Ahmed's beginning - a short story
Herein is the first draft of how the Antichrist might get his start. For a while, it has been my belief his arising will start with something like this: some random nobody.
story by Jeff Ragsdale
4 November 2020
And clarity of spirit. Never in his miserable sixteen years had Ahmed felt such lightness of soul... The quiet of being tucked into bed by the mother he never had... The utter assurance of the father he should have always had… The despair of the streets on which he grown up, abandoned by what family he had and set upon by all around him...
And he found himself aware of every cell of his body: the
blood flowing through his veins, the hair on his head, his empty
stomach, his gaping leg-wound - everything. As he had done so many
times before, he looked inward, but this time, he found only empty
space, but yet somehow, he still felt as though he existed.
Such
peace... Such - quiet... Such... pain... He had had such inward
moments before, but never anything like this. It was one thing to
decide on which street he would beg that day, even with his leg, but
this was different - so much more momentous...as though before him
had opened a cavern leading to infinity…
Such peace... And such...awakening? In the coils of his spirit - a restlessness... A purpose - with dark hue - a sliver of light-but-not-light - yet the tunnel... The thought of the tunnel stilled him.
The thought of the
cave intrigued him.
NO! But 'no' to what?
How
much had he been kicked, scorned, and treated worse than the
creatures in whose poop he now lay? Suddenly, Ahmed saw with waking
vision not the street on which he lay, but a great blue and green
sphere in black space, then a hand of pure blue crystal reaching out
over the heavens, then a brightly-arrayed spirit which appealed to
him, then - a horde of people crossing a great body of water at low
tide - a city burning with a strange yellow substance that burned to
the touch - a building of gold, wood, and precious things in which
lay a small box with rods extending from it and an old man standing
before the box - an Azerbaijani woman in her bed with a dream of
white light and thanking heaven for her peace - a man standing atop a
jagged pyramid surrounded by green, growing things, and deciding to
hold his knife back from...a child to be sacrificed –
-
a man walking along a desert road falling to the ground with a loud
voice speaking from the sky, 'Saul! Saul!' - a black man wearing orange
surrounded by others in orange, all kneeling and surrounded by
shadows, all on sand with water behind them...is this what 'sea'
looked like? - and finally...a man lifted up upon a pole of wood with
a cross-beam at top...nailed to the pole...nailed to the
cross-beam...and mutilated beyond anything Ahmed could have otherwise
imagined...that man was no longer human, it seemed, but a dark and
bright red, bleeding creature of ripped flesh and sinew beyond all
means of description…looking right at Ahmed.
But why was
this sight so familiar to Ahmed? Dreams... He had seen this man
before...
The men in orange - the man in the desert - all
in dreams - men with white and gold pointy hats with strange
bread-wafers and metal cups with wine - people sleeping in carefully
put-together flower-adorned makeshift huts behind their large houses
- Ahmed had tasted wine once - and a woman cradling a child in her
lap having lifted it from a...feeding trough? All in his dreams.
And his visions…
His visions... A star growing from
nothing and taking corporeal form - a form of pure light which
appealed to Ahmed. A river of pure transparent water encircling a
green earth devoid of oceans or mountains - save one... Endless
space with planets and stars - but the space was not black, but
sky-blue… How many times did he have those visions... Those same
visions...and more...
Cities upon cities, all on great
pedestals high above the earth. Tigers and rabbits playing with each
other - such odd dreams Ahmed had. And a man with a metal stick in
his hand - and for the first time Ahmed realized...it was the same
man as on that wooden pole! At which point Ahmed had a new vision: a
room carved out of rock - a burial chamber seemingly, but empty save
for a single shroud and a smaller cloth, neatly folded - Ahmed
wondered at being able to perceive that small detail - all with peace
with no dog-shit around.
And as his spirit wandered, he
came across a place on the earth he had never seen before. A crack
in the ground...leading into utter darkness mingled with an absence
of space, the absence of ordinary reality, and the absence of time.
It was black, but of such a hue darkness itself could not escape its
grasp - and neither could Ahmed as he fell into its bottomless
depth.
How far he fell into the Abyss, he never knew - nor
how long. Time here was irrelevant - his fall broken by a single
ledge. He should not have been able to see, but somehow he was
enabled to see and given eyes
to behold that which lay before him: a form of darkness more dark
than the darkness surrounding it...and chained to the wall by nothing
more than links of pure iron with a great iron latch.
And
the Thing-Chained-To-The-Wall
looked at him with eyes blacker than anything in all of creation. In
that moment, Ahmed should have been scared to insanity. Most
anyone else would be.
But
somehow, he wasn't. ...if
Ahmed really was his
name. 'Ahmed' was the name he had given himself long ago because his
parents had given him no name
he could remember, leaving
him as a toddler at the side of a street
somewhere to fend for
himself. That was all he knew of his early years or his family. He
didn't know his birthday, and
he couldn't read.
Even the mosques in his camp-village
had cast him out.
Was
he Arab? Kurd? Persian?
Pakistani? Afghani? Kuwaiti?
Armenian? Turkish? He could pass for any of these and more. The
one thing he knew for sure was he was not Jewish. How he knew this,
he couldn't guess, but somehow, he knew.
And
he knew he was now nowhere near the bottomless chasm where lay the
dark one who seemed to look right at him. through
him...
Finally, a
blood-curdling scream,
but not from him or the dark
creature...
AHBRAHAAAAAAHM!!
Silence.
Darkness. And perfect clarity.
He saw the tunnel again -
light at the end. And the cave entrance to infinity. Two separate
spaces and two separate shades
of reality and meaning...
And all the time in eternity to go through one or the other with the
perfect sanity to choose either.
He was freed from his
trauma, his foibles, and any feelings or
distractions which would
otherwise him from this
moment. Perched in perfect balance between the pull his wants and
the needs of his soul, no human,
it seemed to Ahmed, had had a
moment of such perfect equilibrium.
In that moment he saw all endings, beginnings, and the stories
therein. His own stories and the clear conscience with which to
write one of them…
Then,
he was lying on the ground once more. A thought entered his mind: go
get that bread that smells so good.
A crazy fool with a bleeding leg with dog-poop all over his face
running right at the firepit from whence the sweet scent of food was
coming... The baker would run for the hills and Ahmed
would eat…
But a thought occurred to him:
'Why?'
Because
I'm famished to where I will die.
A
gentle, still voice answered him...
It
is your time to die.
I
don't want to die.
It
is your time to die.
My stomach is roiling.
Death
is a short stop, after which is peace. You'll get your food. And
you'll have peace - no dog poop.
No.
Yes.
It is your appointed time.
No.
Yes. Your
life has been more than hard, I know. But I am making
myself known to you now.
No.
He
found himself at the top of a tall building...in Jerusalem. Somehow,
he knew where he was.
I
know where I am, but how?
"Yes,
you are near, but not yet
at
the center of the earth.", someone said,
but not with that gentle and still voice
- this was not the same person as before.
Ahmed turned around, the figure standing in front also a man of the
same vague color and nationality as himself. The figure was Ahmed's
height - just below a medium height for a normal man, and the face
was kindly.
The
man threw Ahmed a rock. "A bit
different than with the last person I asked, but whatever. This is
starting to get a little old."
Ahmed caught the
rock. The man said, "Turn
that rock into your bread. It'll be better than the crap that
firepit was making."
Don't do it, Ahmed.
Don't you know all will be turned to dust and burned with true
fire at the end? What will this power to turn rock
into bread be, then? What's the point? This is your
appointed time, Ahmed.
No.
"Well?", the man asked?
Ahmed knew
he had no way of turning this
rock into bread and said, "I
can't."
"With me, you can do all things. And
know all things. You will burn those who burned you, Ahmed."
Why,
Ahmed? Now is your time to die...and live.
Tariq
is an animal. He burned me.
Tariq will
receive his reward. And so will you. Put down those coals he has
given you!
NO. I will put those coals into
his eyes!
You have been in torment all your life,
Ahmed.
And you allowed it! Tariq will be only the
beginning.
"Wow,",
the kindly man thought. "Even
at the start, this is going
much better than with Adolf. Stupid incoherent polka-dancer. I
would have done better with der Großadmiral, but he was too a
stickler for the rules, und
Hermann vas
too crazy. Yes, Joe Stalin.
really would have done
better, but Molech talked me out of it.
Idiot demon. This
Ahmed-guy,
however…"
Ahmed, stop.
And
it seemed to Ahmed that Something had taken the coals out of his
hand. Ahmed's mind was clear again, seeing the depths of his hatred
for the first time. Tariq
had burned him. And for the
first time, it didn't mean anything anymore.
I
allowed this to happen to you so that you could be given this choice,
Ahmed. You have already seen what few have ever seen. And only I
have seen the full story of the universe more than you.
"Such
a tall structure we're standing on...", the kindly man
said.
"What's your name?", Ahmed inquired.
The
man said nothing for a few seconds. Then after some thought, his
reply: "Nicolae."
That book series he had just
read amused him to no end - the ending was not to his liking, though.
He and the boys had nevertheless had a good laugh reading aloud to
one another from first book to last. Pure camp.
"How
did you know my name?", Ahmed then asked.
"Word
gets around. Turn that stone into bread, please? I'm tired of
hearing your stomach growl.", Nicolae laughed. "And call
me Nic."
Ahmed stood there. And without knowing how
he knew, he simply knew:
one thought, and a meal is mine.
He put out his thought, and in his hand in
place of the stone appeared a
piece of warm bread, which did not last for long. It was smeared
with goat-butter.
Then,
Ahmed had the same thought again: Why?
At
that moment, Ahmed felt his mind - not his physical one, but the real
one - open onto a tower of books - Vedas, Qu'rans,
cylinders, Books
of This, knotted
ropes, Books of That...
The
tower of Stuff to Read was
endless.
Then, Ahmed beheld more
books - a library. The
shelves had no end: sermons, dissertations, histories, Mishna,
weather reports, musical works (including those not notated on
earth), musical recordings, every TV show ever made, and what-not.
Ahmed suddenly thought: "The Star Wars
prequels really were
that bad." He had never
before seen any
Star Wars movie.
All
the context of all these books and media - all the contemporary and
ancient rabbinic and vedic
understandings - all the
commentaries - every sermon series - Hillel, Pius X, God-fearing
pastors giving support at Pride parades, and
every other homily ever
homilized... Every
Benny Hinn miracle crusade... Every Billy Graham altar-call... All
the Magisterium... All the lives of the Saints... Every edition of
the Catholic Encyclopedia... Every
icon of the Eastern and other churches... All
the teachings...
The precise dimensions for
Solomon's, Zerubbabel's/Herod's, and Ezekiel's Temples...
The exact way in which God
had intended the Levitical law to work...
And
Ahmed
had clarity of thought and the sudden spiritual capacity to process
the literal billions of pages of all this material, filtering out the
good from the bad, the correct from the incorrect.
Everything
with 'Christian apologetics'... He could now teach the
course.
Second
only to God himself, Ahmed in a flash knew all
of this.
"Mumbo-jumbo,
and you know it. Look, if all the sermons of the priests,
imams,
and swamis did any good, they
would have done so by now.", Nic said.
"But
their
end is love.", Ahmed said. "I gotta go. You're
crazy."
"Go, but I bet you can't jump off this
tower and fly. If you turned that stone into bread, I bet you could
fly.", said Nic.
"You're crazy. I'm going back
home.", Ahmed snapped.
"There's a saying: you
can't go home again.", Nic calmly said back. "If you go
back now, I will remove your little magic power from you, and you
will die in the street and filth. Even the dogs are higher up in
society than you. They really are."
"Better
to be lower than a dog...", Ahmed started, but Nic interrupted,
"Jump off this tower. Remember that rock turning into food. Or
die worse than a dog. Tariq and his gang are heading back for you.
I can't imagine the stuff they have in store for you.".
Nic
smiled. He was unassuming, but it was long ago clear to Ahmed this
was no man with whom he was dealing.
"You
have it within yourself to make your own destiny, Ahmed. You sit on
a perch and will fall one way or another. For better or worse,
Ahmed, the life you have known is over. Jump off this tower and
live!", Nic commanded.
Ahmed
knew what Nic was, but...decided
to test him, anyway. What did it matter how the test went one way or
another. He walked over the the railing at the roof's edge and began
to climb it. There was a crowd below gathering while behind the door
to the roof, someone was trying to open it.
And
he jumped off... "Think thoughts", Nic screamed as Ahmed
had but a few seconds to live. In that last instant before his
death, he had one last thought, and turned into a giant vulture,
taking flight and soaring away. Nic took to the skies himself,
turning both him and Ahmed invisible. The crowd was aghast.
"Follow me!", Nic commanded
Ahmed. And Ahmed followed.
While in flight, Ahmed felt
his body, bird or otherwise, quiver with the sensation of flying
beyond the sky... Beyond the stars and beyond the bands of stars he
would see at night. His vision became that of planets, pulsars,
black holes - all changing to shapes and objects beyond the realm of
mortal imagination. All waiting to be explored. "And all
planned by another. Where is the freedom in that? I am nothing...
But I will be
something.", thought Ahmed.
Nic
and Ahmed the Vulture touched down upon the tallest
peak on earth. The Himalyas
were indeed high,
and Ahmed was astonished at how much lay beyond the squalid camp-town
where he had spent his life and from the mosques of which he had been
thrown out at one time or another.
Ahmed
was thin and scrawny, but still had a baby-face complexion and mild
disposition. But in the core of his spirit was a fiery, thrashing
orb of pure fire and want. If
Allah would not accept
him...
At
that moment, Ahmed felt his heart - not his physical one, but the
real one - rip open
onto real light, cool breezes, fresh water, and endless flowers and
meadows. A river of what seemed to be greater than sunshine flowed
through him in the deepest place of his trauma, wanting to wipe it
all away - wanting to make it to have been
nothing after all - trauma
worth remembering, but only
as a reminder of the greater healing that had come and the glory of
all that was good in the world and beyond.
Ahmed
knew. He knew everything. And on his perch he still sat.
"Look
beyond you. Look far. Look wide. Look deep.", Nic
said.
Ahmed beheld at first the base camps and the
climbers. And the frozen bodies serving as landmarks - too heavy,
dead, cumbersome,
and too high up to be brought down safely…
Then, into
the towns and villages of Nepal and Bhutan, into Tibet and Western
China where the concentration camps were... Then, mighty Beijing and
nervous Pyaong-Pyang... Anxious Tokyo and Seoul while Russian ships
remained ever watchful near Sakhalin...
U. S. submarines prowling while Taiwan waited for its
inevitable date with its doom.
Mao's spiritual children were strong. Australia with its deadly
fauna and New Zealand with its hobbits
and mountains... The endless
islands of the Pacific... The unfathomable archipelago and
gamelan-tunings of
Indonesia…
Whales,
great fish, squid, and trawlers. The ever-growing sea of plastic...
Downed ships and dead people entombed on the ocean floor... Alaska
and Russia eyeing each other while Canada watched…
America
the Great with her neighbors south, south, and farther south.
Antartica with its cold wastes... Cape Horn and the The Cape of Good
Hope, the latter of which was the gateway to India and beyond.
Pakistan and Afghanistan... Vietnam and many others…
The
glitter of Monaco, the pyramids of Giza, the Amazon, the tribes and
nations of Africa, the beauty and bleakness of the Sahara…
Europe
in all its cathedral-glory... The glamour of Paris... The pomp of
London... The trees
of Finland... The choirs of Estonia... The winter of Russia...
Moscow and the Kremlin's
great broken bell...
Libya
of the Berbers and more... Ethiopia, the Unconquered...
Arabia with her
Two
Holy
Mosques...
The decadence of
Dubai...
The
ancient ghosts of Babylon, Nineveh, and Damascus... The cedars of
Lebanon... the waters of Jordan... and the Beautiful Land…
And
at last, Ahmed beheld the city of cities, Jerusalem... And then, he
came to it. "The center of the world. This will be your home,
one day, along with the whole
earth.",
Nic said as Ahmed looked upon the Temple Mount.
Nic
extended his hand... Ahmed had only to take it....
But
why?, said something within
Ahmed.
And in that moment, Ahmed entered into a
temporary eternity no human
had ever known: enough space of time and mental rest to behold with
incomprehensible comprehension the
states of final bliss and
torment - he could spend as
much 'time' there as he needed, but his choice would be final:
the tunnel to eternal rest
or the cave to infinite possibility.
He had the empathy to take one path or another, and
ambition enough to do the same. He loved the world as much as the
world to come, but he knew it and was fully-aware. His heart was
material and not of where
he would be born at the last. But, he was now more self-aware than
any human to have ever lived save Jesus himself, and he knew that,
too.
Ahmed's understanding in that moment was such having
but one chance, one real chance in his life to make this final choice
was for him sufficient.
Tariq was no longer an issue now. If he so chose, he would deal
with Tariq first.
Or
let Someone Else more
merciful and righteous than
he do it for him
and in his own way…
All
his life, Ahmed
had somehow figured out how to use what
amounted to meditation of
some sort to cope with the
torment of his life. But
he used it now for this
moment.
With
both the empathy flowing through him that had kept him from
voluntarily bringing trouble onto himself and
others as a kid as
well as the absolute stubbornness
that had kept him alive, he became silent and Nic left his presence
at last. If this one didn't work out, Nic thought, there would be
another, another, and another until one did work out.
Slowly,
the pendulum swung back and forth. Empathy. Ambition. Empathy.
Ambition. Hitler looked upon the Spear. Ahmed looked out upon the
world.
Why?
No.
Why?
NO.
Why?
...
Because.
In
the whole of eternity, in the whole of primordial space, in the whole
of the never-known age before Lucifer himself was brought into being,
in the whole of the aftermath of the Big Bang, not in the heavens
above or the earth below, did any being ever do anything before more
in a greater space of
the utter freedom of
objective sanity and
cold-blood.
Ahmed called for Nic...
and took his hand.
NO!!,
Ahmed smiled.
---and
came to, with Tariq standing above him. Ahmed showed Tariq his
maimed leg. Ere
long, it would turn into a gangrenous mess. Tariq smiled and tried
to kick Ahmed, but was stopped...by Ahmed's right hand.
As
the bones in Tariq's leg cracked and broke into compound splinters,
Ahmed got up - the strength in his body...
unreal... unnatural...
and unbelievable - and
touched Tariq's nose
with his other hand. Where Tariq had been touched, a boil appeared
and for the next few days until merciful death took him, Tariq was in
such pain as he had never felt before, Ahmed standing over him,
gloating, as his once-tormentor
burned from the inside.
At the moment of Tariq's death,
Tariq's brother walked in. Ahmed showed him his maimed leg...which
suddenly closed and
healed of its own accord.
Ahmed merely thought, and Tariq's horrified
brother fell over, dead as a
doornail. No more deaths for
now, however, as Ahmed walked
out of that room, onto the streets, and away from the outskirts of
the camp-town and into the surrounding wilderness, whereupon he
vanished out of all knowledge, for his time had not yet come.
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