The mothers were killed after delivery. I took residence in the palace basement, liked watching the city, and still feared going to the gates... all this was enough for the city of darkness to live longer.

Two-hundred bell rings before the arrival of the last visitor. The devil who threw meat and asked them to see was no longer mentioned, not even within the confinement of their hearts. Here, they awfully love the forgetfulness that will help them live longer. When the last visitor came, he'd been enormously fat, all inhabitants of the city had been summoned to carry him to the palace. When forces cut and put him by the room door and left, waiting for god two's messengers to bring him inside the sacred room, citizens three and four carried him inside and no one saw them, or so they thought. They didn't see me watch them like Ibrahim taught me. When fifty bill rings passed, and the two citizens made no appearance before the people and didn't call for forces to take their share of meat, it got bothersome. When hunger nearly killed forces, they sent one of them to god two's room, to beg him to give them their share. He was absent for twenty bell rings and never showed up... another... another twenty bell rings... another then another then another.... All of them disappearing for twenty bell rings.

When forces decided to enter the room all at once, they all disappeared for fifty bell rings, not one of them appeared. That was the first time I felt like I wasn't the son of the city of darkness. The meat I stole was more than enough. Not a single member of forces was left in the city; only the people waiting in their houses until many of them died of hunger, preferring that to going outside and finding out what was going on. When the rest decided to get out, they wandered the city, searching for something to eat or a pump to give them an illusion of eating. Their helplessness made them head to the palace after they prostrated in the square for days, begging idol to save them. No one stopped them. They wandered it searching for a more comfortable death. When the females led them to god two's room, the source of darkness in the city, they went in, all at once... then everyone disappeared forever.

She was walking amongst the herd, shy and more fearful than all and oblivious to the white dot on her head. I could smell him on her, despite his departure and the fact that he never won her, and despite the crowding. I forcefully dragged her by her hinder legs without anyone noticing me, then I put her in the basement and fed her of what I stole. Her fear and her stillness and her closed eyes, which she believed to be gouged, made her not object anything... I saved "her" from perishing, just like Ibrahim demanded and just like I promised.

The people of darkness perished. Ibrahim's prophecy about them came true and the plague came. When I decided to enter the room and discover the curse, I found everyone dead; the citizens and forces and citizens three and four. I found traces of meat and blood scattered everywhere. I approached the stock of meat and was hit by the foul smell and the sight of black blood. The last visitor must have been of corrupt meat and a blood of the devil's water to have killed all those. When my feet led me to the gate for the first time to, reluctantly and reverently, explore matters, I heard a voice saying, "Now, we put flowers on the grave of the Arab President [...]"

What corruption did the government and the nation of the city of darkness commit to end to such a horrible fate? Death by the corrupt flesh and blood of a thing called an 'arab president'? What sin?!

It's been long years that I didn't care to count since that night. Ibrahim's prophecy came true again when he said I'll live a long, long life. But it never came true that I would forget everything in my old-age. He fails in something, at last. I marvel at myself a lot; how I used to strive to forget in those old days even though I possess a memory this strong, telling the whole story without missing anything. I still remember everything and narrate it all the time, even if to myself and nothingness. I will keep doing it until I join the people and the government. Each time a new visitor comes, I eat them alone at the gate and feed "her" in the basement, I wish it were an arab president sending us to them. Had the people of darkness been able to realize that enduring hunger is no heroic act a bit earlier, maybe something would've changed had they entered the palace before the arab president's body... maybe!

I told her everything about him and his striving and his indignation and his insanity and his recklessness and...his great love for her, especially in the night of the devil and the blood. Long nights I've spent telling her about Ibrahim who left for humans' desert and didn't come back, whom we're still awaiting, until I finally saw the water falling from her eyes. He was very revered even in conversations about him. It was awfully painful. For him to win her, for her to love him without him knowing it and after the story ended. When we almost died of boredom, she said we had to build the city of darkness Ibrahim desired. At my surprise that she finally spoke, she said his will included saving her from perishing, and her will is to honor his will and save the city of darkness in it... then she demanded we breed and make the nation he desires.

I was silent like my silence before him. It never came across my mind, not for one second, to be the one to recreate the entire nation of the city of darkness. Would he forgive me when "maybe" befalls and he returns? Shall "her" be mine after all this? It's horrifying that I'm considering it. Would it make him happy to return to two elders who are his friend and his beloved? For the three of us to die peacefully while the outside world notices nothing missing?... I don't know... Eventually, we bred.

I don't know why I hate the story given everything it, and we, went through. When we bred the new ones and they increased by breeding and held me and "her" sacred amongst them, I became less resentful of all those tragedies that led us here. The end of an act outlives it. This new offspring grew on the light that passes from holes I dug with her in the walls of the grave. Years we've spent together, bringing in light and destroying the guillotine and tearing down walls and turning pumps into monuments... and we bred to bring many new ones. Then, we called it "The City"... just The City. Darkness wasn't fitting now after all this. Ibrahim was right to love this "her" and see it in her to build and bring glory to a city out of nothing. I don't know if he saw it in that old time or not. But me and her and the new ones and the city of darkness owe this noble, who left for the desert long ago, everything. I am now the elder sitting by the last house, his house and the house of "maybe" he once said. I'm still waiting for him to return to us one day and escape the feet of humans up there. They might keep from crushing him if they knew that this tiny creature has left behind a city annihilated and rebuilt... maybe.

I've missed the "citizen" Ibrahim and his utter uniqueness. Me, who'd never missed anyone. His story demanded as much. And he didn't have the desire to be missed. And despite all these years, I still remember his meaningful smile and his "maybe"... hopeful for them to not let me die alone here... maybe!
EPILOGUE

"Citizen Six will give a speech in the name of God One."

"Let's crawl faster."

"Make sure not to leave your chains. Army will search us one by one to make sure that everyone adheres to them. They will crush those who forgot"

"O, 'yeses'...O, obedient nation of "Silence City". God One has decided to reward each 'yes' of you with an extra inhalation dose of sacred degradation, bringing you closer to Odious World, the ambition of all of us. Your efforts in building "Maybe" Idol and prostrating before him along with our God, "Hassan", and our God One and the memory of our ancestors, the great "New Ones"—who built it in that bygone time, twenty-thousand bell rings ago, making the foundation for all this darkness and silence surrounding us and killing light and speech forever—are appreciated efforts, highly praised by God One and God Hassan. And being hopeful of your speed arrival to our Odious world, a maximum limit of words has been set to four daily words instead of ten. The four words are our memorized slogan, "Army...Silence City... Gods". Provided that you shall be summoned to build extra walls around the house of each "yes" of you, supervised by Army... with the merciful hand of Two Gods amongst us. This should be all. Prostrate before your Gods and your Idol and worship. Army...Silence City...Gods."

THE END.

Riyadh, 26th of December 2016,

Fifty-one days after something...

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