He looked up at the sky; it was burning with his misery.

….

She held his hand while talking, and he could feel the nervousness in her by the circles her finger was tracing in his palm…

“That was when my father died. I was gone at the time, on one of Nathaniel’s scouting trips. I had by then decided that I’ll never be what they wanted. I’ll never be as wise as father, or as strong and cunning as Nathaniel. I had made my peace with that. Or so I thought. What I couldn’t make peace with was the way father looked at me, with his good eye, which was for me like staring down a sorrow-filled pit… I could almost hear the unspoken questions in his eyes. Why wasn’t I what he wanted? Why couldn’t I be more like Nathaniel? His disappointment in me was profound, and he let it show every time he looked at me.”

He remembered the way Jibreel looked at him. As they stood surveying the losses after the battle of Dora Bay. Jibreel, with his suit of armor, the innocence shining brightly in his eyes despite his 50 years of age, and his silent accusations. He was the savior, those eyes burned; he was the Mohannad, the invincible warrior. How could he have let such a thing happen? He remembered Jibreel, as he removed his helmet, not caring about radiation or biologicals, and knelt to offer a drink of water from his suit’s supply to a dying soldier. The soldier was no more than sixteen, Al-Mohannad had thought… just two years younger than he was. And through the whole trip back to Al-Bab Al-Ali, he couldn’t stop seeing that boy’s face as he stared at them. They must’ve looked like angels, with their shining armor and shimmering energy fields. Or maybe they looked to him like demons of the apocalypse, standing over the ruins of his world amongst the dead and dying, preparing for some dark ritual. Jibreel’s eyes burned at his back, silent accusations and bitter disappointments.

“Seeing my father’s body, all bloody and shredded -no one dared to touch him or clean his wounds for fear of the poisons in his blood, what he used to jokingly call his last defense- made me realize how much I wasn’t… right, there. Being there I mean. Just coming near him -with the parasites lining my suit becoming agitated by the smell of blood, sending signals to my body that made me want to step closer, just a bit closer- made me want to run and hide … hide and start screaming and vomiting until my body was cleansed of his smell and this whole, never-ending war. That was when I realized that I had to leave or I’ll die…”

“…I had to leave”, he whispered, her hand feeling cold in his.

He remembered the arguments he had with Dr. Gasim when he first breached the idea of leaving. That he wasn’t suitable anymore for the job he was made for. How he looked at him, with that quizzical smile playing on the edges of his mouth, in that way that had always slightly bothered him. Then how he moved his head away, dismissing him, his wavy white hair flowing, like the last puffs of snow white clouds after a rainy day, captivating Mohannad’s eyes the way they always did, moving with a magical grace. He remembered the endless arguments with Jibreel, the way he was accused of everything from cowardice to treason. How he even had his humanity denied him, branded a product, not a person. Then, that fateful night…

“I didn’t have a lot of things I needed to take with me. All I wanted was to get away from there, away from all the death and murder. Nathaniel hated me for this; he hated me for letting him go. I think that although he maintained A strong exterior - that of The Invincible Nathaniel, the Angel of Jaheem… Malik – he was yearning for a chance to get away too. He knew that he would never do that though, that he could never abandon his soldiers and the villagers. He envied me my cowardice. It was made clear to me that if I left I would never be allowed to come back. As I was leaving the gates, I heard an old woman’s shrill voice as she cackled, calling out to me, screaming that I would be slaughtered by the first human I encounter. I didn’t care. I left without looking back. I left.”

“… I left”, he mouthed the words, no sound coming from between his lips.

© Shadi N. Saber, all rights reserved.