Strange Light

The Beginning

"Have you ever been so lonely you thought you might just disappear?"

The young boy was surrounded by a flock of his friends. They were all listening to him intently, excited by whatever he was saying. To the outside observer, it was clear that the boy was a master storyteller. His expressions changed rapidly, his hands flew, and even from a distance away Mustafa could hear his inflections.

Mustafa leaned against the cracking stucco corner of the house and watched the young boy and his friends.

"Have you ever been so lonely," he repeated softly to himself, "that you thought the world was suffocating you?"

Yards away, in the dusty soccer field under the beating Sudanese sun, a young boy who had probably never been lonely continued telling his story. Mustafa watched him, and he felt the familiar lump rising in his throat.

"You wouldn't understand, would you?" Mustafa muttered. "You have friends, family, community..." He carefully put his hand into his right pocket. "You wouldn't understand what's it like to be isolated."

Someone behind Mustafa coughed. Mustafa turned to see the shopkeeper, a tall man with ivory skin and a face that was gentle even as he peered suspiciously at the young man.

"Salaam," he said.

Mustafa withdrew his hand from his pocket. "Salaam."

The shopkeeper continued staring. Mustafa couldn't blame him. This was a small village. Few foreigners came through, if any. Mustafa himself would never have had any reason to be there- if it was not for the twelve-year-old storyteller in the field. Someone he had worked very, very hard to find. Someone who he had been tracking for years.

"Masr," the shopkeeper said, nodding at Mustafa. Egyptian.

Mustafa nodded.

"Are you here with your family?" the man asked in Arabic. There were enough people from the neighboring African country doing business in the Sudan for it to be an acceptable excuse.

"Yes," Mustafa lied.

The shopkeeper seemed placated, but still asked the polite questions about where he was staying and whether he liked things and how he would be welcome to take dinner at the shopkeeper's house.

Mustafa continued to lie. He had to keep his responses short- there was no need for this man to pick up on the fact that Mustafa's Arabic had been learned much too late in life for him to have been born on this continent.

The truth was, he felt he was Egyptian only as deep at the eye could see. His outward appearance could fool people, but he knew the real Mustafa.

The shopkeeper was eventually distracted by a customer and Mustafa could return his attention to the boy. The sun was reaching its highest point. As Mustafa knew they would, the boys gradually started to disperse. The storyteller stayed the longest, listening and laughing with the stragglers. Mustafa had seen this daily routine enough to know that the boy would always be the last to leave. His magnetic presence meant that no one wanted to him to go. But, finally, even the last kid said, "shoofik boukra, Amir!" and wandered away.

Mustafa's hand crept carefully back into his pocket. Amir kicked the flattened soccer ball around a little bit more. Even though the sun was mercilessly attacking his head, the boy seemed reluctant to leave. Mustafa knew why: while his friends were running home to places of shade and comfort and a small snack, young Amir was better off alone in the midday sun. His home was a deeply disturbing place.

Just remembering what he had seen made Mustafa more determined than ever to follow through with his plan. He could not let Amir to back to the dark, dark place he tried to escape from everyday.

The boy sadly kicked the ball away, and started to trudge across the field to where Mustafa was hiding. The young man held his breath.

Closer and closer. Amir was walking slowly, but to Mustafa it seemed to go much too quickly. He removed his hand from his pocket and held his breath. The sweat trickled down the back of his neck, and the cough of a truck bumping down the road behind him seemed deafening. This would have to be perfect. He would have to make it quick, silent, leaving the small town in northern Sudan as unperturbed as it had always been. He would have only a few seconds to change his life, and Amir's life, forever.

He uncapped the needle in his hand and held it up, ready to plunge it into the neck of the unsuspecting boy.