Another book baking in the oven
-1-
Many beginnings; but none sufficient.
It was a Friday afternoon; I just made plans to meet some friends as is my habit for the past year. I called my fiancée (number four if I do recall correctly) to arrange herself and not to wear black again, John felt spooked by her attire and make-up last time.
This is when I got the phone call.
I work as a sales supervisor in an international insurance company, and one of my sales agents was trying to seal the deal of a life time with this millionaire for the last 6 weeks.
He called him today to come, only that the man asked my presence as well. Even though I never met him and I just talked to him once on the phone (I do this sometimes to press hesitant customers with hanging promises).
So, even though I was off the clock, I knew that this policy could make me and push my career on the fast track; I just called my fiancée and my friends and cancelled.
Oh, How Miriam doubted me!! .. Well, she did have some rights to it.
That is because I’m what you might call a ladies man, not that I try, really… they just flock towards me. I once had a theory about that (now defunct of course) it states that women are flocks and I’m a predator, and nature mandates for them to come my way (oh how foolish and arrogant was I!!)
Anyway, I went out to pick up Aziz my sales agent, headed out of the city to one the new suburbs in the middle of nowhere.
Nice looking villa, nice bunch of German made cars, even nice looking security cams.
I parked my local car besides all those foreign ladies, I always thought of my car as a masculine one, it is dishevelled, harsh to manoeuvre, and has a moustache (although I can be reminded by quite a number of moustached ladies).
We were welcomed by an elegantly dressed woman of mid-thirties. She had this aura of rejection (one of my many nicks, I can feel rejection in other people) about her, even though she welcomed us in a festive fashion.
Upon entering the threshold, I realized that there was some kind of a party or a gathering of some sort. I was immediately annoyed at Aziz for not proof readying his meeting with the customer.
“This is not the right place or time for signing life insurance forms Aziz!!” I hissed at the diminutive form of Aziz.
“Mr. Lotfy, I assure you, the man called me, set the date and place and insisted I bring you to the signing of the forms” complained Aziz.
“Still, I give this meeting a 90% chance of getting blown and 10% chance of actually closing the sale!” I smiled condescendingly at him.
We passed a wall sized mirror, I looked at it briefly. What an odd team we make.
We both wore professional grey suits, but I stood at 6 feet, heavily built from the days of amateur boxing, dark with grey hair while Aziz stood at only 5 feet 2, was a matchstick of a man, severely fair and blond.
We entered what looked as a modified reception area that was converted into some kind of ballroom, around twenty or so people wearing designer evening clothes filled the vast area with chatter.
Our client and host stood at one corner. With a dark man in a turban and the starkest blue eyes I ever saw.
We were assured by the lady towards where they were standing.
“Hello Mr. Fadhl and Mr. Lotfy, I’m glad you could make it on such short notice” smiled the man in the five thousand dollars suit standing at 6 feet 3 and looking to the entire world as if he owned the universe.
“We are honoured by your invitation Mr. McDermott, although I assumed we came for a different kind of setting” I answered with a jovial smile.
“ha ha ha A meeting of interest it is, but as you can see I can’t take any decision of importance unless I take the advice of my friend Sheikh Mahmoud here.” He roars in laughter while assuring the so called Sheikh to salute us.
“Alsalam aliekom Sheikh Mahmoud” I saluted with a bow of the head.
“Wa aliekom alsalam ya Sayed Haress” the man answered back, even though I couldn’t understand the calling of my name and followed by the word that means guard in Arabic (my parents were part Egyptian, I had to attend Arabic school after school for most of childhood; which I absolutely loathed) .
“I assume you are both Arabs Mr. Lotfy?” asked Mr. McDermott.
“Well, Aziz is mostly Turkish, and I’m mostly Egyptian, and as far as I know Egyptians pre-date Arabs” I answered with a tactful smile.
“Mostly Mr. Lotfy??” asked the sheikh
“Well, part Italian, part Austrian, 3 parts Egyptian” I kept my most professional smile while keeping my anger at the lineage interrogation at bay.
“Well, well, well that makes a full cocktail Mr. Lotfy, should we retire to my office??” asked Mr. McDermott in an appraising manner.
“Gladly” I jumped at the chance to get the deal done.
The office was as grand as I expected it to be. Big Mahogany desk, large leather arm chairs, a styled mahogany bar and the ever present library, with no less than a thousand volumes, all appeared to be quite old, a collector’s heaven.
After we sat McDermott pressed a hidden button and a man servant rushed in, he ordered Turkish coffee for all of us and asked for a certain bag to be brought from the sheikh’s room.
While we waited for the coffee, Aziz started his sales pitch about our newest programs, only to be interrupted by the sheikh “Why wouldn’t Mr. Lotfy tell us more about your life insurance programs?? Does it really insure your life?”
“Well, Aziz is just as good as I for tailoring your insurance needs, but I’m willing to detail you sheikh. Are you interested?” I asked.
“If you really insure life and prevent death. Of course!” said the sheikh in a very serious manner
“But, we don’t, we can’t. Nobody can of course, we just insure that your loved ones and your worldly affairs will be taken care of” I laughed dismissing the obvious joke.
“So I’m not interested then, but I might give Charles my approval if you let me read your fortunes” he smiled a sly smile.
“Fortune? I don’t really believe in this stuff, but I’m always game for new stuff” I smiled offhandedly
“After I read your Quhwa and your palm, I assure you I will make a believer out of you Sayed Haress” he looked intently into my eyes and held his hand out
I shake my shoulders and put my hand in his.
“Would like to learn of your past, present or future??” he asked me
“Well, the future is unknown, the present is just a moment, so how about you tell me of my past” I answered sarcastically.
“You were born in winter, you had a brother who died, and you were ill most of your childhood” he had a distant look in his eyes.
“I am sure Mr. Lotfy has only one living sibling, a sister” jumped Aziz,
“Not true, he had a twin brother who was not meant to be born” The sheikh answered in a matter of fact tone.
I pulled my hand back in shock. “How did you come about this information??” I demanded
“Your brother left his mark on your thumb Mr. Lotfy” he smiled and reached back for my hand.
He said the truth, it was a medical rarity, I had a twin who was aborted at the end of the first trimester, I continued. I didn’t comment or rise to answer his looks. But I felt disturbed, even dizzy. It was after all, a family secret.
Then, the manservant entered with the coffee.
“Can we rest a little please Mr. McDermott?? “ I implored our host.
“Yes of course my dear Mr. Lotfy, You are our most important guest of course for tonight” he assured us back to the party.
Aziz stood with a tall blonde while I sipped my drink in a corner.
I couldn’t fathom why were we invited, and why the freak side show directed only for our eyes.
I pondered the gift of the Sheikh, I cannot dismiss it out of hand, it was too weird to be a trick.
Maybe it was an elaborate prank, a one where even my closest friend and family members would participate in
But that part about my dead twin was too much. Only my immediate family and fiancée knew of it.
Suddenly I found a hand holding my hand with the drink, pulling it away.
It was McDermott “You should not drink spirits today my friend”
“Why is that??” I asked sincerely
“Not to cloud the reading of course!”
We went back to the office, and sat in our same chairs. The coffee went cold by the passing of time and McDermott ordered three more cups.
I started to gaze at the books trying to decipher their contents from their titles.
McDermott stood pointing at his library “interested in the occult Mr. Lotfy?”
“Not really, specially that I don’t have the faintest idea what do you mean by the occult” I laughed quietly.
“The occult is many things, divination, demonology, magic or … gates” he added the last word with a pause and a cryptic smile.
“Well, I don’t really believe or understand most of what you mentioned; But what did you mean by gates” I asked slowly and with an unknown sense of trepidation.
“Gates, they are why we thrive to understand the occult, to practice some of its arts, to even sacrifice parts of our lives and memories for” answered the Sheikh in a mild manner as if he stated in his sentence the secret of all creation.
“I know from religion classes of gates of hell and paradise; are these Gates you are talking about?” asked Aziz after being silent for most of the evening as if he found some footing in this treacherous river of an evening.
“they are but a few of the gates, you see Aziz, the important ones though are never mentioned in religious scriptures” McDermott pulled a book and opened it to show us a drawing of a lovecaraftian creature standing behind what looks like a round hole with four men doing something to the sides of the hole and one man raising both his arms while kneeling in the middle of the drawing.
“What is in the drawing?” Aziz asked
“A misinformed babbling at most, but yet one of the oldest written sources to mention interdimensional ports joining our world to others” answered McDermott
The coffee arrived and we were served.
I started to sip my coffee while having the distinctive feeling that we will not sell any insurance policies and something seriously fishy is involving me and I felt really alarmed.
“Should I be alarmed by the night’s events Mr. McDermott?” I asked
“Not at all, like I said, I need your policy, only you have to prove yourself worthy and trustworthy in the eyes of my dear friend the Sheikh” McDermott had a very serious tone to his voice
My greed won over.
I reached three quarters of the cup when the Sheikh asked to have my cup. He turned it in its plate after circling the remains around and gazed long into it.
And he started “I see three paths, in the first you will acknowledge your heritage and assume your responsibilities. In this one you lead a hard life with little repose; in the second you will acknowledge your heritage but not the responsibility. This one will wed the whore of Babylon and father twin boys, who will place their hands over the world, eat from every feast and assure the coming of the dark; the third you will renounce what you are and what you could have been to favour your wife whom you will marry at 32 years of age. With this you break the black wing and seal the great seal forever and all will be lost”
He then gave me horrible look of accusation and fell back in his chair.
“You are totally wrong! I will marry in 6 months. And I’m just twenty seven.” I asserted smugly.
The Sheikh looked at me and his eyes rolled up, and in a harsh voice said “The keeper in the cold castle died”, then he bent over and passed out. I ran to check his pulse, it was fine.
McDermott stood up, looked in a horrified manner at me and said “Gentlemen, I think I should tend to my friend, I will call you Aziz for a second date, Thank you for honouring us this evening”
We were rushed out in such a fast manner that poor Aziz couldn’t even stop to take the number of that blonde.
Good start for the story, I think. I got suspense, mystery and even some background, right?
I think there could be another start, twelve years earlier than this one. Well, should I start at the earlier start or make a flashback scene where I appear to be reminiscent of my childhood or what??
I think I should go back nine years first.
I was 18 years old at the time. It was the Christmas Eve and most of my extended family was gathered in the house of one of my cousins.
One of the far off cousins who claimed an intimate relation with hidden forces and the nether world, suggested as a parlour trick to hypnotize any one and I of course volunteered. (There was this stunning blonde girl, friend of my second cousin, whom I really wanted to impress)
As it goes my dear seven degrees removed cousin held a silver trinket in the shape of an eagle hanging from a chain. He started to talk in soft tones to me while I watched the trinket sway back and forth. ”Relax, just loosen up and let go of your fears, leave all the logic behind. Close your eyes, let go of your preconceptions. Sleep” And I think I went out, total black.
I found myself racing through what looked like a huge ant hill, holding the hand of a girl about my same age.
She had short curly hair, big eyes, a noble nose and rosebud lips. She wore sometimes a flowing dress and at others puffy pants and a leather sweater.
My guide motioned me to keep quite while we ran past the rooms of the ant hill. In most of the rooms there was a huge body lying through the whole ant hill. The body glistened and breathed in a very organic matter, I thought it looked like an enormous earth worm.
We raced faster and moved deeper; the worm seemed to be stirring.
Eventually we were about to enter the end of the tunnel, in a room that exploded in light, warm and powerful, as if a star sat in that room.
But, I woke up, everybody was in laughs and my cousin whispered in my ears “This was just a small proof of my powers”
This was not the strange event I mentioned as a beginning, for during the whole night I was seeing the same girl appearing in front of my eyes as solid as anybody.
I was totally freaked out; I prayed and prayed for the apparition to disappear.
And she just stood there reaching her hand to me, asking me to open the gate.
Finally, at 8 AM, she stood and said one word “Apsus” and she was just gone.
Yet another beginning, if I may add another, should be the one when I was 9 years old
At the time I just had passed the major event of my grandmother’s death, one of my uncles just decided to go underground for reasons I never could understand.
This is when another uncle decided the best way to find his lost brother is to seek dark magic. For some kind of unfathomable reasons, all the adults at the time thought it was a pretty sane and logical move. Well, now you know where I’m coming from.
So, our apartment was a 3 bedroom, living room, dining room nice cosy place in a quiet area yet near the down town and a rock’s throw from everywhere. And, it was the logical choice for the interested parties to join with the so called magician/witch/wizard guy in his pursuits.
Coffee, tea and biscuits were offered. Everybody was still wearing the black of mourning; the drapes were loosened to cover the apartment in yellow electrical light. The spot where my grandma used to sit was vacant, as was the thing these times.
The guy looked pretty normal to me, just had this air of any other stranger about him.
My mother said “My mother passed away three months ago, and she was in coma at the time. My brother John was angry I think, on my mother’s last week on this realm he had huge fight with all of us. I’m not going into details, but he left afterwards. He even transferred his job to an unknown location, we can’t find clue to his whereabouts, and three months already passed” She sipped from her cup of tea “Peter talks well of you, he trusts you have the power to find our brother John, and I trust peter and his judgment.” She takes another sip of tea “We are afraid for our brother, he didn’t even attend the funeral” and she started to have tears falling from her eyes. (My mother had her quirks, i.e. religious séance, fortune reading … the works)
All during this monologue of my mother, the man just sat there then he said “Peter told me, I feel your pain. Trust me I will do my best” he clasped his hands together and knelt as if praying. It was kind of boring in a very sad way, I heard her tell this story dozens of times, I could even repeat it letter by letter. Heck, I could even imitate her vocals, head nods, hand wave; in a very convincing manner.
Anyway, the guy asked for a bowel of water (later on in life I understood why water is bound to scrying magic, but this is another story to tell later on) he also asked for a piece of paper.
After having some other items (I don’t really recall all of them, but, they included an item of cloth and an item of value to my disappeared uncle) he laid out his terms.
“So, kind people, you are Christians, right?” he asked
“Yes we are, orthodox Christians” my mother answered.
“OK, I need of you not to mention the name of God, not to ask aid or help from saints, not hold any religious relic or move unless told to, and I need a medium; I’ll take the boy” and he pointed at me.
Again for no fathomable reason, the adults volunteered me, and being a very curious soul, I was exited like a cat in heat!
He started invocation of time and hours, and then he read a part of the 50th psalm, followed by gibberish, followed by invocations.
Then, he placed his hand on my head and I found myself drifting between wakefulness and sleep.
He moved his hand over the water which started to boil (it was in a plastic bowel, that was quiet the feat!)
Then he brought the paper, put a pen in my hand and started again his invocations about time and space.
My hand started to move of its own; my eyes were closed so I couldn’t really know what I wrote.
Then he took the paper, folded it five times and dropped it in the water.
At this moment, the lights of the entire house trembled as if we were about to lose power, then settled.
And the bowl of water caught fire. At this point my eyes sprang open to weird smoke coming from behind the shoulder of the man. Apparently, I was the only one to see it, because all the eyes were on the boiling bowel.
Then he fished out the paper which unfolded in the water, to show a map of sorts, drawing of a face that also had scribbling on it, then he burned the paper promising that my uncle would be back within 40 days (he did by the way!)
Then the guy received some money and left with my uncle.
Eventually we all went to sleep
Then the interesting events started.
At around 3 AM I found that my eyes are opened in my bed, but I couldn’t move, not even blink.
My head was turned towards my window, which for some kind of meteorological mystery was deep in mist.
It was a greenish grey mist that swirled around, nonstop.
But something was flashing across it every now and then.
Then it appeared in its full glory, it was a dragon, gold and red but the size of a poodle, looking exactly as the Chinese dragons’ drawings.
Suddenly the window and most of the wall was gone replaced by a roundish black hole and the dragon was racing towards me. I realized that it came towards me, because it grew in size dramatically.
I didn’t know from where is this shrilling whistle was coming from, it rose to a scream, it was rising and rising.
It was me!
My parents barged into the room, turned the light on and everything but a few wisps of mist remained.
My window was wide open and cracked.
I told them the story of my dream/vision. My mother brought holy oil and anointed me and they sealed the windows and the shutters.
Yet I knew the thing is gone not to come back.
I have another background story then I will enter into the fleshy parts. (Whoever reads this, hopefully will understand, because I know you passed through similar conditions, including the babbling I’m now writing)
Ever as I could remember as a child, I used to think in the plural, and I assumed this is the normal of everybody.
I used to be afraid of the space above the cupboard in the dark of my room because I saw creatures there.
They didn’t just live there, they fought every weekend over who took the spot nearest to the door and the light coming from outside, this is what scared me most.
When I was about six, I remember that I was asked to tell a story and I told a story of a boy and his four friends who lived in his head.
They were a dragon or a fire worm, a wolf, the mother of worms which was a tiny girl with sharp teeth, and the shadow was also known to the group as the shapeless one.
You can imagine how concerned my parents were, first visit to the psychiatrist.
He insured my normalcy, just that I had an over-active imagination.
Funny thing was, the mother of worms thought of him as ridiculous and with an over active imagination.
So, here are the beginnings, I’m allowed to mention, too many yet none catches the glow right??
Well, all are true anyway.
