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

+ + +

He came to...barely...his face in a pile of dog-excrement and other things I will not mention here. Bones broken. Ribs displaced. A hideous compound fracture of his right femur...bleeding... And it was the heat of the day - the sun directly above, baking his skin as he wallowed in mortal thirst.

His mind swam...jeers of "Pig! Pig!"...they had beaten him up good this time.

Then - nothing. As though he were simultaneously floating inside his body and outside it. Suddenly, his mind was clear. A round tunnel... Light... and peace…

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...

He was well-aware of his senses, but in a way he had never been before... the smells of dog, but also of a tiny bit of bread on a firepit.. Even here, even after the Iranians and the Turks... Even here, people were still somehow able to get grub.

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.