Aladdin: A Tale of Terror

Chapter 1 - The Stranger in the Caravan

If you seek a tale of happiness, then I implore you to look elsewhere. This is a tale that bleeds red. It's a story of sex, love, betrayal, and murder. Two young boys whose rivalry ends in death and the fall of the greatest empire the world has ever known.

The desert is made of grit and pain. Foul stenches of feces and hot, rancid urine fill the air, and at your feet is scorching, blood-soaked sand. The landscape bends in the rippling heat, and nothing is ever what it seems.

Still twelve days from of Agrabah, the sand was fine as house dust, and the only lights were the stars above that sprinkled like diamonds, and the dancing flame from the torch-led caravan.I had no say in my means of travel. The caravan was the most direct route to Agrabah. It was a painstaking journey where winds kicked up sand with such fierceness that, if not properly covered, could dissolve the flesh from one's body. Tonight, hardly a breeze tugged at the canvas lining.

I had recognized many other travelers within the caravan as merchants from other villages seeking finer goods for trade. Some of the women, dressed shabbily, had saved their finest silks for the day they arrived. Others were being sent to fulfill the obligations of arranged marriages, while a few endeavored to be liberated from ignorance and sought to be educated in Europe or Africa.

The journey to Agrabah reminded me of that trop in some ways: the same blazing sun during the day, the cool star-sprinkled nights, and the jostling of the wagon as the wheels churned the sand. They had fortified their food with oil from the tons of argan fruit that they had collected and saved the pits for fires and camel fodder.That was where the resemblance ended.

A voyage to Agrabah possessed an enchanting air unlike any other. The sense of wonderment drove some insane and caused others to abandon their families in exchange for a life of eroticism, treasure, and transcendence. In the desert, all men were equal. All who traveled were at risk of succumbing to the maddening winds and hallucinations. The desert didn't care how rich, poor, young, or old one was. All were at equal risk to falling to the elements. Some claimed the desert offered even more horrific fates than dehydration.

Stars sparkled like a shower of crystals, so many awe-struck travelers went adrift on their path and were lost in the desert. The sand absorbed all sounds in such a vacuous way that when one screamed with insanity or had been so unfortunate to encounter a deadly creature, it would not be heard, even if help stood beside him.

Unlike the thousands of men and women that had taken a caravan to Timbuktu, there were only three wagons heading to Agrabah on this cool night. I watched with unease as the gentle wind erased the hoof prints and wagon wheel trail behind leaving no trace that we had been there or anyone else before. Their path was so devoid of light that one gazing could not distinguish the horizon from where the sand ended and the sky began.

As I caught myself lifting my gaze to the heavens, I felt the stranger looking at me from beneath the hood of his tattered olive-green cape. In the veil of night, I couldn't see his face. It occurred to me that I had not seen it since I boarded the wagon. He kept the hood of his cloak pulled down low enough that I could hardly make out his pointed, bearded chin, but no more. When he looked at me, his eyes shone like the shell of a scarab beneath the pallid moonlight. I sensed he had wanted to say something to me but was unable to do so, either because of shyness or a language barrier.

In the corner on his right, my left, and nearest to the front of the wagon where the Arabian man guided the reined camels, a woman dressed in a brick red shayla lay fast asleep. The stranger's eyes remained fixated on me.

Yielding to the uneasiness of his reflective stare, I asked the man where he was traveling from. I had realized too late how personal the question was, and I hoped I didn't offend. Thieves and murderers traveled among peasants and merchants within these caravans, and an inquisitive traveler may find himself in danger if he learns too much.

"I come from the west," the stranger said. His deep voice was like a hide drum, but raspy and calm, weighing heavy of grief.

I imagined he was traveling to find relief from his troubles, perhaps in Agrabah or even farther west to Damascus. Caravans in Agrabah came from all over the world, selling and trading goods in the bazaars. Fine silks, expensive jewelry, exotic food, and slaves of all ages and genders were prominently displayed to shoppers. For a fair price, a traveler could trek along with the trader as long as he could pay.

Observing the tattered, airy vest he wore open that exposed his dark sin, the patches over his baggy trousers, and the flimsy leather sandals at his dirty feet, I doubted he would make it farther than Agrabah.

The flickering glow of the lantern reflected in his black eyes.

"You are traveling to Agrabah." He said.

I nodded and said with pride, "I wish to write about it."

The stranger was slow to respond. "Agrabah has a thousand tales to tell."

"And I shall write one more." I said.

His eyes remained fixed on me. "What is it about Agrabah you wish to write?"

"I believe history, culture, and food are the unified tryst that encompasses the pillars of travel. For the last three months I'd been studying the history of the Silk Road while in Yumen City and came upon some vibrant stories of Agrabah. But they seemed fantastical. Stories of make-believe. For a sultan known to the Islamic world as a leader of scientific, cultural, and religious prosperity, and a passionate nurturer of art, music, and literature, I find it strange that so much of Agrabah is missing from historical texts. In the final week of my time in Yumen City, China, I diverted my research from the vast spectrum of Chinese culture and found myself questioning the Sultan Harun al-Rashid's true nature. The only reason I could fathom for there being a lack of knowledge was that he was not the great sultan history claimed to be."

"There is always another side to every tale. History is merely a footstep in the sand, a wanderer knows that one never steps in the same desert twice."

"The strangest part is that it seems all of Agrabah's history seems to be omitted from text. Just vanished, almost like—." I didn't know what it was like.

"—Like magic?" The stranger finished.

I raised a skeptical brow. "You must have a story to tell."

I asked, and maybe I shouldn't have. I do not, nor have I ever, claimed this story of Aladdin and those Arabian nights to be true. After all, how could one believe in such things as magic? But by my own belief of science and logic, I support the sincerity of this stranger that he believes what he says to be true. This is a story not just of a sultan named Aladdin, but also the young peasant called Ja'far, and a decades old rivalry that ended in bloodshed.