A horror story, I cannot explain

[HAIDER]

It was still evening but the sky was as dark as it should be on a Halloween night. Somebody knocked at the door. “Trick or treat,” said a child. Others waited behind him. I treated them with candies as I knew no tricks.
My children were also forcing me to go out with them. “We are Muslims. We do not do Halloween,” I tried to hide behind religion. It did not work. So I went out.

We stopped our car outside a house decorated with carved pumpkins, skeletons and spider webs. The children knocked. A woman came out and gave them candies. We drove away.

It was cloudy and a bit nippy. There were not many children in the street. So people gave generously. As their bags filled with candies, the children soon got tired of trick-or-treating.

So we drove to the neighbourhood church. They had set up a chamber of horror next to a graveyard. The room was dark and full of incense and smoke. It was spooky but the children loved it.

One of them took my cell phone and called his friend. “Mohsin, come join us. It’s fun,” he said.

“I cannot, my dad will not let me,” said Mohsin. I knew why, so I took the phone and told Mohsin we will come visit him.

We drove home, took a packet of sugar free candies that we had bought especially for him and went to his place.

Mohsin was waiting for us in the patio. He ran out as he saw our car. “Thank you for remembering him,” said his dad, Ali. “It is difficult to make a child understand why he cannot have candies.”

Mohsin was diabetic. He was born with this disease and was coping well with his problem. But sometimes he refuses to understand why he cannot do what his friends loved doing, eating candies, pastries and cakes.

We visited him last year. This year, Mohsin was not home for Halloween. He was at a treatment centre. Last week, he borrowed some candies from his friends and ate them. So he fainted at school and was hospitalised. The hospital sent him to a treatment centre where they are preparing Mohsin for a more regimented life.

Since this year we did not visit Mohsin, we went home early and I had time to go the tavern. This was our “Farsi night,” when Iranian and Afghan members of our group read Persian poems and stories and their English translations.

Foroud, one of the tavern regulars, was reading a poem – “The Mate” – by an Iranian poet, Forouqh Farrokhzad (Jan. 5, 1935 – Feb. 13, 1967).

“The night is here. Darkness follows. After the darkness, eyes, hands, breathing, deep breathing. The sound of water, drop by drop, dripping down the tap. Two red dots, two lit cigarettes, a ticking clock, two hearts, and the loneliness of two.”

“This is not a Halloween poem,” I told Foroud as he finished.

“It is a tale of horror,” he said, “of ultimate loneliness.” He paused and then asked: “How did you feel when you first realised that loneliness is the ultimate reality?”

“Not if you have children,” I replied. “They are the only gain. Everything else is a loss.”

“They too abandon you when they grow up,” said Foroud.

“They do not have to pay you back. They owe it to their children,” I said.

“Maybe,” said Najmi, a Pakistani father who now lives in an old house in Northern Virginia, “but it does hurt when you get up in the morning and do not see the faces you love.”

“Now it is your turn. Tell us a horror story,” Foroud said to me.

“Yes, a pure Halloween story with no political or social message. Share an experience that you cannot explain logically,” said Hasan, an Afghan member of the tavern.

“From Alif Laila or Amir Hamza?” I asked.

“No, something you experienced,” said Hasan.

So I shared with them a story I experienced but cannot explain.

This is the story of two brothers I met on the steps of an under-construction building in our city. This could be your city too if you are from our world. But this cannot be your story if you are not from our world, even if you live in our city.

My first meeting with the two brothers was in the late morning when I stopped at a shop to buy water while going to work. One of them came running and asked if he could wash my car.

I looked at my car. It needed a wash but I was getting late for work. So I gave him some money and tried to drive away.

He stopped me and said: “Sir, I do not take alms. But I will accept your money because my brother is very hungry,” he said.

“And you?” I asked.

“I am hungry too but he is very young,” he said. “Sir, please come back in the evening, so that I can wash your car or I will feel bad.” I said, “OK,” and drove away.

Soon I forgot him and his offer. The next week, I went to that shop again. As they saw my car, the two brothers came running to me.

“Sir, sir, can I wash your car now? As you have already paid me, you do not have to pay again,” said the elder brother.

I looked at them. They seemed happy to see me, so I could not say no. I said to them that I will go and have a haircut so they should finish washing the car before I returned.

When I returned, the car was ready, looking very clean. So I offered them some more money.

First, they declined to take more money from me. But when I insisted, they accepted it.

“Whenever you come to this shopping plaza, look for us. We are always here,” said the elder brother. “We can also do gardening and clean your house,” he added.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“There,” he pointed to an under-construction building.

I developed a liking for the two boys and always looked for them whenever I went to that plaza.

One weekend, I needed some help with pruning the garden, so I went looking for them. It was late in the afternoon. Since it was early autumn, it was also a little chilly.

I found them asleep in each other’s arms on the steps of that under-construction building.

[To be continued…]