Of Mehsana's Lonely Days

(I)

Mehsana was lonely. Let that not tell you for a passing moment that she was alone. In the busy desert town of Mir-al-Harab it was rather difficult to be alone, especially if you were as desired and popular as Mehsana. Sometimes, she had to wish with all she had to be left alone for it to actually happen.

But it was different now. They were all around her – her admirers, her well-wishers, her keepers and her brethren. But there was one face missing in the throng that made all the others unrecognisable. Rukhsar had left for the Ber Jakar oasis a few days ago to settle a dispute between life and death. And Mehsana hadn’t stopped feeling lonely ever since.

(II)

It was deceivingly easy to lose track of time in the desert if you weren’t paying attention. Yes, the sun was always visible and if you had kept your bearings since it rose in the east, it was unlikely that you wouldn’t know what time it was. But in an endless expanse of yellow that showed no signs of relenting in any direction, staying on track wasn’t child’s play, or an adult’s for that matter. It almost took all of Rukhsar’s concentration just to not get lost. He’d been riding for a couple of days, yet Ber Jakar was still at least a few sunsets away.

There were times his mind drifted. Or perhaps it was the other way round – his thoughts spread thin sometimes gathered around the one source of warmth within himself: Mehsana. He pictured her smile and it brightened and warmed some of the darkest, coldest nights. The image of her long black curls and the knowledge of her, peaceful and in joy, brought Rukhsar the companionship of contentment in the vast emptiness.

He’d passed a couple of smaller towns on the way. They weren’t as busy or as glorious as Mir-al-Harab, but each gave him an opportunity to make sure that his Mehsana was in good company, was loved. From Bet Suada, he sent Naim with flowers; from Parkesh, Jellal promised to carry the gilded goblets to her, the ones she’d always wanted; he’d even sent Nargis with a few Zerq embroidered kaftans from Zerqan although he wasn’t entirely sure if she’d like the bright colours. There was no way they could reach him after he’d left their towns, so he just hoped that she’d received his unmarked tokens in good shape. Perhaps B’sha would see the favour of the gods.

(III)

Rukhsar was no good, thought Mehsana. While the likes of Naim, Jellal and Nargis had seen her predicament written on her face and brought her presents to brighten her days, all Rukhsar had managed to do was send his bird B’sha with a few half-hearted words. What good were words that didn’t bring him right back to her? Speaking of words, when the three of them came to her, Naim, Jellal and Nargis seemed to be saying something in a language that didn’t make much sense to her. Perhaps they were delirious.

She looked at the empty seat beside her for a long moment. It was better to put it to good use while Rukhsar was away. As she put up her feet on the cushion and gazed out of the window at the dunes in the horizon, she wondered what a wonderful place the oasis of Ber Jakar must be, how different from the routine of everyday life. Almost none of the hundreds in the room at that very moment saw the hint of jealousy that crossed Mehsana’s heart.

(IV)

As Ber Jakar rose in the distance, Rukhsar realised that the sun was almost over his head. If he wasn’t already keeping track of time, he could swear that it was just over the horizon moments ago. Time does distort when your perspective is near-infinite. Thankfully, apart from the sun, he also had B’sha to keep track of time with his periodic runs to the nearest town for supplies. Sadly, that meant his letters to Mehsana were few and far between.

The oasis of Ber Jakar wasn’t the largest or most popular by far. In fact, few travellers needed to avail its shelter, thanks to its remote location away from the more popular trade routes in the desert country of K’Naad. A shallow pond that always had water was surrounded by a grove of palm trees and shrubberies that was thick enough to shield one from the sun’s glare but not enough to engulf the place in darkness. Many a traveller had found their way to this safe haven in their misguided wanderings, and some sought the seclusion it offered quite deliberately.

But today wasn’t about extracting a lost traveller or guiding someone looking for a place to lay low for a few days. Rukhsar had been summoned by the three sisters of Kismet themselves. Death and Life were having a dispute, one that had split Ber Jakar right down the middle. And as the hereditary guardian of the oasis, Rukhsar had been called upon to resolve it.

(V)

It must be a beautiful place. Otherwise, why would Rukhsar forget her like this? He must be having the time of his life, thought Mehsana, wandering out onto the terrace of her house with the trail of her gossamer dress caressing the marble that she’d walked on. She looked at the handful of messages he’d sent her, rolled up in the tiny scrolls that they’d come in. A couple of times that she’d replied, she couldn’t help being terse and cold – after all, hadn’t he left her with her dull and routine life and gone off to relish the bounty of an exotic oasis?

The very same anger that had gradually filled her heart seemed to now manifest in the tinder she’d set alight and brought close to the messages. The measly scrolls didn’t stand a chance – they twisted and turned as if trying to put out the flame now consuming them, blackening them, reducing them to ashes beyond recognition, but sadly, while the sword might be weak for the quill, mere papyrus would always be annihilated in flames.

(VI)

Ber Jakar was truly divided. To anyone entering from the east, it would be clear as the summer sky that Life and Death had placed their own, distinct holds on the oasis. The overpowering green shrubbery and the carpet of grass looked out of place even in this life-giving sanctuary, and so did the decay and ruin in the carcasses of plant and animal life alike strewn on the other side.

Gliding across their own demarcations, Life and Death both approached Rukhsar as he stumbled into the oasis and sat down beside a neutral rock at its doors. Both had a look of concern written across their diametrically different faces, risen from diametrically different causes. Life couldn’t take its eyes away from the wounds, the burns across his body, the parched skin and the faded eyes, reaching out to heal an existence that had clearly borne the brunt of the desert. Death, on the other hand, peered directly into the soul that inhabited Rukhsar’s mortal shell, looking for signs of its willingness to give up on Life and refuse its healing touches, and trying to seed an acceptance of the end.

Rukhsar held both by the hand and pushed them away. “This is not what I am here for. I seek neither the caress of life or the embrace of death,” a sound not unlike a dry quill scratching on coarse sandpaper emanated from his throat, “you’ve landed on the land that was entrusted to my ancestors for protection, and as you can see, you haven’t really done it well. What is your purpose here?”

“To seek you”, both spoke in unison.

“Me?”

“Yes. And this was the only way we could do this without disturbing the natural order of things.”

“This is what you call ‘not disturbing the natural order of things’?” Rukhsar waved around himself, indicating the mutated haven that was becoming unrecognisable by the second, “this overgrown greenery in the middle of the desert, this cesspool of decay, how can this be the natural order of things?”

“Things are being born as beings and beings are dying to become things every moment of your existence and beyond,” remarked Life.

Death joined in, “There is nothing out of the ordinary here except for the fact that it is all happening here at once.”

“Then what is your purpose with me?”

At that very moment, an ethereal light descended upon the landscape, a brilliant shade of blue that was alien to the daytime as well as the night, and much of what surrounded Ber Jakar was no longer visible as if it was enveloped in a shroud that took it beyond the mortal plane.

The three sisters of Kismet stood motionless around them, garbed in muslin that was blacker than the blackest nights of K’Naad. Mehr, the youngest, had her hair cut short in adherence to her elfin stature and attire. Mehrun flourished tresses that nuzzled her waist, adorned in modest apparel. The eldest of them all, Mehrunissa, flaunted a mane and a tunic whose length defied human perception and seemed to disappear over the horizon of reality. And all three were looking directly at Rukhsar, with a gaze that was somewhere between pity and repugnance.

(VII)

A decision had been made. There was no place for Rukhsar in Mehsana’s life. Someone who could make her feel this lonely and dejected while he was off solving a measly disagreement in some exotic land deserved no place beside her, nor her love or concern. She had initially regretted not sending him off with words of encouragement, and had almost tried to fix that in a reply to one of his letters – but now she was thankful that providence on her part had prevented that, lest he let her down as he has done now.

Some had tried to convince her otherwise. A couple (or was it a trio?) of weird looking women had paid her a visit and tried to explain how Rukhsar was doing their bidding, something that no person can avoid. That must be a ball of hogwash since Rukhsar could only ever do her bidding – he’d said so himself! So either he was lying, or it was these women who were fighting for his case (which, to be honest, was suspicious, to begin with). Either way, she saw no reason why she shouldn’t distance herself from him. Despite the thousands of miles that already existed between them.

(VIII)

“It is not their purpose, but our, that you’ve been summoned here for”, chimed all three sisters, in a monotone that was eerie and disconcerting.

“But isn’t this a matter of life or death for the oasis of my forefathers?”

“It is. And that is something that is beyond your influence. You can merely stand witness to whatever unfolds in its fate,” spoke Mehr, twirling the few strands in her hair that were long with her fingers, “What you can, or could have influenced, is your own fate – which is what we are here for.”

“You’ve been unfair to Mehsana”, proclaimed Mehrun, her each word delivering a physical blow to the already kneeling Rukhsar, “Promising her constant companionship, you’ve abandoned her for the longest of times and to the loneliest of days. You’ve broken your promises to the one person you never wanted to let down.”

“But this... These were your summons!... A summons that my forefathers and their forefathers before them have sworn to answer for time immemorial!”, a baffled and battered Rukhsar tried to stand on his two feet, but failed and fell back down right where he was, “A summon which, if left unanswered, would plunge this oasis into the chaos of a duel between life and death. How was I supposed to ignore that?”

“That, my dear Rukhsar, would have to be entirely up to you”, Mehr mumbled, busy admiring Mehrun’s shapely constitution compared to her more frugal form.

“But...,” Rukhsar turned towards Mehr, “But what of the tokens I’d sent her? From all those towns that I crossed on the way?”

“You should’ve signed them in big bold letters while you were at it, you fool,” Mehr barked, offended at being interrupted in her admiration, “Neither those towns exist where they were anymore, nor are your messengers who they were anymore. Nothing exists of those tokens other than their materialistic representations. Which might as well be nothing but a bunch of empty seashells for all that matters. You couldn’t -”

“ENOUGH!”

As Mehrunissa spoke for the first time in ages, it was as if their reality itself grew darker.

“I haven’t aged a thousand years in one lifetime to bear witness to your petty squabbles,” she spoke in a voice that was unlike any other. “ What has done has been done. It is immaterial to determine who was let down by whom, as there is no path to walk back on from this unmarked oasis in the middle of nowhere. Such is your fate, O keeper of Ber Jakar.”

“And this very fate was decided the moment you decided to walk out of Mir-al-Harab to save the oasis of your forefathers,” Mehrun stepped closer to Rukhsar, waving her hands in front of her as if clearing an invisible fog, eventually gathering her garb and taking a place beside him, to his right, “The companionship that you left vacant has been filled in your absence. Your return to Mir-al-Harab, and to Mehsana, is no longer required.”

“If it is of any consolation, you should know that you arrived in Ber Jakar just in time. Any longer and these two would have plunged it into an eternal void of nothingness,” Mehr rolled her eyes as she nodded at Life and Death standing behind Rukhsar, as she too sat down beside Rukhsar, to his left, “you’ve managed to save the oasis, O Keeper. Now only one thing remains.”

“And that is your consent”, said Mehrunissa, as she glided towards Rukhsar, the entire fabric of their reality twisting and warping all around them, to settle down in front of him, “All that is left, is for you to declare whether you chose life, “ she waved at the white, ethereal robed figure standing behind him to the right, hovering over the ground, “and continue to exist in K’Naad without Ber Jakar, Mir-al-Harab or Mehsana. Or whether you chose death,” she waved at the black, hooded, slouching figure, seemingly immersed partially in the ground, behind him to the left, “and resign your hold and influence on this material plane – and with it, any right you ever had over Mehsana. You’ve merited this one decision in your existence.”

Rukhsar looked all around him – at the three sisters of Kismet who had proclaimed his fate, the figures of life and death looming behind him yet constantly visible out of the corner of his eyes and the ever-so chaotic oasis of Ber Jakar. There was something else here, something that he was trying to focus on, something that none of them could see.

There was a child sitting on his lap, dressed in vibrant pink, smiling a mirthless smile and holding his gaze without blinking even once. He looked back at the others, and none of them could see the child, he was absolutely sure of that. And the other thing that he was sure of, was that he had to choose the child. Letting go of the hands of fate, life and death, he picked up the child and kissed its forehead. A single tear of acceptance rolled down his weary cheeks before it gradually disappeared into the void.