STORY EXCERPTS 1 2 3

Rakman Hakim Abdullah Abdal Abdala Mustapha Smith: Our Man in Tajikistan

Rakman gasped for air, closing the door of the observation room behind him. Walking along the narrow steel-ribbed corridor, he looked for a sign – and finally found a male bathroom symbol on a door. He walked in.

The cool pool of clear water felt refreshing against his dirtied sun-baked skin. His pores screamed in ecstasy as he ran his hands over and down his face. Raising his head, he peered into a mirror – something he had not done for at least a week. It was a visage he did not recognize. The pale complexion now a leathered brown with burgundy lines etched into his wrinkles and his once placid eyes two dark dots pressed within an interconnected weave of fiery blood red threads that almost shot upward through the sclera. He had changed. Of this there was no doubt.

His parents were not whom he’d imagined all these years. His life – well that was a joke: an undefined, miserable, god-induced ironic pitiful mess. And what’s more it was obvious his choices now were limited. One: he could go back to Tajikistan to live as a Mohammedan with his mother, always in a state of fear, trying to eek out a rebel’s life fighting against what -- he wasn’t sure. Or two: a chronically depressive yet urban squalor with his father, who surely more than anything needed a friend since his belief structure or at least the way he went about relating it was as fanatical as his mother’s. It all amounted to crumbs of love from two people he knew nothing of but wanted more than anything to appease. Yet, he could placate neither because one would be hurt no matter what his decision. Was there a third way, he wondered; a compromise?

As he opened up the observation room, the bickering between his mother and father had been raised a notch. They had not even taken notice all this time of his absence. Rakman listened a moment waiting for the most opportune time.
“Miles, you are useless. What’s one prophet more?”
“A prophet is no match for the son of god.”
“Stop it!” Rakman barked at the top of his lungs.
“Stay out of this, Rakman,” his mother screeched back, “This is between your father and me.”
“Okay. But I just thought I’d tell you that I’ve decided to become an atheist.”
Both O’Brien and the Mistress were dead silent.
“An atheist,” O’Brien’s voice crackled.
“Well, actually agnostic.”
“What?” his mother whimpered as if every bit of strength she had was being used to keep herself upright. “At least atheists have a belief even if it’s a belief in logic, but agnostics might as well all kill themselves for lack of creativity.”
“It seems paradoxical at first, I’m sure,” Rakman began with a renewed confidence he had not felt since he began training for this mission. “But what’s faith if not the belief in something that can’t be wholly proven. And if you can’t prove it why believe in it?”
“I never raised you to be like this,” his mother spoke up now trying to match the bravado of a son on the brink of a monumental transformation, “Stop thinking!”


END OF EXCERPT                                                                                                                         STORY EXCERPTS 1 2 3