The Migration (A Boy Story)

Part 1

"We face the music together,
And threw our hats in the ring,
Facing all kinds of weather,
And not afraid of anything…"
~Gary Clark and John Carney

Sabhā City, Libya

I came across a book talking about abuse and how to use it to correct your child but it stated that in a subtle way. We are in the time of the year when the west winds come trotting at us, the houses, the stores and in the faces of old men begging in corners. Most of them are immigrants from neighbouring countries. Most of them look more like me than the others around me. We've heard stories of war, famine and lust for life driving them. I don't know what the truth is. I wish I knew then that the human condition is always in a state of flux and we always want to experience out of body experience. Without that we feel unfulfilled.

I have been asked not to go near them. Abbi told me, the first time he saw me speaking with one of theem, to stop talking to them. He said they're hoodlums. He said they stole from them when they first arrived in Libya but he never told me how he was able to know they were those who had stolen from them. Though the men looked rough and the women with them too. They looked unfulfilled, sick and always getting in jail for one thing or the other. I never knew what pulled me to them. That day I went home bathed in shame and locked myself up in  the old store we had never used since we moved into our new house after the birth of Faiz. Maryam was six then.

The wind sweeped at me, I ran into the store holding the book. I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it but I skimmed through it seeing the scholar said beating for correction is allowed but don't hit the head. Abi never bit us but he mostly ignored our questions when they came each time we read history books. He is a man who doesn't say much. I never knew why. I wished I did. Perhaps because he moved away from his people, the Songai people, the kingdom and the throne he was to get but turned down in favour of his brother. He told us that and that since then he hadn't been feeling right. Later Ummi told me Abi suffers from Siru. She said sometimes at night he'll wake up and dance around chanting inaudible songs then get back in bed with continuous talk about things she couldn't understand. I wished she understood then.

"Muhammad, go to bed. Your father will get better. Allah knows best but you know I believe what my father told him the last we went home. He said his family did it."

"Did what?" I said.

"Allah will help us. Go sleep."

The wind increased and the roads became too dusty. I walked towards the back shelves holding the book thinking about everything, thinking about the world, thinking about my mind and what it's turning into. I know I don't understand it and I can't understand everything but somehow I want to know. Hafiz Tahir, the bookseller, had been waiting for me. He held out his right hand.

"Ya'allah ya walad. Aguluku dukana Lian, Salim ila abik." I smiled, dropped it in his hand and walked into the street to get back home. I wished I had finished reading it.