The book of Zehn

PROLOGUE

The sun was soon to start setting. The sky had taken partly the color blue combined with a soft pink and the sun, without mercy, minute by minute kept managing to release that burning heat until he would no longer be seen. 

The girl was looking at the sun directly, while sitting on a big rock almost one meter above the ground. Well not quite directly. Even though her hand was placed above her eye and the tip of her palm had almost half of the sun’s brightness buried in it, she felt some kind of victory over it as she was able to look at it. Grown ups had always told her that you can't look at the sun directly. This statement was taken by the girl as a challenge even though the only thing that they had meant by that was that looking at the sun could be damaging for her eyes but as a child she hadn thought about that much. Being too stubborn to admit that they were right after being caught looking at the sun directly one day, she had secretly been giving glaces to the sun when it was weak once in a while.. 

She smiled to herself and looked at her father who was digging into the ground made of a mixture of sand and soil and felt relief that he had not noticed. Her attention now had shifted from the sun which got forgotten in 2 seconds as soon as she looked away from it to her hard working dad.

Her father was a big man. His body was tall and looked strong enough that the girl couldn't get enough of playing with him back home the “airplane game". Right now he was wearing a plain, white, long-sleeve shirt and had some black pants with some brown sandals in it. His face looked a little savage and many wrinkles were formed and many cars could be seen engraved in the skin from old age and hard work but overall it had a good look in it. His hair was black and sorta long and wavy but most of them were tucked under a nice black turban and didn't let them fall on his face. It was hot even with the sun almost gone. Some sweat drops had appeared in the man's face but he was too busy to look at them and was completely focused on his work.

The girl then looked down and eximated the hole which had been dug by her father but didn't utter a word. It was a big hole almost big enough to fit a child in there. She didn't think much of the hole. She stared at the ground looking at the repeating process of her father digging the hole, stopping for a while to give it some thoughts about whatever he had in mind and then twitching his face before continuing.

 She has been standing there now for almost an hour and a half and the girl had already grown bored quite a while ago but hasn't said a word up till then.

“Dad?” the girl shouted but her voice got muted by a shovel hitting the ground harshly so the answer she was waiting for didn't come. The girl was determined to get her father's attention though.

“Dad.”

“Dad!”

“Dad!!”

“Hm?” Finally the father responded half-heartedly while hitting the shovel with somehow unbalanced moves. 

“Dad!” 

“What are you shouting for? Dad is busy,” said the father calmly.

“Dad why are you digging a grave?” At the earrings of those words her dad lifted his face and looked directly at the girl. The girl also did the same, looking innocently with an emotionless face wanting for an answer. For a good two second the dad looked at the girl and then the hole he had dug for almost an hour and a half and smiled tirelessly.

“Do you know what a grave is?”

“Of course I do, dad! It is a big hole where dead people are thrown. Right? And then dirt is placed above them. And then some prayers are recited for them.” The father gave her a peculiar look while raising one eyebrow in surprise.