Where Is Manar?
Book Two: Sorry, Ma'am — This Body Is Not for Rent
Chapter Three: The Blood That Remembers
—
In the vast wilderness of Basra's outskirts, where the drifting sands kissed the edge of the horizon, the tribe's tents stood like black moles on the earth's face. Outside, life appeared peaceful — children chasing goats with innocent glee, women in their dignified abayas moving between tents carrying leather milk bags or gathering firewood, the sounds of sheep and cattle mixing with the bitter scent of coffee drifting from the guest tents.
But at the heart of this calm, one massive tent stood at the center of the encampment — the Big House — where even the wind seemed to hold its breath out of respect for what happened within.
Inside, a solemn silence held, broken only by the wind brushing the tent's fabric. The Chieftain sat at the head of the council, his presence as immovable as a mountain no storm could shake. To his right sat the Veteran — the tribe's second-in-command, a man whose face had been seasoned by years of war, carrying the authority of execution and the weight of the alpha.
The Veteran fixed his sharp eyes on the warrior standing at the center and spoke in a commanding voice:
"Fourth Division of the Dhawari — the Scouts. Dajja, the newly risen shadow — report the reason for the mission's failure, despite the Oracle's assistance with contract-level entities."
Dajja stood with dignity, performed the warrior's salute, and answered:
"Esteemed Veteran, Honorable Chieftain, respected assembly — the entity called Emma did not intervene to assist. None of the 'Contract' or 'Year' tier entities moved in the battle. The fighting was limited to those at the 'Season' and 'Month' level. I do not understand how the artifact disappeared or what form it took — the Oracle's withdrawal order came at the height of our engagement."
The Veteran asked, his tone edged with anticipation: "And what became of the Kid?"
Dajja replied: "He entered the barrier. I did not witness his exit or find any trace of him by the time the group withdrew."
A brief silence. Then the Chieftain's deep voice — carrying a resonance all its own — entered the room:
"The Oracle predicted he would play a significant role in helping the artifact escape. You will depart tomorrow, after the rituals are complete, to find him."
Dajja asked with measured respect: "With all due deference, Chieftain — may I ask? Do we have any realistic chance of seizing a Lord-level artifact? I don't mean to question — but does the tribe possess anyone capable of that?"
The Veteran answered: "The Oracle predicted that after one month, the artifact will pass through a mysterious transition. If the moment is seized, the gain will be substantial. Your mission is not to capture it — it is to locate where it settles."
"As the Veteran commands," Dajja said, and turned to withdraw — until the Chieftain's voice stopped him with words that struck deeper than expected:
"Dajja... the blood is one, and the den is one. What Munaf did planted the knife in my back before yours. Shame stains the doer — not the clan. But when a wound festers in the flesh... it must be cut away."
Dajja's grip tightened around his own fist: "We are a people who live by fangs. There is no place among us for a broken tooth." He wasn't asking for personal vengeance. He was asking for the restoration of what had been taken from him.
The Chieftain declared with finality: "Hear me, wolves! Today the fire does not devour enemies — it devours the rot within our own flesh, so the rest may heal. We are one family. Today we wash our garment in the fire of the earth. And you, Dajja — the clan will give you the compensation you deserve."
At that moment, the ranks of warriors parted for an entrance that shook the council hall. Fidda stepped forward — pride of the young fighters. Tall, wearing armor of black panther skin, her hair braided with silver threads gleaming in the torchlight. Her beauty was a curse. The scar above her brow was a medal — one that told everyone she was not born of ease, but of battles with sorcerers and the Transcended.
She struck her spear against the ground. The ancient rugs trembled.
The Chieftain advanced and placed his hand on Dajja's shoulder:
"Do not fear, wolf. With the shame washed away, your warrior's spirit is free again. You are now a blade in the tribe's hand — and so I grant you Fidda, to be your partner in the hunt. Let us show everyone that this clan is a family whose bonds do not break."
Fidda stepped forward with confident strides. She did not extend her hand. Instead, she drew her dagger in one swift motion, cut her own palm, and pressed her blood against Dajja's glowing totem above his heart — a ritual of union from which there was no return.
She spoke with iron resolve:
"Dajja — shame does not cling to wolves. It falls away with the old fur. Today the past has burned. Tomorrow we will show them how a clan that purified itself by fire fights. Prepare yourself — the great hunt befits only a leader whose heart no longer looks backward."
Dajja looked into her steel-gray eyes. For the first time in days, he saw in them no anger — only pure, undiluted resolve. He gave a single nod. His own eyes kindled with the embers of restored power.
—
While the razor moved in its silent, practiced strokes across a customer's face, a window opened in Sami's memory — old and unhurried.
When did I decide to become a barber? I don't remember. But I remember my distinguished childhood — the day I argued with Hadi and Sameh and told them I was going to be a fighter pilot when I grew up. Thank God I didn't. I'd be obligated now to pay a tax to various deviants in exchange for bombing children.
He remembered that child with the perpetually stuffed nose who once stood before his mother with the unshakeable certainty of a child and announced: "I'm going to be a pilot, Mama — and I'll drop garbage on our house from the top of the sky!" In that small mind, garbage wasn't refuse. It was a weapon. The weapon of a troublemaker who wanted to rule the height he dreamed of owning.
But that rosy image of a peaceful home shattered on the day of the Great Incident. That day, his mother's ferocity revealed itself in its finest and most terrifying form — a storm of rage that spared nothing. It was then that Sami discovered the calm that usually enveloped her was nothing but a lid over a dormant volcano.
That day, his father received his share of the fury, and the two of them found themselves "banished" to the house's courtyard — sharing the open air to escape her sharp tongue and iron grip. Sami remembered lying beside his father under the stars in a scene not without its black comedy: the father who would constantly sing the praises of pure love and unswerving devotion to his wife — swearing he saw no other woman in existence — spent that night writhing and complaining bitterly about the armies of mosquitoes that had invaded his body as territory.
Sami understood, wiping away the last of the shaving foam, that his father's "loyalty" was not merely an emotion — it was a kind of beautiful surrender to that powerful woman. They had slept together in the courtyard not out of love for the open air, but because the mother's force was more punishing than any mosquito bite.
I decided long ago that marriage was a project requiring extensive feasibility studies, best postponed until thirty — the age of wisdom according to the elders, or the age of endurance according to my father's courtyard experience.
—
The Philosophical Trial in the Courtyard
I imagined myself sitting in that historic courtyard. Beside me: Plato in his white robe, Aristotle with his manuscripts, and my father between them in his simple clothes, swatting mosquitoes.
Plato, in a lofty tone:
"O Kamil — your patience in being banished to the courtyard is the embodiment of 'inner justice.' You rise above earthly anger to contemplate the world of Forms, where there are no angry wives and no cursed mosquitoes."
Kamil, slapping his forehead to kill a mosquito:
"Master Plato-o — what Forms? What ascension? I'm here because the Madam decided the house is an independent republic today with no room for the opposition. In your world of Forms, is there a broom that flies after you if you don't wash the dishes?"
Aristotle, taking careful notes:
"Then the matter concerns 'substance and form.' The mother's substance is absolute power; the father's form in the courtyard is the natural consequence of logical premises. Action and reaction. You, sir, are living the state of 'wise surrender.'"
Kamil, turning to Aristotle:
"Listen, Aristo — you say you're a student of reason and observation. Observe this: if I try to enter the house right now, I will transform from 'living creature' to 'past tense.' True wisdom is not in books. It is in knowing when to retreat and sleep with the mosquitoes to guarantee your survival until morning."
Plato: "You are a great man, Kamil. You have reached the rank of Philosopher King!"
Kamil, laughing bitterly:
"I have reached the rank of Evicted Citizen. But I have remained loyal to her — because if I had ever looked at another woman, I would have needed an army of philosophers to protect me from the cavalry charge she would launch in the morning."
—
Back to reality: the clarity of thirty.
I smiled, shaking the cape off the customer. I understood now why they said thirty was the age of insight — it was the age when a man realized that heroism was not found on battlefields, but in the capacity to absorb a domestic storm with the cool nerves of a Greek philosopher.
My father had possessed the greatness of a commander who knew when to vacate the field to save his army — which was himself. I had decided to postpone that particular brand of leadership until thirty, in the hope that by then I would have grown skin thick enough to withstand the bites of mosquitoes... and words.
"Enjoy it, brother," I said, untying the cape from the last customer.
"Thank you, Sami — as always. May your hands live."
—
The last customer left. I cleaned the salon and sterilized the tools, then began closing up. But a strange weight had been pressing on my breathing all day.
On the walk home, my body was here while my mind wandered the old alleyways of memory. I asked myself with mild irritation: "Why do I keep remembering these things now?"
Then the thought struck me like a thunderbolt: "The curse — Maytham!" How had I forgotten something this urgent? We had agreed to run as fast as possible — what had kept that Dog until evening? I reached for my phone to pour my frustration onto Maytham, but my hand came back empty. "Tsk... left it at the salon."
I was forced to turn back, unlocked the doors with a mix of irritation and boredom, and found the phone sitting quietly on the leather sofa. How I hated this — the scattering, the having-to-go-back for trivial things. I locked the salon again, and on the walk home I stopped: "What did I want to do with the phone just now?" I couldn't remember Maytham. Couldn't remember the escape. Couldn't remember the frustration. All that crossed my mind was: "Maybe I wanted to watch some funny clips."
I went home. Ate whatever the fridge offered with mechanical indifference, then went up to my room. I glanced at the news — the ongoing wars between Iran and half the planet — before sinking into heavy sleep.
—
I woke up. But not in my room.
I found myself in the hall of a towering temple, its massive columns stretching upward until they disappeared into a ceiling of permanent darkness. In this funereal silence, a sound erupted:
CLOP... CLOP... CLOP... CLOP
Iron hooves on flint, splitting the silence like a blacksmith's hammer against the anvil of eternity. And from the temple's darkness emerged terrifying eyes and sharp, pointed horns — a single movement of which would be enough to tear me apart. Before me stood a Cow, her body six times larger than mine. The difference between us roughly the difference between a cat and a mouse.
I looked at her. With my signature tone of sarcasm that holds no fear of death, I said: "My apologies — O Mother of Milk. What is the honor that brings us together again?" I remembered then our old dream — falling together from the top of the sky.
She lowered her horns toward my face in a clear attempt at intimidation, and her voice shook the columns: "Again? Have we met before?"
I answered with cool composure — or tried to look like I had: "Yes — did we not fall from the sky together last time?"
She erupted in fury, striking her metal hoof against the ground: "What nonsense are you chewing? How could I be bound to a man? What has that wretch done? Did I not instruct him to finalize the contract with a girl?"
I muttered with weariness: "What are you talking about? It seems communication with cows is genuinely impossible. Same as last time."
She snarled with false dignity: "Silence! Who are you calling a cow? This is merely a form I wear to frighten fools like you."
I laughed with cutting sarcasm: "Yes, very terrifying! But I've never heard of cows that wear metal hooves. Did you make them yourself, or did a brain-damaged shepherd help?" I was provoking deliberately. Just an absurd conversation with a friendly cow.
And then the sarcasm evaporated. The hell arrived.
"Listen, dog! I am not a cow. That was a foolish idea I used to frighten a disturbed person like you. I don't know how I ended up bound to a man — but there is no point arguing with you!"
Smoke erupted from her body. She expanded into an enormous woman of nebular matter, her head grazing the stars, her hair flowing like the Milky Way. And with all the rage of the cosmos, she brought her colossal hand down upon me — and my body shattered into a thousand pieces.
"AAAGHH!"
I woke with pain gnawing through my body as if I had actually been struck. "The curse — what was that dream?" I felt a strange tickle in my nose. When I wiped it, my fingers came away stained with bright red blood, flowing freely.
—
— End of Chapter Three —