The Great Conversation
By Asma Iftikhar
The glass elevator stank. It stank of killers and their crime, it stank of their ill-conceived desires that they arrogantly brought to fruition when they killed men, women and children. They were silly men, and it is silly men who kill children, tragic men who kill children.
The glass elevator wasn’t big enough for the four men, or perhaps there were five of them or six of them. They were crammed, shoulders touching, rucksacks squashed against the glass. They all wore ill-fitting clothes, with trousers that were loose around waists, T-shirts too wide, sleeves hung over hands. They all had one feature in common: their necks were stained with partially dried blood. And blood still seeped out of the deep gashes that necklaced their throats. But it didn’t seem to bother them.
They were a wreck and they had left behind them a world full of wreckage.
They twittered like panicking birds. They shuffled and twitched, scratched and muttered obscenities.
They had all killed someone and at the same time, they had killed themselves. On earth, they became known as suicide bombers.
*
The old man watched them tumble out of the elevator as he rose from a bed of flowers. He squinted in the gentle sun and shifted his gaze to the tree they stood beneath. The tree was expansive: its branches stretched for miles and its leaves were luscious, green and thick.
A strange object hung from one of its branches, and the old man looked away with distaste. The object was a man, and he dangled upside down from the biggest branch.
The old man didn’t like the look of any of these strange men that had appeared in his meadow.
*
The young woman with a gauze veil lifted herself off the tree swing; she picked up her fruit basket and turned her gaze towards the men who had just fallen out of the elevator. She was suspicious of them. There was something unsavoury about the way they were dressed, the way they huddled in a group, scratching their armpits, heads and crotches.
She noticed how the old man several metres away from her had also stopped doing what he was doing and stood still to watch the strange men. She scrunched her slim nose and turned in the opposite direction, walking swiftly away with the basket of fruit dangling from her wrist.
*
“What’d you reckon it’s all about?” one of the men asked. He was pale-skinned with deep dark eyes that were surrounded by blond lashes. He bit into his thumb nail with intensity. His eyes darted back and forth. His name was Jah.
“Dunno. We were told about it, remember,” a short man replied, stroking his bushy beard with stubby fingers. His name was An.
Then they all huddled closer and started twittering about judgement, reward, hell, paradise. None of it made any sense. They fell silent for a moment and then in a panic began to mutter again—incoherently, simultaneously.
“So this is judgement day then,” a slim dark-skinned man remarked. He had hollow cheeks and was hairless. His name was Ami.
They looked around with mouths slightly agape. Before them, as far as the eye could see, the land was flat, covered in white sand; the sun glared down on it ferociously.
Jah—the pale one—fell to the ground. The others gathered around him, twittering, fidgeting.
“Get up, man! Just get up!” Ami shouted.
But Jah didn’t move. He shook his head slowly, his eyes rolled back and his tongue fell out of his mouth.
“Water. He needs water,” they all chimed.
The fiery sun hanging low in a pale-blue sky glared down on them.
“Water, he needs water,” they repeated.
No one was listening to them.
In the distance, a dark speck appeared. They walked towards it, dragging Jah with them.
“Hey, old man! Hey, you there!” shouted An.
The old man looked up. He waved at them to come closer. He was a tall man, with sharp facial features and was dressed from head to toe in pale-green shirt and trousers. His pointy white beard also had a green tint to it. But it was his eyes that stood out. They were the most striking blue. He peered at Jah with concern.
“Is he alright?” There was a faint melody in his voice.
“Do you have water?” An asked.
The old man shook his head. “Young man, there is no need to ask for anything here. Say it and it will appear. You are not on earth anymore. You are surrounded by water. You’re standing next to a stream. Go on,” he urged the lads gently, “take a drink from it.”
They swivelled around in confusion.
“Water. Where? Where is it?” they all spoke at the same time.
“Here,” the old man insisted, pointing at their feet.
“Stop playing games!” Ami shouted at the man. “There’s no water here. Just sand, white sand, hot sand. Everywhere.”
“Yeah, just sand. White sand everywhere,” they all twittered. Even the two quiet men standing aloof joined in.
“But …” The old man frowned. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. Instead, he said, “Are you all here for the Great Conversation?”
They nodded but didn’t entirely understand what he meant.
One of the men fretted. “What will God ask us to do?”
“Dance.” The old man grinned, and his straight, white teeth gleamed in the sun.
“What?” they all chorused.
“The Dance of Life and Death.”
“Man, this is so bloody confusing.”
“Yeah, the Mullah never said this,” An said.
“By the way, where is the Mullah?” Jah muttered, opening his eyes and trying to sit up.
The old man looked from one to the other. He smiled mildly and shook his head.
“Didn’t you see your Mullah in that tree over there?”
“What tree?”
“There.”
They all turned to look where the old man pointed. They saw a white desert drenched in the burning rays of an unmerciful sun.
“Ain’t seen anything there. Old man gone mad!” the nameless one shouted.
“Right, so first you don’t see the rivers, the streams and now you can’t see the trees. I think I best be off. I need to find my flowers. There’s just too many to look through here.”
“What flowers?” Jah stood up.
“Ah … so you’re feeling better. Yes, my flowers. I planted them on earth. But I didn’t live long enough to see them grow on earth. I’m looking for them here. They should have flowered by now. Roses, hyacinths, lilies. Perhaps they’ll be by the stream over there.” He turned away from them.
“What bloody stream?” they all chorused.
“Streams … you know … rivers. Gardens under which rivers flow.” The old man sang as he walked off. They watched him until he became a speck on the horizon and disappeared into the haze.
“Gardens under which rivers flow,” they murmured after him.
“What is he on about?” An asked.
“Dunno,” Jah responded, irritably.
“Sounds familiar though. Gardens under which rivers flow.” He frowned trying to recall where he’d heard that phrase before.
“Gardens under which rivers flow.”
“Gardens under which rivers flow.”
“Gardens under which rivers flow.”
They all sang as if reciting a mantra, their faces masks of confusion.
Then, “Can you hear that?” Jah asked.
A slow crescendo of thunderous drumming rose from the distance.
They looked around in panic, tugging at their clothes, biting their nails, shifting their rucksacks from one shoulder to the other.
*
She rose out of the white sand, carrying a basket laden with fruit. She was dressed in an ivory coloured cloak. Her face was adorned with the finest of gauze veils. Her long black hair was held back with a lilac coloured ribbon.
She approached them slowly.
“It’s difficult to walk over these beautiful cornflowers. I’m trying hard not to stamp over any of them.” She gasped and placed a long-fingered hand over her heart.
“Hello. Are you men here for the Great Conversation?” She smiled and appeared more beautiful.
“What time will it be?” Ami asked, walking up to her so that he stood only a few inches away from her face.
She scrunched up her nose.
“What?” She asked delicately.
“The Judgement. What time will it be?”
Ami liked the look of her. She reminded him of someone from a long time ago when he was a little boy and a woman looked after him. That woman would hum and sing to him, place food in front of him, rock him to sleep. The thought made him inexplicably sad.
This one laughed. “Time! What’s that? There is no time. The time is now. The time is here.”
“But the Mullah never said anything about any bloody conversation. He just said there will be judgement. There will be a scale and our deeds will be put on that scale. I didn’t know we’d have to bloody talk!” Jah shouted, angrily.
An pointed at her fruit basket. "What's that for?"
"It's my harvest. I died young. My parents mourned me intensely. To ease their pain they planted fruit trees so that the poor and orphans would benefit. This is the fruit of their good deed."
The men stared at her with fascination; they didn’t understand what she was talking about because no one had ever told them that before. The Mullah only ever spoke about war.
“This Mullah of yours, was he a teacher?”
“Yes, of course. He gave us a lot of information. He taught us many truths.” They all spoke at once.
The woman laughed.
“Then he was no teacher. A teacher does not teach many truths. He does not give information.”
She looked at them all with pity, her gaze pensive. “All he had to do was take you far away from those things which separate you from the truth. Instead, he threw you into insanity. And now he dangles upside down from a tree.”
She pointed behind them.
“But there’s no one there!” Ami insisted.
“He is there. You’re just not looking properly.” She said dismissively before walking away swiftly.
She disappeared before their very eyes. They stood staring for a few moments with their mouths open.
“Now what?” Jah demanded after what seemed like an age of silence.
Nobody responded.
“I guess we just wait until we’re called,” Ami replied.
“Nah can’t do that. And anyway, what’s this business about our Mullah dangling from a tree? Both the old man and the woman have mentioned him.” An scratched his beard. Thinking too much was making his head hurt.
“We should have asked her for more details.” Jah mused. “Let’s look for her. I’m sure she’s still around.”
“I don’t reckon she’s hanging around here. Didn’t she just disappear into thin air?”
“Can we just lie down here?” Jah suggested. He was beginning to feel faint again. “I’m tired.”
“Shut up!” The others chorused at the same time.
Jah didn’t like that; he flung his tattered rucksack at them violently, then fell to the ground, and was asleep instantly.
They all looked around in dismay. The heat was unbearable; the skin of their noses and foreheads was peeling away like paper. They scratched all over like a cat with fleas.
“I can’t bear this anymore,” An said, miserably.
One of the nameless men who had been quiet all this time expelled a sigh and fell to the ground next to Jah. But he wasn’t asleep. He lay flat on his back on the hot sand, staring into space with unblinking eyes.
“What’s up with you?” Ami asked him, also sitting down next to the two men flat on their back.
“I’m just thinking, is this hell then?”
“Doubt it. No fire. Why would we end up in hell, anyway?”
“What is it then?”
“Dunno. All I know is that we’re dead and the Mullah said we'll be judged and we’d need to gather for that. I assumed we’d be taken there but I kinda feel a bit lost. Cos Mullah’s nowhere in sight either. Ain't seen the Mullah since before I flew to London.”
“That Mullah on the tree though … What’s that all about?” the nameless man mused to himself.
“Yeah, Mullah on the tree. Tree. What tree? Where’s the Mullah?”
The chorus again.
“I miss my mum,” said Ami.
The others looked at him with consternation. They missed their mothers too, but they weren’t allowed to say that. The Mullah had told them that to attain paradise they must make the ultimate sacrifice and that meant forgetting about everything and everyone in life. Their mothers would see them in paradise when they got there eventually.
“I don’t think this is paradise either. How can it be?” An mused.
“Hmm … there was no mention of white sand either.” The nameless one muttered, almost to himself.
“How many people did you kill?” Ami asked him.
“Dunno. Loads.” He picked his nose; hot painful tears seeped from his blistered eyes. He was in pain, too much pain. It was intensifying slowly.
“I killed four people. All women.” Ami said with disappointment.
“Mullah said to kill as many as possible. Wish he was here so he could see we’d done what he said.”
All of a sudden a commotion could be heard in the distance. They all stood upright except Jah who still slept. He had killed the most people when he’d blown himself up at a busy airport.
They looked on as men, women and children appeared in the distance. They looked like a tiny dot at first but as the dot grew there were thousands of them.
An grabbed Jah and they all ran, shouting out to their Mullah, hoping to hit the invisible tree he might be hanging off.
The crowd was now upon them. When they stopped to take a breath they found that no one slowed down to talk to them, no one smiled or asked who they were.
Ami grabbed a short man by the collar who in turn smiled at him happily.
“What’s going on?”
The short happy man giggled and said. “The Great Conversation just ended. We’re off to the Gardens of bliss.”
“What?”
“The Gardens of …”
“I know what you said but where was this great convo? Why didn't we get called?”
The man frowned, scratched his pointy chin thoughtfully and said, “But you don’t get called. You come. Why didn't you come?”
“Because we bloody well didn’t know where it was, you silly old fool!”
“Well then … I don’t know what to say. Let go of my arm.” The man moved away fearfully.
“Go your own way.” The man said before darting off.
“What … why the hell is he scared?” Ami snapped, as two old men skipped past him.
“What’s wrong with these bloody people? Why don’t they stop?”
“Yes, why aren't they stopping?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” they all chanted.
But no one seemed to hear them. They were pushed and shoved as the throng made its way past them at great speed.
After a while the desert around them emptied of people and fell silent again.
They slumped to the ground, exhausted.
“We need to find the Mullah. I don’t know what we’re meant to do. He said he’ll be here. He said we’ll be together.” An said.
“Yeah … and what ’bout them virgins and that?” Jah asked, slowly opening his eyes. He had started to undress; his body was covered in blisters that oozed milky liquid.
“Yeah. He said seventy or something,” remarked Ami.
“I don’t see them,” Jah added.
“Just shut up!” An shouted and then walked off.
"Now wander for eternity, awaiting bliss,” said a voice.
"Who said that?" Jah asked.
They all shrugged, looked around in confusion. There was no one else around, the white desert lay expansive before them, not a speck in sight, the sky was white too and the sun hung ever closer.
They began to cry, their shoulders shook uncontrollably.
The woman veiled in white appeared behind them, she still held her basket of fruit, fuller now. She approached them.
"What's the matter?" she asked gently.
They all jumped at the same time.
"We didn’t make it to the Great Conversation," An explained.
All colour drained from her beautiful cheeks. She looked away.
Ami walked over to her sensing the change in her behaviour.
"What is it?"
"I … the Great Conversation happened here … If you didn’t see it, then … then it means that you have been banished already. You are veiled from everything already. The humiliation has begun. I …"
She stammered and shook with fear.
"What are you saying?"
"What does she mean?"
"Explain what you mean. What punishment? What humiliation? Explain!"
She ran away, shouting over her shoulder.
"The veil between you all and the Great Conversation is the punishment. You will seek it eternally. You will never perish, and the search will not end."
They stared after her dumbfounded as she disappeared into the haze.
“But the Mullah never said this when he sent us out to blow ourselves up,” Ami muttered, dejectedly.
*
Asma Iftikhar is a writer based in Brimingham, England. Her short stories have been published by publishing outlets both in England and America, including The Scoundrel Time and Wild Pressed Books.