There are hidden worlds. Other realms. Places that you cannot see that live within the strata of the air. Like ghosts, they are ephemeral, a momentary reminder of the past. You may miss a doorway to this world, so imperceptible it is, sitting somewhere between now and then, life and death. I am the ice-queen, the lost princess, roaming around these hills in tones of blues and silvers. My story has been rehashed, retold, so many times and still no one but I and he, the one, knows the truth. I see traces of him on these same mountains, I know he is here, but I am caught in a trap of my own making. I endlessly seek each cave and cabin, every nook and cranny, haunting the empty streets and towers in search of him. But he always eludes me. It has been almost a century now, and occasionally, if I focus my will I can still access the real world, not that I would ever want to return there. This is reality now. I hear shots of guns from the skies ringing out. Cries of people who have been kept out, attempting to clamber to the sanctuary of the Kaaba and the inner walls of Makkah. When they die, I see their souls burst into light and slowly fade out rising up to the heavens or down into the hard ground. There are those I encounter who have made it to the walls before turning away, frightened after hearing the cries of children who have been sold to reckless truck drivers, slave traders, in exchange for a license for entry. The mothers wail, powerless in the face of man’s need for survival, having to choose between one child and another. Sometimes I walk to the black mountain, where labourers carry rocks towards towers, around and around continuously to the top. The place where they build towers, then take them down, build them up again only to take them down. The workers forget that each time they reach the top, they will be flung back down to the start again. These men and women were not labourers in life, some were kings, queens and princes, priests and leaders, yet here, they must carry the brick loads of their worldly decisions. I am able to access the inner sanctuary. There, occasionally, I find the women of before, my ancestors, dressed up in festival disguises, ghosts of creatures running free around Makkah. They dance and chant as they once did when women were gifted one night of each year, the chance to run liberated of their restraints, naked or costumed, released of their veils. Men banished for those few hours, sent on a pilgrimage to Medina. Those alive within the walls huddle, waiting patiently for the day when all men will receive their comeuppance. Here they are safe for now, continuing to lead their lives as best they can, trading everything from bodies to garments, old objects to the rationed sacred water, all while praying to their god. As the choppers fly overhead, in and out, up and down, making the dust swirl in their wake, each man and woman envies their freedom. Armed or disarmed, they will be the first to give signal to us all. For all our hoping, but none is quite digesting that the day has come, it’s the end of the world and each of us, whether living or walking dead, awaits the reckoning to save us from this purgatory or hell. See glossary: Princess Misha'al bint Fahd (1958 – 15 July 1977) Rituals of Makkah – the night of women Surveillance in Makkah See bibliography: The Divine Comedy and Islamic philosophy
