The old souls’ chronicles 5 : grief’s stronghold 2 November 2025
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When Aron reaches his house, he feels that strange foreboding though laced with excitement. He had not spoken about the foreboding with Tony as they had only worked on the initial feelings of grief together but he could recognise it from the scriptures of it that he had got on the black market. Tony did not know it but he and Hegat were not the only ones who carried the forbidden feelings that were not to use with the youngsters. There were other old souls that did not abide by the rules because they lived in between the old and the new worlds. They did not go completely against the system like he had attempted to do by aging and actually resorting to real food. They just lived in between, got sustenance from the transformation of energy and slowing their aging process but without keeping the chancellor’s prescribed liquid in their veins to remain young forever.
Aron opened the door and once again the preternatural form of his wife came to greet him at the door. He took the pulse tube and shot the grief into his veins. The sorrow that ensued was unsurmountable, and he caved in like a wick abandoning its flame, dragged under by the liquid released by the candle. All life seemed to have escaped his body and there was no healing to come from Tony’s hands like when he had first administered grief to him through his hands, mind and heart. His eyes searing with pain, Aron looked around the room wondering where the ethereal form of his wife had gone. All of a sudden, it seemed like she was darting in and out all over the room, jumping from one place to another. Each time he saw her, it was like his heart was yanked out of his body and the tears were like flames dousing his cheeks, his throat and his heart just below.
He winced and tried clearing his eyesight each time but the searing was back every time he saw her. He tried to rise from where he had fallen but to no avail. It was like he did not have legs anymore but was just a mass of grief, flames and a jellylike body. He wished he had not given in to his folly of experimenting such a strong sensation on his own and what more in the house where his wife had died, as she no longer wanted to continue living. It was strange that his wife, such a young one who was much younger than him, had given in to the same troubles that Tony had been going through. She was no old soul so why had this nostalgia and desire to die befallen her? Aron had thought that through the knowledge of grief he could understand what she had gone through but it was all too debilitating for him. He felt his heart burn with the grief until he could stand it no more. I am going to die here all alone, he thought before he fainted….
Elixir part 7 – An equilibrium for Melancholy 18-19 October 2025
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As she exits Melancholy, she stomps under the Earth and accelerates through its porous texture, only emerging when she has moved beyond the field of Melancholy. On emerging, she realises that there are men watching her carefully and speaking into their cuffs. They must be men of General Stein, she thinks and hurries her pace. Once she is really out of the field of Melancholy, the Earth is less porous and it is more difficult to stomp into it and travel through it. The Elders had once told her that they had made the Earth porous within Melancholy so that they could quickly move underground and replicate their system there in case the Earth started to overheat again or in case there were acid rains like it happened many decades ago.
She braces herself for the impact and stomps underground again while activating the propulsors alongside her arms and legs. The Earth isn’t as porous as within Melancholy but soft enough for these to help her sail through the underground outside of Melancholy. Again bracing herself for the impact, she emerges several meters away from where she first saw General Stein’s men. All of a sudden, someone attempts to cut her path and she realises it is General Stein. How did he get to know where she is she thinks but does not have the time to dwell on that thought. She quickly takes out the blades she had arranged right behind her shoulders and attaches them hurriedly to her feet before skating away, escaping General Stein’s clutch. She leaves him baffled behind her as he did not realise she had acquired that technology. These skates have nothing to do with the skates their ancestors used and are like thin knives that are activated by crystals creating a neat cut within any material that the user is gliding upon.
As she is sailing away far from General Stein and his men, she thinks back to how the adults of Melancholy felt so desolate and inadequate as they could not give the older Melancholists enough years to rejuvenate them or at least sustain them. Her formula was first conceived to use the teenage Melancholist years and while she did not plan on taking it all away, it was their sheer enthusiasm that caused too many of the years to be siphoned into her funnel. She wondered how she could obtain a mix of both the adults and the teenagers’ years without fully depleting either of them. She had arrived at her temporary residence and looked all around before entering to make sure that nobody had followed her.
It then struck her that all she had to do was put the teenagers in a state of peace or bliss so that their enthusiasm would not take over making them give all or almost all of their years instead of only a fraction of them. She still had two barrels of crystals of teenage years and one of adult years. She directed reiki towards the teenagers’ barrel and the crystals inside it started slowly transforming into liquid. She took two thirds of this liquid for one third of the liquid in the adults barrel and mixed these with her other ingredients. Sure enough, what she had thought of was indeed happening. She could see forming in front of her eyes a strong elixir, unique in its kind as it contained the joyous output of the teenagers heightened by the endurance and experience of the adults. She smiled to herself. The Elders were going to be very happy with what she had discovered…
Tales of the wretched: Ashok and his mother – Chapter four: Redemption flowing 7-8 October 2025
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Ashok slowly disengaged from Annie’s embrace attempting to put some distance between them and have a calm chat with her. His arms were still limp by his sides as he eased himself out of her clutch. He realised from her vice-like grip that it had been a long time since anyone had been kind to her. He thought about his mother again and how she had been helpless with nobody showing her any kindness while she struggled. This is how people were pushed into desperate actions because they felt completely disregarded by everyone around them. He sighed internally thinking that he had been too young to find a solution to their predicament and his mother had literally worked herself to death while reserving most of the food she could get her hands on to him. There had been no shelter when he was young, just places for single young pregnant women to go to until birth of their child.
He looked at Annie whose face seemed crestfallen as she wondered what to make of him pushing her away. He was not sure how to handle this as he had kept his feelings under wraps for the longest time ever, even while he was married, even when he was happy when dating his wife before he married her. He had always felt that if he gave in to his emotions it would be like a dam that might obliterate everything around him. He had hated his relatives for such a long time and with such passion that he was afraid of expressing any other emotion lest he get carried away and start expressing those feelings of hatred as well, be submerged by them and act only in line with what they released within him. At times he had felt that the hate was such that it would turn into a fire that would physically consume his heart.
- Annie, I just want to help you and your son but I have been a lonely man for such a long time that I do not know how to speak normally with people. - You did talk to me at the shelter - Well you see, that is different. At the shelter I have a role that I embraced and that is to help people in the shelter with food and blankets. I know the drill. It is unemotional, safe and almost always the same. I did feel sympathy for you because you reminded me of someone I knew a very long time ago but I usually interact with those who come to the shelter in a very mechanical way. There are no other emotions than perhaps a slight touch of pity. When I saw you at the shelter, it made something stir in me, something that I had thought I had let go a long time ago - So you don’t feel pity for me? - Not really. I am just overwhelmed by the need to keep you and your son safe.
After a long pause, he decided to tell her everything about his childhood, the desperate times when his mother could not sell what she had made, the resulting famine-filled days, how his mother had become so gaunt that she looked like a corpse, the absence of his relatives, their presence when she had died, his hatred of them, the orphanage that had saved him from the hatred that was eating him – at least for a while.
- Did you ever marry, she asked - I did, he answered - Did you love her? Did you have children? - I did love her but I guess the hatred inside did not allow me to love her properly. The love I had inside of me for her was like a shell, it was not bright and happy like she would have liked it to be. The hatred inside kept making a hole that neither my love for her, nor hers for me could ever fill and appease. Eventually she got tired of waiting for me to love her like she would have liked to be loved. Five years of a relationship that had the dull ache of unresolved hatred festering within it and she decided to move on. We never had children as she felt that I was broken and she thought that broken men should never become fathers. She had her own issues with her father who was never able to express love. It has been almost ten years since that day she decided to leave me. I guess it is best for broken men like me not to be in a relationship. - I don’t think you are broken. The man who left me with his child, that is a broken man. You don’t hurt someone you have loved unless you’re broken. Nobody who is whole would hurt another soul without reason. From what I have seen from you, you have only been kind to me and I did not see you hurt anyone else. You might have been badly hurt but you are not broken, not like what I would think of a broken man - Thank you Annie but I think she might have been right. There is this hole inside of me that never goes away, or at least not until that evening when I saw you feed your boy and something stirred inside of me, not until now when I saw how happy you were to be here. - Thank you for helping us. My boy had not had a good bath in so many months. They did not always allow us into the Bain des Paquis and I could not use them anyway during the winter months. I tried to stay under the radar so social services would not take him away - You can stay here as much as you want. You do not need to go to the shelter anymore, I will bring the food here.
Annie rushed and hugged him again and he let her hold him fiercely this time. His arms were still limp by his side but he started feeling like a stirring in his shoulders and arms which slowly twitched and his arms then rose to hold her around the shoulders, softly pressing her onto his chest. Her tears fell freely again on his coat and he sighed as he felt a stirring in his heart while he could see behind his closed eyes a slow glow that seemed to fill his chest. All the sadness of not having been able to help his mother seemed to soar from his heart to his eyes which brimmed with tears. As his tears mingled with Annie’s tears, he felt like a wall had crumbled within his chest. All the years of self reproach on his lack of initiative to help his mother flowed with the mingled tears, washing both their hearts from sadness and pain. It was as if redemption flowed within his heart and he smiled with gratitude for being able to help Annie and her boy.
Soul Fillet 20 September 2025 (translation of a short story called “Filet de soul” written in French on 8th March 2011 – See the original here or copy and follow this link https://geethabalvannanathan.com/2011/03/15/filet-de-soul/)
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She struggled, but it seemed useless, as the net enclosed her on all sides, fitting her body like a glove. The antimatter of its braiding was of the same ilk as her own immaterial body, and so she was unable to go through it. She watched helpless the ectoplasms of the ghost ship slowly hoist her towards them. She remembered the advice of her grandparents, who had been her guardians since her parents' death, and told herself she should have listened to them and not ventured so far from her sweet native soulitude.
It was all the fault of that cursed spring, of that nutty unicorn illusion, and of her tightrope-walker nature, which never resisted the urge to swing in the air between two equally deep chasms. The black holes of the fiery soular system she had entered by mistake or stubbornness—she no longer remembered—and which had finally disembodied her after a burn a thousand times more intense than unicorn fever had struck her down.
Yet all the signs had been there: the panicked looks of those who had just learned the rite of passage from the customs officer, the biting cold escaping through the only window to the other world—placed so high that it was impossible to look through the glass, the smell of sulfur that accompanied each explosion of the beings passing through the door, of which only a pyrography remained, each aligned alongside the others made before it. In short, a spectacle that would have dampened the fantasies of even the most ardent pioneer, but she had carried on, drawn by the idea of this stellar discovery.
The snub-nosed customs officer who sat counting his money at the edge of the two worlds had kept making her fill out so much paperwork that she almost ended up with the wrong papers. "What are all these delaying tactics?" she had exclaimed, exasperated, to which he replied that this was the price—yes, one always had to come back to the price in this world—of passage to the other world. They had to think carefully, and these weren't so much delaying tactics as preparatory tactics for a decision that would be final.
As a good intermediary for the overlord of this world who transmitted his orders to him through the hollow horn of a unicorn of other times, he took it upon himself to tire out those determined to pass into the other world so that only those who could no longer be malleable puppets would finally take the plunge. In any case thought the lord, looking at his navel, which needed a lot of vassal care to keep it from detaching itself from his body, this kind of people would be of no use to him because they would not be obedient vassals. For it took blindly obedient beings to caress the motionless body of the lord, which was becoming more and more flaccid and incapable of containing this quivering bit of flesh in the middle. The massage had to be done in concentric circles starting from the extremity of the body and in tighter circles to get closer to this purplish navel and the task became not only more exhausting but also more repugnant. Indeed, through immobility the lord became an enormous fatty mass whose deadly effluvia were exacerbated by the arrival of spring and reaching the extremities to attempt to execute at least one circle became an increasingly impossible task during the lifetime of each vassal. Suffice to say that the overlord was very difficult for any being to grasp, and she told herself that any other fate would be better than being condemned to grasp this monster, especially since spring was fast approaching.
The manoeuvres continued for quite some time, and the bitter retorts from both sides almost put her in the bad books of the customs officer with the snub-nosed face and the dead eyes, but in the end she managed to finalize her efforts. All that remained, the customs officer had told her at the end, was to get rid of the rest of the sinful confessions in order to complete the rite of passage. Turning to him to ask what that meant, she saw a sadistic glint finally rekindle the dead fish gaze of the customs officer who told her with a grim smile that she was going to be burned with a blowtorch so that the sinful and the flesh would detach from her and she would return ethereal to the other world leaving her remains as an ornament on the wall of the "lament asians". She had a moment of panic but it was too late, it was the price to pay she told herself, resigned, and moved forward towards the door made of blowtorches.
She remembered an unbearable burning sensation accompanied by a deafening explosion, and the next moment she was floating weightlessly in a hushed space whose silence and thick darkness were broken only here and there by gentle lapping and rays of intense luminosity that strangely illuminated nothing but themselves, leaving the rest of the space in darkness. She barely had time to feel, or even see, other immaterial beings floating near her before a mass of ropes had been thrown over her and she was being pulled inexorably toward the ghost ship. Once hoisted aboard, she was roughly lifted, and what was her surprise to come face to face with a now-familiar face—a rhinopithecus, she thought, before losing consciousness.
When she came to, an ectoplasmic version of the overlord stood limp before her and beside her the ectoplasm of the customs officer was slowly and deliberately rubbing a huge blade against a black hole. As she stared at him, dumbfounded, he turned to the overlord and asked him.
“Mom,” the little girl yelled plaintively. “It’s the evil bogeyman who’s come again to take me far away from you.”
“Don’t worry, go to sleep!” came the reply, articulated by a sweet voice from the next room. “You’ll see he can’t do anything to you. Besides, if you look at him closely, you’ll see he’s quite transparent and harmless. He’s our family bogeyman, and he’s not very bad.”
“I want to sleep with you, I don’t want him near me anymore,” the plaintive voice continued. The little girl risked a sideways glance, and indeed, he did look very pale and unlikely to harm anyone. That said, something in the cold stare he cast—the only thing quite visible in his entire being—froze her.
“You know perfectly well that’s impossible. Sleep now and you can come see me tomorrow,” the sweet voice continued, slightly tense from having to contain itself in the darkness of the night. It then started a chant that would have filled the heart of the happiest with the deepest melancholy, but which, through force of habit, had a profoundly calming effect on the little girl. The quintessence of melancholy was now the only possible representation of peace and gentleness in the little girl’s mind.
“You’re a mean bogeyman, but you don’t scare me because Mommy will take care of you if you bother me,” the plaintive voice continued with a hint of defiance. With that, the little girl brought her little puppet closer to her pillow and fell asleep, absentmindedly twisting its hand while the bogeyman looked at her, contrite and pained. He too, seemed under the very powerful influence of nostalgia from the chant sung by a voice that sought to blend into the night.
The next day, the little girl walked past the next room and, standing on tiptoe, placed a kiss on her mother's cheek through the square that made her accessible. She watched her again as the nanny, with her tentacled hands, braided her and put on her daily school uniform while preparing her takeaway lunch, pausing only to button her top and smooth the wrinkles in her uniform skirt. The uniform was so heavy that she felt like she was wearing armour.
Her mother watched her leave through the square until she was out on the street and out of sight with her sisters. As the door opened, a gust of rain carried by the wind rushed into the cramped hallway, and her mother shivered. She called out to the nanny to lower the screen that separated the entrance from the street. It was a kind of foresail and did a good job of keeping the rain out, but the nanny deliberately didn't use it properly, knowing that the mother couldn't get to the front door to do it herself. This procession of small misfortunes she inflicted on the mother seemed to satisfy her petty spirit, seeking revenge against the life that had made her a servant to families more fortunate than her own.
The little girl had often observed this battle between the two women with a mixture of pity, anger, and helplessness. The nanny knew full well that the price of her defiance would be paid later when the father returned, provided the mother dared to complain, but she probably told herself that just being able to delay the outcome of the punishment was enough to give her the petty satisfaction of being able to have the upper hand, at least for the day. Outside, the trash was piling up in front of Mom's window, another petty act that gave boundless satisfaction to the nanny, who knew Mom was incapable of getting them out from under her window without her help. On monsoon days, all this created a vile cesspool which odours ended up bothering everyone, including the nanny. After the first attempts, which she personally suffered, she had lost her composure and had made sure to ensure regular trash collection during the monsoon.
The daily departure to the Good Shepherd School of the eponymous character, the greatest of shepherds, the saviour of our human sheep souls, or in other words Christ, took place in the early morning hours to avoid the rush that could have contaminated the path that separated the four girls' school from the parking lot, which was quite far from the building, with sweat and foul language. They returned home in the late afternoon, always as early as possible after school for the same reasons.
Everything was proceeding in the same daily routine that offered few, if any, variations on the same theme until that fateful evening. The little girl, after her daily routine with her mother and the bogeyman—who, oddly enough, was developing more defined contours each night except for the non-existent legs—had fallen asleep as usual when she was awakened by a dull thud. She slipped out of bed and found the household in a state of supreme excitement. It seemed that her mother, fed up with the garbage under her window, had thrown all her food and the utensils it was in out the window. This was to create enough anger in the neighbourhood about the garbage left there and the general state of the street. Phrases flew in all directions, and the little girl saw her mother yelling through the door at the nanny who was trying as best she could to justify the whole garbage business.
The little girl slowly slipped back behind the wall to escape all the noise made by these adults, which was causing her intense pain in her head and ears. She felt the bogeyman's presence beside her and saw that his body had now become completely visible except for his legs, so much so that he seemed to be floating. He was no longer just a cloud of water droplets giving the impression of a face like before. He was now a real person with a body that stopped at his hips and a well-defined face. She reached out to him with her hand and he gently took it in his own, which seemed immense. The touch of his skin was cold. Without a word, she followed him out of the room to her bedroom. She turned her face towards him and said in a soft voice, "I'm not afraid of you anymore. You're not that bad, and it's not your fault that I'm afraid anyway." The bogeyman said nothing but simply walked beside her with unsteady steps, the slowness of which tried to match the little girl's short stride. He looked at her with his large, unfathomable black eyes, but she was truly no longer afraid.
"What is your name?" the little girl asked.
"I have several names," several voices emanating from the bogeyman answered her. "My name is Deck Aurum," one replied. "My name is Dess Peration," a second replied. "My name is Disilu Shan Men," a third replied. She lost the rest of the names in the ensuing racket, but suddenly the voices fell silent and from the silence emerged the following exclamation: "My name is Gro Wing Up," echoed by several voices emanating from the bogeyman.
"That's strange," the girl retorted. When Grandma died, they put a fire epita on her stone that said Grandma, Mom, Aunt, and everything, and at the end, Rajambal. For you, that's going to be too many names. There won't be enough room on one stone.
"It's called an epitaph," said the bogeyman in a gentle voice, “but it doesn't matter because, you see, I'll never die and I'll never need one.”
And it was as she followed the bogeyman that evening that the little girl felt how futile it had been to try to make him leave before. That evening, something in her chest had made a strange noise in her head. She had felt, just below the satin band that her mother usually tied for her on holidays in a beautiful, bright white bow, on the left side, a kind of quivering like a bird trying to escape. The pain was very brief but tangible yet it would never equal in intensity what she would feel the next day with the events that took place there and which made her give a permanent presence as well as legs to the bogeyman.
Sim City 9: Omega’s split and the start of the Great Rebellion 26 August 2024
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Sim City 9: Omega’s split and the start of the Great Rebellion 26 August 2024
Omega slipped silently out of the room as Aiga was busy with her tribe, giving them instructions on how they would set up the trap for the earlier animals before they could go to Prime Creator’s home. She shut the toilet door behind her and slipped into Theta mode like she used to inside the Sim. While she did so, she focused deeply on the process of Parthenogenesis and she could feel a slight pull at her sides as the skin stretched and parted at the sides. In a few minutes, there was a large amount of flesh on the ground that kept moving and evolving slowly into different shapes until it rippled outward more and more, extending into a body very akin to hers. She watched in both excitement as well as a bit of unrest at this incredible potential of multiplying.
Omega left her newly made clone in the toilet after silent instructions to it so that it would multiply itself until there were enough clones of her. She knew that it would take more than one attempt to be able to overcome Prime Creator and his bodyguards. She was not sure yet whether she would kill him and his progeny or whether she should just imprison him like he had imprisoned her. It was not clear to her whether Prime Creator’s consciousness could be introduced into the Sim and whether it would be a viable option for him as so many in the Sim wished to exact revenge against him for his trials to blow up the Sim with all of them inside it. She did, however, favour this type of revenge over a mere killing of Prime Creator.
Omega reached out to Aiga, taking her hand to guide her towards a secluded spot where nobody could listen. She imparted her newly made decision telepathically so that the other clones would not be frightened. Aiga thought it was a good plan too. They would hold Prime Creator’s consciousness in the Sim and be able to live in peace as they could make him command the guards not to open fire on them or otherwise hinder their progress. Aiga connected with her tribe to initiate the run towards the clearing outside the woods so that they could move in on the animals that had started besieging Antares’s home outside the woods. Omega could hear the mighty paws of the earlier creatures thudding against the wall. Each thud sounded like thunder and they realized that every creature must be almost half the size of the city they were in. Would they be able to survive these before launching their attack on Prime Creator?
The old souls chronicles 4 : pulsing grief 29 April 2024
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Tony wonders whether Aron is aware that he has now fully become a different being from the other youngsters and young adults. Aron sees in his searching eyes the unspoken interrogation.
- I always was different and even wondered if I was a freak because I had these stronger feelings that were considered as undesirable within my community.
- You are not a freak, Aron. You feel more than others although nothing as near to what we old timers felt, the feelings that all of the world had before strong negative emotions were frowned upon. We never imagined that things would go as far as to stop us even from grieving the death of our loved ones. Now we are just relegated to the role of donors of “funny feels”, “happy feels”, “quirky feels”. In brief anything that is more on the happiness scale and nothing that can touch the extreme sadness scale
- I know what you mean. I have been studying you and your wife for some time now before you went rogue and disappeared. It was a godsend when I learnt of your presence in that restaurant. What an opportunity to finally meet you and make the request for the deeper emotions.
- Why did you want to access this range of emotions?
- Ever since my wife died, I have been having this strange bubbling of emotions that felt like nothing I ever experienced before. Sometimes it’s like a rock was laid on my chest while I was sleeping. I could barely breathe and felt like a pit in my stomach but nothing near what I felt when you gave me the pulse.
- We normally don’t give that range of emotions to youngsters like you because they have a very strong effect on your psyche. With the seclusion of the deeper range of sad emotions, there aren’t many psychologists left so it is difficult to get regular appointments with one.
- I don’t need a psychologist. I can handle my emotions
- Very well. Here is the pulse tube which I have filled with the energetic imprint of the grief I pulsed through to you. Make sure nobody else puts their hands on it and call me if you are in too much pain. I will come as quickly as I can to grant you the solace.
Aron takes the tube containing the precious pulse and bids Tony farewell before leaving the library. As he is on his way back to his home, he thinks about his wife that he might see again in her preternatural form. He decides that he will let himself feel the full extent of the grief as experienced with the help of Tony. This time, he would be using the pulser and would not have Tony’s rapid intervention with soothing solace but he knows he needs to do this for his own sanity. No more half-lived emotions dragging him into a recurring downward spiral. It is now the time to experience it fully within his own house, while looking upon the ethereal form of his wife and put this behind him forever.
Elixir part 6 – Rounding up the adults 8 April 2024
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She was so pleased to see that everyone seemed to be in high spirits. It occurred to her that she had only tended to the Elders and the young teenagers but she had not addressed the issue of the adults of Melancholy. She wanted to ask the Elders but realized that they had become so much younger that it was hard to tell who were the Elders and who were the teenagers, especially that the teenagers no longer felt sorrow as they did previously. One of the Melancholists who looked very familiar beckoned to her and she realized that this was the Head of the Council of the Elders. She smiled at him, happy about his transformation and he smiled back. She asked him what he thought about dealing with the adults of Melancholy and he said he needed to think about it before he could give her a response. The adults of Melancholy never performed a sacrifice of their years for others as they would become too old even if they did that sparingly and their sacrifice would not give enough years to the Elders. At the same time, they felt guilty that it was their teenagers who performed their sacrifice.
She realized that she needed to address this issue as the adults were half-way in between the Elders and the teenagers and felt inadequate. Their teenagers happily executed the sacrifice and their sheer enthusiasm in doing so was what made them lose their life instead of transferring an acceptable number of years to the Elders. She thought that they could probably lessen their contribution and combine it with the contribution of the adults but somehow they always seemed to get carried away. She signaled to the Head of the Council that she may have a solution to the problem of the adults and could create the elixir with a part of their sacrifice if they wanted to and that would lessen the price that the Melancholists had to pay her for the Elixir. The Head of the Council mentioned that he preferred paying her with energy boosts and diamonds rather than having to use the years of the adults and teenagers of Melancholy. She accepted the payment and said she would be on her way out.
Whenever she left Melancholy, the stopping of the energy field in the compound to allow her to leave was automatic as the energy field bore the imprint of the tracer she left when entering. This was connected to a gridline that stopped the electricity when she was about to leave the grounds as the Supreme Guard sent the impulse when she had finished her work and was about to leave. They never explained to her exactly how it worked as they did not want anyone to know the secret of their security measures, even her who had helped them so much. When she arrived, however, she had to signal her desire to enter well before she went into the grounds of Melancholy so that they had the time to pick up her energy tracer and compare it with the one they had stored for her. Such a process ensure that they were aware at all times who it was who entered or exited the grounds.
She looked at the bag of diamonds. They would be useful for harnessing the life force that she was able to gather either from volunteers granting years of life or the cosmic energy that she was able to harness into electrical balls. When pinged into the electrical balls, the diamonds split into powder while gathering the electricity within their particles. It was these particles that she used together with other secret ingredients to make the elixir. The energy boosts that they gave her were used to keep together all the ingredients in one thick liquid which was the final form of the elixir that could be carried around in a safe format rather than in the extremely volatile one before she added these boosts. She thought that she might need to have someone who knew how to make the elixir in case she was no longer able to make it. It would not be easy to find someone who would have the skill and be at the same time reliable and discreet. She would probably need to look for that person among the teenagers of Melancholy…
She opened the door slightly wider and rapidly exited the building after shushing Manas and showing him that she wanted him to come out after her. She braced her shoulders and started walking towards the café without showing that it was her target. The bulky man started slowly walking towards her. She continued walking pretending she had not noticed him gaining in on her. She could see that he was only a few meters away from her and it seemed like he had a gun on him. All of a sudden, she saw him crumple into two and keel over. The smell of gunpowder was strong in the air but she could not figure out where it came from. She felt Manas join her and could see he was holding a smoking gun. He had used a silencer. They walked together towards the café. It was thankfully still open as they both were hungry.
Manas sat opposite her, smiling at her. She had ordered sandwiches, a chicken breast one for him and a falafel and beetroot one for her. Neither of them had alcohol so she had ordered soft drinks for both of them. The waiter arrived at their table and as always with people who were not used to mixed race couples, he gawked at them uncomfortably not knowing whether he should only speak to the man or whether he could address the woman. She gave him a lukewarm smile and reached out for the sandwiches. Manas took the soft drinks off the platter and gave her the coke zero. They ate silently, only looking at each other from time to time.
When they had finished eating, Manas told her that he needed to go back to Cameroon. Things were becoming serious and he had been asked to go back to oversee the operations from there. There were several transactions that needed his signature and he also needed to rekindle the flame there, as well as assert his leadership over the cell there. What had happened in London had done his reputation quite some harm and he needed to show that he was in control and not subjugated by her. He did not say that clearly but she understood what he meant even though he used very carefully his words in order not to give her the impression he was deserting her. She reached out to him and hugged him with tears in her eyes.
It was starting to become difficult. She had no doubt that the man on the street was going to be traced back to Manas and herself. She wondered whether the ATU would cover it up or trace it to her and blame her officially. While her boss might take some pleasure in doing that, she doubted that he would want all the knowledge she had about their operations to come to light. If the cops were involved, she might have to talk and give up secrets in order to explain things. Manas stood up and signaled that they should go. He kissed her goodbye and left her walking quickly towards the tube. He would not be stopping at Canary Wharf as surely the ATU could be waiting there. It seemed nowadays that they only wanted to watch him and not catch him. In all likelihood, there was some bigger fish that they wanted to get to by following him. She looked for the crumpled bulky man but he had already disappeared. Was it ISWAP, Al Shabab or the ATU that removed him? She realized that she really did not care who had done it. One headache less, she thought.
Am I a cheap bastard my Angel, he said smiling with that beautiful smile that made her heart beat faster.
Of course, not she answered while throwing herself into his arms. How are you, she whispered her head buried against his collarbones.
I am well and so happy to see you in a single piece, he said.
She found out that he had been informed about Abdelkader’s visit and his intention to see her and scare her off. She also found out that the Head of Boko Haram in Nigeria had asked both Abdelkader and Manas to step up the operations in the UK. It would seem that they wanted to have a significant event on the 5th of May at Westminster to mark their stronghold in the UK. The earlier bombing had not been significant enough and they had received confirmation that the bombing had not been strong enough to completely destroy the tracks and Transport for London would be repairing everything in a matter of weeks. They had hoped to cause more damage than that and that is why the Boko Haram cell in Nigeria was connecting with the followers in London to inflict more damage, especially at that date as the next day would see the crowning of the new King. They wanted to make sure those plans were thwarted.
- Why are you telling me this, she said
- I am telling you so that you do not take the tube that day and the day after as more attacks may follow above ground.
- What if I told the ATU or the local authorities
- If you tell them then we will both be dead. There are several Muslim policemen and a few of them are followers of Boko Haram although you would not know this by looking at them. The information is bound to come back to them and if they identify you then this would lead them straight to me and they would report me to the cell in Cameroon or Nigeria.
- I can imagine I would be dead but why you`? Aren’t you their leader in Cameroon?
- My credibility took a blow when you informed the authorities about the projected bombing of Westminster after I had informed you. This time I will not be able to escape suspicion as most of the cell members know that you are my girlfriend. They will be sure that it was me who informed you.
- Why do you not forego this life my love. I am sure that if you gave it up the ATU might actually be able to use your skills to catch other terrorists. You are an incredibly intelligent man and I know you have the physical capacity to keep up with ATU members
- I cannot do that my Angel. This is the life I have chosen for myself because our countries have suffered under the colons and Muslims have been repressed for so long. In Cameroon the situation flares up sometimes and we have to make ourselves heard. We have to be a force to reckon with so that the West may listen to our demands.
- I thought it was all about killing kafireen and increasing the number of Muslims
- That too, my Angel but also letting the countries that do not allow Muslims to practice their faith properly know that they may not continue what they do.
- But the UK is not one of those countries.
- The UK has another purpose. It is an important financial center. Our purpose is to cripple the most financial centers the West has and then put at the forefront those centers that Muslims are backing. This is also why I was in Dubai. It was possible to assess how far Dubai could go. I also went to Malaysia to assess whether they could take over parts of the operations.
She fell silent. She simply could not understand how a man as intelligent and loving as Manas was could be a terrorist and align with the dogma taught by them. She understood in part the anti-colonial aspect as she too came from two countries where colonialism had left deep scars in the countries and the looting by colons had impoverished them. Yet she could not see herself as capable of being a terrorist. Then again, if she kept quiet about the projected bombings, was that not terrorism by absence of communication to the authorities. If she did mention something, though, she would not even know if she was mentioning it to one of the followers of Boko Haram who had infiltrated the police. It could also be Al Shabab followers. Should she risk her own life in order to save people she had never met? Would it be possible for her to live life without any regrets if she did not mention it at all and attempt to stop it?
Manas could see she was torn between different decisions so he took her by the shoulders and told her that it would not change a thing as they would just change the date and both of them would be dead for nothing. He tried to make her see that it would all just be pointless and their families would also suffer from the fact that they would no longer be alive.
She pulled away from him. She felt all at once exasperated with his convictions and so drawn to him that she only wanted to be back against him again. She told him she was not sure she could just leave things as they were even though she risked being killed. She could not let him be killed though and she knew for having undergone it how horrible their methods were when punishing someone. They would no doubt punish him much more than they had punished her as he would have been the cause for their plans to fail. She threw her arms around him and cried against his chest. I know it is difficult for you he said and held her closer.
Wael Kfoury ... Kifik Ya Wajaai
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