Masopher's Mind

Ahimsa(non violence) – Hindu

Do not destroy life – Buddhist

You shall not murder- Jewish/Protestant

You shall not kill- Catholic

And slay not the soul which God has forbidden-Muslim

The Middle East- 300 years before the Common Era – An army of Alexander of Macedonia.

We join the crows which circle a battle and then swoop down to the fray.

Blood: Sweet warm metallic nectar slick on his tongue; Masopher was covered in it, some of it his own. The first drops that spattered on him earlier that morning were dark and crusting, the heavier arterial gushes and recent splashes were still fresh and running down his powerful body and curved ebon blade.

The din of battle had turned to wails of defeat and cries of conquest. The proud little city was being over-run by the vast army that Masopher and his companions were a part of. It was not a strong city nor was it very rich or important. The generals had decided that there were too many untested blades in their ranks and wanted to give their men their first taste of battle in a non critical place and time.

The conquest of Asia Minor had rumbled on for 4 years bringing death and new recruits in equally large numbers. Commanders from Greece and Macedonia were brought in as fast as horses could ride and colleges could teach but there was no shortage of local men willing to fight for a cause and no shortage of mercenaries willing to fight for coin. Both cause and coin were sought but very often death was all that was quickly found.

Masopher’s crew had seen more death than many of these men would ever imagine possible but they joined in this battle to get a feel for how the regulars fought and how the various commanders directed the formations, but they also joined for the sheer enjoyment of butchery.

On the other side of the breached walls, the well ordered configurations started breaking down. Squads began wild goose chases after fleeing enemies, young commanders already hoarse struggled to reign in the vengeful excitement of their soldiers. Masopher did not share these difficulties. Menacing battle hymns were sung but none of his fellow mercenaries felt the need to bellow or chase their enemies. Their blades spoke quietly and moved methodically and their wielders hummed and laughed within constant earshot of each other. Most sound is lost within the cacophony if battle so whatever sounds were made were only so that his men remained aware of which way weapons and shields needed to be pointed. The 9 mercs had killed almost 1000 men between them, Masopher at the pinnacle of their formation had tallied up more than 100 wide eyed souls today. Wide eyed in life and wide eyed in death, the only difference was their mouths which bore a fierce growls before the black blade swept through them and pouts of puzzlement after.

The battle was over for Masopher’s band but the sport was just beginning. The trail they beat towards the merchants’ quarter was bloody as they tore through soldier and civilian alike. Like a swarm of fat swarthy locusts they boiled from street to street bringing destruction until they reached their targets door. Parvaiz, the oil baron. A city in darkness is a city without life and Parvaiz was the largest lamp oil supplier in the city and its surroundings. His shops spread through out the region and brought much gold into his coffers. Gold that Masopher wanted.

A heavy boot tore the door out of the frame and Masopher’s men swarmed in already heading to pre planned locations, the store and vault downstairs, the bedrooms upstairs and servants quarters. As expected, Parvaiz, his wife, trusted servant and lovely young daughters were huddled behind the heavy doors of the vault. The other servants and guests were quickly hunted down and slaughtered. Chilling cries echoed through the stucco halls.

Masopher regarded the metal vault doors. They were large and reinforced but nothing that his Eastern alchemist had not faced before.

“Qushi, take it down”, he ordered.

The slim smiling easterner nodded and opened his toolkit. Acids and explosives were Qushi’s speciality, gruesome and demoralizing in battle but more useful in opening doors others did not want opened.

Inside the vault room, Parvaiz held his wife and youngest daughter. His other daughter, Mina, gripped a short sword limply as she sobbed silently a few feet away. Cepaz his servant crouched among the piled up gold coins watching the door determinedly. The thick doors did not block the screams of agony coming from close friends and servants. Each voice to cry out was unique in life and un-spared in death.

“Will they find us” Mina whispered through her tears.

Parvaiz nodded “no” even as his mind and ears strained to hear what was happening outside. Cepaz said nothing, ignoring the wealth around fixated on the doors. Parvaiz did not care for the money either. What he earned was pure and simple profit. He gave tax and tithe generously but he found that the more he gave the easier his time became with the governor and people. He lowered his prices and only attracted more customers. He paid his suppliers fairly and only got preferential treatment. Competitors were unable to unseat him and no one could really cheat him, he was a wise and just example to his community. His wife of 15 years was once his shop assistant and together they had built this fortune through sweat and blood. Now a different kind of sweat was on his brow and the blood throbbed in his temples as bandits ransacked his house to take it all away.

A bitter aroma filled the room, white fumes rose from the hinges and locking mechanism. Cepaz gasped bringing his blade up to point as the quiet destruction. The doors groaned and screeched and a single loud grunt was heard as the doors crashed inwards. Cepaz gasped again but loudly and painfully. The family watched as their servant dropped his sword, two short arrows protruding from his body, one in his chest the other in his neck. He crumpled to the floor. A massive ogre of a man carrying an even more massive axe strode into the room over the still rising dust and acrid fume.

He barked at them in what Parvaiz thought was a Syrian tongue. He turned his impossibly thick neck and said something to his leering companions one of them the bowman who had killed Cepaz and they howled in  laughter.

“You fiend!” Mina shouted rushing at him with her sword outstretched.

The large fat man moved with deceptive speed, wrapping his meaty fingers around her wrist disarming her with a flick of his hand. The pack behind him howled loudly in appreciation of the unexpected sport. The massive mercenary raised her up single handed by her sword arm bringing her face to grinning face. She spat defiantly. More howls and a jeer. Still grinning the giant cleared his throat and spat back at her contorted but still lovely face.

Parvaiz struggled out of the grip of his wife and daughter but was smoothly intercepted by a dark muscular man covered in dried blood stepping in between him and the giant with his daughter.

“Be still Parvaiz, Masopher said quietly, one large hand grabbed him acutely by the neck the other burying a curved blade into his fleshy stomach.

The chamber erupted into screams, Masopher’s henchmen strode into the room grabbing the women around their necks chocking off their cries.

“Be still Parvaiz”, Masopher continued, “do not concern yourself with the fate of your daughter, instead listen to me”.

More henchmen boiled into the room scooping up bags full of wealth.

“I, Masopher have killed you, I have taken your humble and yet successful life. I will take everything you have laboured for. Your servants are dead. Your wife shall be taken west into slavery, your oldest daughter should she survive the amorous advances of Djahi will be sold to the army and your youngest will be taken north to the cities of the paedophiles to see if he flesh can make a few silvers. Your house will be razed, your city will be sacked, your nation will be ravaged but you Parvaiz, you will know nothing but darkness”.

The blade twisted and slid out, Parvaiz gurgled in panic as he felt his insides sliding out through the gash in his abdomen. The mercenary leader threw the merchant away from him like a rag doll. Parvaiz crashed against the solid walls losing consciousness for a few seconds. When he came to, with the throbbing agony of broken bones and being gutted alive, he heard the cruel language of the Akkadian and Macedonian mercenaries. He heard Mina’s screams turn to whimpers and he heard the crackling of flames. Then it went silent and all he heard was the hungry fire. He tried to move and everything was drowned out by the pain but only for a while because the stores of oil then exploded.

His eyes grew wide as the oil burst forth turning the entire complex into an inferno. But there was someone else there, it was the blood caked Masopher! Untroubled by the flames, Masopher walked over and crouched gracefully beside the dying merchant. Fire glittered in his eyes and off the blackened blood covering his body.

“I hope to see you again Parvaiz”.

The heat turned the vision of the Masopher into blood and then darkness.

On February 24 2015 the world ended. It wasn’t the Russians, it wasn’t the Americans, It wasn’t the Israelies or the Arabs the scientists or “sinners” or any of the various sectors of human kind. It wasn’t any of  the various fictitious or imagined bogeymen that the leaders had invented through out the centuries. Mankind never had the potency to annihilate the planet; imagination, a select few had in abundance. Their minds could create and destroy entire universes (with the caveat of being loosely base off their own interpretation of it) but the power to actually destroy their own world was just beyond their reach. 

Earth was destroyed believe it or not by the four beast of the apocalypse and Godzilla. Turns out that there 5 of them were playing cards in the Pacific for hundreds of thousands of years and as soon as the time came, or the game ended, they rose up and promptly began taking out the Eastern and Western seaboards Europe and Japan. Mankind’s imagination failed to take in how large these creatures were but lets just say that Godzilla used Japan as his perch when he started to incinerate China.

I know that people all assumed that these were mere Christian folklore and Japanese post Hiroshima nightmares but as it turned out they were just portents that, like many portents go ignored or covered up by a lot of bullshit. I never personally met these beasts of the Armageddon. I knew of them by word of mouth and I know that demons love to spread news around especially to lunatics, but I never found out who or why they were stuck with such a crappy job. I mean destroying the entire earth was cool, but except for in human imagination it could only be done once. I assume they had fun. 

There was no particular why to the apocalypse either. It wasn’t someone’s birth or death or ascension that triggered the event. It wasn’t the passing some ancient new year. I would guess that God just decided that the billions of channels of reality tv that he watched everyday just got a bit too repetitive and boring. Instead of discovery, history adventure romance and tragedy, his creation had become drama and infomercials. He probably just got up and tuned out. But that’s just my opinion.

Maybe he finally woke up, maybe some guy at his right hand poked him with a stick. Maybe she got mad with people calling her a him. You know how chicks get. Maybe there was no one home and a bird took a dump on the “Destroy Earth” button. Whatever happened, it happened, but I know from very good sources however that demons had nothing to do with it.

This vignette is inspired by Kalil Gibran’s Garments. I will be doing more of these as time goes on.

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“What is your name boy?” Masopher growled.

“Gibran sir”, the youth replied in Arabic, still unafraid.

The stiff Mediterranean breeze played over the pair as they watched a turtle hobble along the rocky Tyrian beach. The demon had rested there but for a moment in time when he was confronted by a boy in a bathing suit.

“Do you know who I am boy?” Masopher spoke in kind.

The child shook his head, no.

“And do you know what I am, boy,” the demon bared his unnaturally white teeth.

You are djinn, like what my da has told me, a wild spirit of the world. You are part of they that refused to bow before Adam as Allah commanded.

“Brave and intelligent,” Masopher grumbled, impressed. “Never since the Alexander himself have I met a boy who would face a demon and speak so eloquently.”

The boy was slight, barely over 10 years old and quite frail yet alert and curious. His skin was tanned and smooth eyes innocent and alive with questions and hope.

“And why do you not fear me young Gibran? Have you not heard of what demons can do?”

“I need only invoke the power of Allah and name of Christ and you will be vanquished” the boy answered honestly.

Masopher let out such a harsh bark that even the youth flinched at its sound. The laugh echoed out to sea and among the ancient ruins along the coast. Masopher would not spoil the child’s fantasy, for he sensed a destiny in the young man that was told by his imagination and faith.

“Very brave and intelligent” Masopher repeated instead. “Where are your parents?”

“My ma is down the beach,” the child pointed, “and my da….he’s not here.” The child looked sad with that. Syria had seen many children lose parents and parents lose children and though Masopher rarely cared he did not wish to rid himself of this interesting little man who had so bravely walked up to him and disturbed his musing.

“Who is this other little boy, Alexander?” The boy asked.

“Ah..Alexander, he is but dust and a legend now. The causeway you see stretching out in the distance was built by him.”

“Da said it was built by giants”, the boy interrupted.

“But Alexander was a giant,” the demon replied smilingly, “he was a giant so tall that one of his steps reached from here to Babylon, and his next step would take him to far Herat”. The boy’s eyes grew wide at this.

“And you knew him?”

The demon’s large teeth grinned again.

Masopher and the boy say for hours as the demon spoke of prophets and madmen and how near-identical they were. The boy listened with keen attention seemingly forgetful of how impious demons could be.

“Where is your Ma, young Gibran?” Masopher asked suddenly with a grin, “she has begun to worry.”

 The sun was beginning to set and the distant wails of Gibran’s mother and sisters had subsided into sobs. The boy looked up startled, so enthralled was he that he did not hear what the keen ears of the demon picked up. While Masopher had regaled the boy about ancient battles, his family had searched keenly and then franticly for him.

“Don’t worry”, Masopher laughed pouncing upon a large turtle toddling past. We will just tell them that you were catching this.

“But…”the boy began.

“Fear not, I will remain hidden”.

And the boy was swept up in the demons arms as borne swiftly to his mother.

“Gibran Kahlil Gibran bin Mikhael bin Saâd” his mother bawled seeing the boy appear suddenly in the dusk. So distraught was she that most of her clothes still lay crumpled by the nearby rocks. The women had bathed carefree until Khamila suddenly realized that Khalil was missing. She had flown unashamedly from the waves searching hither and thither for her beloved boy. She was a handsome woman but her efforts to hold her family together drew lines of worry and care across her temples. “Never do that to me again my son,” she scolded lovingly, holding his face.

“How could you be so cruel?” Gibran’s aunt’s joined in. At the sight of the supposedly hidden demon, one of the youngest girls’ eye’s grew wide and she gave a stifled cry. Masopher gave the terrified tot a flash of his inhuman teeth. He then chuckled and gave the boy a final invisible wink before parting.

After fussing over the child for a few minutes more the women looked about them to gather their clothes to them for the trip back to the home of Khalil’s uncle in Beirut. But their clothes were nowhere to be seen! In all the commotion Masopher had stolen them and replaced them with canvas bags and flotsam. Their fine garments, some of the few possessions that they still held proud were gone forever. With burning cheeks they made their way back with the bewildered little boy in tow. The stories, the djinn’s shark-like smile, the missing garments; had he dreamt it all on a hot midsummer’s day?