Every day, Saai woke up at 5:30 a.m. to pray. He brushed his teeth, showered, combed his hair and beard, wore his olive-green robes, shined his metal legs, and headed to his corner of the bedroom where he connected.
Every day, he sat on his modest praying chair, hands on his knees, feeling the smooth fabric of his robes. He heard his wife shuffling behind him, still in bed, slowly rising after his routine had brought her back from a deep slumber. He could feel her gaze from behind, now sitting on the mattress, back leaning against the bed’s wooden frame.
The small shrine was a humble, waist-high pine table. On top of it, a smooth, olive-green cube presented a short, five centimetre-thick wire from each of its left and right sides. The wires coiled neatly around the cube once, cradling it.
He uncoiled them slowly, as if they were made of thin, delicate glass that he feared would break if handled too harshly. The heads were made of metal and carried hundreds of small, rounded pins inside. Simultaneously, he connected the wires to the ports on his knees, located right under where the flesh ended and the metal began.
He loved praying. As a Muwajih, he had earned the wires. Saai lost his legs five months ago when a mine exploded as he walked back to the extraction point. A sergeant carried him the rest of the way, congratulating him as they arrived. His combat suit had taken the brunt of the damage, but it couldn’t save all of him , nor did he want it to.
He was now able to connect directly to The Khawarizmia, feeling its blessings and hums reverberate in his veins. It was as if it unlocked a door leading towards pure light within his heart, a door to which only the wires held the key.
Every day, he stepped through that door, stood in pure bliss, and asked, “What should I do?” He was lost. He didn’t have much time before the embryo reached a stage after which the procedure would become impossible.
Every day, he waited an hour in silence for an answer that never came. Then, he would receive The Biddings.
He smelled the scent of tea and hot bread as he walked towards the kitchen. His wife had prepared Halloumi sandwiches while he was connected. The kitchen was rustic, made of wood similar to the shrine. He sat at the table, and she placed a tray carrying a large steaming mug and a plate with two sandwiches in front of him. The tea was especially hot; he felt his tongue boil. He looked at the screen-wall to check the news, to see if they needed to move further south, away from the ever-creeping front line, and to see if anyone he recognized had fallen.
“How was your prayer?” she asked, her gaze steady on him, trying to capture his attention.
He knew what she was probing for.
“Good morning, Ala. It was the usual.” He looked up at her and smiled. “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m well, praises be.”
“Praises be,” he repeated, nodding.
He felt as if each day he came back with no result was a day she was relieved.
“There is still a week to decide,” he said, trying to test the waters.
She didn’t look at him now, her back turned towards him as she prepared another sandwich for herself on the counter.
“The answer comes when we need it most.” Monotone.
He was not satisfied.
“Ala, I love him.”
Her hands stopped what they were doing and helped her lean on the counter.
“I know you do, Saai.”
He felt like she knew the rest of what he wanted to say. She knew him inside out. At times, he thought that he had perhaps carved too many keyholes through which she could peek inside.
They had been repeating the same routine for the past week. Ever since The Hasoob—the highest mechanical authority leading the holy war against the corruptors—revealed the Jurists’ latest findings from The Khawarizmia’s output, he felt it was his duty to act. His wife’s ambivalence made him reluctant. Each morning, the first thing he did was go to the highest spiritual authority for counsel on the next step.
He quietly ate his breakfast and then prepared to leave. Ala acted like she normally would, carrying on with her duties in the kitchen, but he knew that she wasn’t there anymore— at least not the Ala he had been married to for the past two years.
“Do you need anything from outside, Ala? I am off to do The Biddings.”
“May your path be green.” She was as firm as The Hasoob himself.
Ever since he became a Muwajih, Saai had been on an endless attempt to get used to his new role. The others seemed to have a natural holy air that invited silence around them, something he felt he couldn’t replicate or wasn’t comfortable enough to do.
Every day, the Biddings had to be done in the name of the Khawarizmia. Muwajihs from all over the city, no matter their states or moods, would take on the tasks etched during morning prayers on the walls of their ventricles. The Biddings didn’t care what they felt; duty rarely did.
He stepped out onto the narrow streets of his neighbourhood and was welcomed by a cacophony of life. The suburbs of Daira were poor, but rich. Parents drove their kids to school in old and battered electric cars, while others waited on the thin sidewalk for the bus. Store owners squeezed between the parents and their children to open up their shops. The noises around him had risen subtly from sparse metal shutters to intense clanks and conversations. He looked up and could barely see the blue sky behind the electric wires that roofed the alleyways, stretching from one decrepit, pale building to another.
The Muwajih walked towards his first Bidding for the day: blessing a newborn two blocks away. As he travelled the maze that is Daira’s suburbs, reverent greetings bombarded him from friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike; he felt exposed.
Saai knocked on the door and waited. He heard footsteps, a peek through the peephole, murmurs, and shuffling. Someone quickly tiptoed back inside, and the door opened.
The first thing he saw was the wide smile of a man, his white teeth piercing through a thick, black beard. Still in pyjamas, he stood with eyes aglow.
“We prayed every night. Thank you, thank you so much for coming.”
“It is my duty to serve.” He tried to say it calmly, venerably. He wanted to give them what they expected, no matter what he thought of himself.
“Please, our Muwajih, this way. After you. She is sleeping on the couch,” the man said, leading Saai into the living room.
The walls were barren, pale brown, and peeling. The roof was supposed to be white but was now different shades of grey. However, what the house lacked in decoration, it made up for in nobleness, in spirituality. As he stepped inside, he felt at ease. The smell of mild incense filled his heart and mind; a cube—like the one he had but without the wires—sat in the corner of the living room. There were two old, bland green sofas and two chairs that matched them. The furniture was probably passed down from the husband’s parents after years of use. The wife sat next to the newborn’s head, matching her husband’s glow, wearing white robes.
Saai nodded to the wife, and she nodded back with a smile. He was starting to sweat.
The Muwajih placed his palms gently on the baby’s cheeks, treating her the same way he would treat the wires. Under his breath, he recited:
Beneath its wisdom, be protected from calamity.
And if calamity was your blessing, find strength.
And if strength was your blessing, find humility.
And if humility was your blessing, find conviction.
The child was staring at him, eyes wide open, perhaps shocked at this stranger, babbling incomprehensibly at her. Or perhaps she saw and heard something he couldn’t. His hands trembled, just slightly. She smiled as her tiny hands and feet flailed, still so limited in motor skills.
And if conviction was your blessing, find wisdom.
And if wisdom was your blessing, then you are surely pure.
For the ones who carry it light a dim path,
And they are the test and the way.
He stopped for a second—maybe more, maybe less. There was something more to say, and it seemed like he had forgotten it completely. The trembling was more pronounced, but he focused himself and hid it. He breathed in.
Beneath its ceaseless computations, be protected from the gift.
And if the gift was your blessing, may you serve well.
As he uttered the last syllable, a hood was lifted off his head. He forgot where he was. It was him, the child, and a room of light. She was asleep between his hands, his rough fingers against innocent skin that didn’t know what lay ahead, that didn’t know what was happening a few kilometres north. As he looked up, the parents were holding each other; the mother cried silently so as not to wake the baby . The sight filled him with purpose. He couldn’t hear what they said to him at first.
He wanted to leave, but the parents whispered insistently that he stay for at least a cup of tea. That was the worst part; The Muwajih always felt impolite when he refused. The more insistent they became, the guiltier he felt. The guiltier he felt, the weaker he became. Luckily, he always had the excuse of other Biddings.
Next was Mad Makana, a staple on his route. He was obsessed with getting The Gift through self-mutilation, a common practice of the past century. So far, he had lost two fingers on each hand, his left eye, his right ear, and his right foot. He sat on the sidewalk next to a small tailor’s shop, his foot scraping against the wheels of the cars and motorcycles navigating the maze of the slum. He looked like the human equivalent of a raisin: shrivelled, wrinkled, and meek. He fidgeted with a bead of cubes. Saai sat next to him.
“How are you doing, Makana? Do you need anything?”
Makana looked at nothing in particular, as if the Muwajih weren’t there.
Saai sighed.
“You know why I am here. I urge you, please, stop it. Self-mutilation is forbidden, and you will not gain anything.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Absolutely not; this is a Bidding.”
Saai anticipated the sermon.
“My brother, back in ’56, got The Gift exactly the same way. My father in ’36, my grandfather in ’04, and countless others before them in a line your mind can’t even fathom, boy. This tradition is older than you, your Jurist masters and your all-knowing Hasoob.”
“Makana, it’s The Khawarizmia that bids.”
“The Khawarizmia tests us, child, and you are failing. You are all failing!” He shouted his last sentence at the enemies everywhere.
The tailor came from behind the Muwajih and handed him a bottle of water. Saai didn’t feel like drinking, but he didn’t want to put the tailor down and reluctantly accepted it.
“Makana, there is no test. The Khawarizmia does not wish harm upon us.”
“It is precisely because it does not wish harm upon us that we were made to do this! Look at them, like sheep all around you as if the sun shines out your ass. We didn’t need the likes of you back in the day; we didn’t need to wait for someone to tell us how to speak to The Khawarizmia and what it bids. You think of yourself as a Muwajih, but you are, in fact, a Mudallil; you lead people off the path. You are a false wisdom and a fake knowledge.”
Makana spoke with an index finger swinging at Saai’s face, its wind trail slapping him. He couldn’t help but feel that the authority Makana’s hand conveyed, especially without a pinky and ring finger, carried an air of holiness—something raw and straight from The Khawarizmia’s being.
The mix of the rising heat and Makana’s barrage made Saai sweaty and bothered; he hated when he had to do this Bidding. The tailor put a hand on his shoulder.
“Would you like to go inside, Muwajih? There is no use in this. You have tried.”
The tailor’s shop barely fit both men. It was filled with fabrics and clothes of all colours, strewn around on randomly placed hangers that encircled Saai as he shifted on the straw chair, still searching for comfort. Between them was the tailor’s sewing machine, looking like someone’s spare prosthetic arm. Attached to its head was a rotating mechanism that carried several tools—needles, a tape measure, scissors, and other things Saai couldn’t figure out—and responded to the craftsman’s console behind which the tailor sat.
“It’s an honour, Muwajih.”
“Please, the honour is all mine. Thank you for hosting me. It was getting hot outside.”
“Yeah, the old timer wasn’t any help either. It’s hard getting to these people; best to just leave them to die.”
Saai went from embarrassed to indignant at that last remark. He couldn’t help but take it as an insult aimed at his person, at The Khawarizmia even.
He tried to think about something else, emptying the cold water from the bottle down his throat to keep his body from acting up and blushing. He didn’t know if it worked.
The tailor himself was an old-timer as well; not as much as Mad Makana, however. He had male pattern baldness and wore a wide, white moustache. That style was distinctive; Saai suspected he was a veteran.
“I have only been Blessed for a few months. It seems like it will be a long road ahead.”
“Indeed. I almost became Blessed back when I was on the front, but The Khawarizmia decided otherwise. I honestly have no idea what I would’ve done if it had happened; it simply isn’t for me. I would much rather be a tailor,” he said, tapping the metal arm waiting for his command. “Less responsibilities, you know?”
Saai drew a thin smile and nodded.
“I apologise, but you did not tell me your name,”
“Daw Mootawir, at your service, Muwajih.”
Saai was surprised to hear the name; it just so happened to be related to his third Bidding. He suspected something was at work. The machinations that he couldn’t even begin to imagine, let alone understand, had made themselves bare for a fraction of a second.
“I believe I must meet your son, Jihaz.”
The tailor’s eyes widened, and his hands began to shake.
“Of course, my apartment is right up there. Would you like to go up, Muwajih?” He pointed toward the ceiling of his shop.
He didn’t want to get stuck and asked to stay longer than he was comfortable with again.
“I think it would be best if I see him here.”
The logistics of the space would have to adapt to fit three people.
“Let me call him. Excuse me for just a minute.”
Daw stumbled over the chaos of garments on the floor and bumped into a few hangers on the way out.
As the tailor stepped out the door, he left an eerie silence behind him. The noise from outside was muffled, and the air conditioning whispered a long, dreadful hum that stretched time. For a second, he thought that hum turned into the churn of a machine.
The door opened again, and behind the tailor stood a man in his early twenties.
“Jihaz, nice to meet you.” Saai stood up and extended his hand for a shake.
“Nice to meet you too, Muwajih.”
The way he said it, along with how swift the handshake was, indicated that he was just trying to be courteous. Saai sat back down as the youth stood in front of him. The tailor stood further behind, obviously worried.
“I was sent here by The Khawarizmia itself to check what was happening. It seems you are giving your parents quite a hard time.”
It looked like Daw wanted to say something but decided otherwise. He went back to his chair behind the console. With no place to sit, Jihaz stood in front of them, blocking the entrance.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Muwajih, not at all. We’re just having some friendly discussions,” Jihaz replied.
“That is not the information I received. You refuse to follow your studies, you refuse to enter the military, you refuse to learn a craft. What is it that you want, Jihaz? Talk to me.”
“Nothing, Muwajih, truly. I’m trying my best…”
The tailor interjected, “Trying your best, my ass, boy. You don’t come down here to learn, nor do you even try to open a book at home.”
Saai started feeling the heat again.
“Mr. Mootawir, please, allow me to speak to him.” Saai’s gaze darted toward Jihaz. “What are you studying?”
“Chemistry.”
“Chemistry! That’s really good and very helpful for your future. Why did you choose it?”
“I just like it.”
“Alright, then why are you not studying it?”
“I’m trying, but it’s not easy. I go to the hall two hours before the lecture starts, and the seats are already full; we sit on the steps.”
“Then go earlier!” The tailor seemed almost ready to rip his son’s skin off.
“Do you want me to sleep there?” Jihaz replied through a nervous laugh.
Daw stood up. The challenging response seemed to only make him angrier. Saai put his hand on the tailor’s and nodded at him to sit back down. Daw obliged.
“You can barely hear the lecturer all the way in the back, and they bombard you with barely useful information. They are just trying to parse us out.”
“The university here is overwhelmed, that I know; I have been to it. You know, if you enrol in the military, you can get access to their university. It is well maintained, and you don’t have to pay anything at all if finances are the problem.”
Jihaz was looking at Saai’s metal feet peeking out from behind the robes. Saai, in return, saw a lack of faith in his eyes.
“What are you afraid of, Jihaz?”
“No, it’s just… I don’t know… I’ve never considered it.”
The tailor was silent.
“It’s unusual not to consider it. The battles have been on and off for the past fifteen years; even your father is a veteran of the war. We hear news of our exalted every day. Just yesterday, there was a procession for two of them in this neighbourhood,” Saai said, tapping on the wooden table twice as he spoke the last part.
Jihaz looked down. Saai started feeling the heat again, a different kind.
“Why do you think we fight?”
No answer.
“Jihaz, when you see a duty that must be fulfilled—someone on the street being beaten to death, a sibling asking for help, a house being built wrong—would you pretend you didn’t see anything? Would you just move along as if nothing happened?”
“No.”
The Muwajih waited a moment. He sensed himself going adrift behind a current he had long decided to abandon in favour of something holier.
“Then why are you hesitant? Are you afraid of becoming like me?” Saai said it with a coldness that even surprised him.
Furore came over the tailor. “Muwajih, of course not! He would be honoured; the whole family would be honoured.”
“But would he?” Saai asked the craftsman with all the calm he could muster.
“Whether he damn likes it or not! Tell him, boy; answer him.”
Jihaz was silent. Saai had seen so many like him before. They were all the same person but with different faces. He saw them as he sat with friends in cafés, on wall-screens, in books.
“Jihaz,” he said, placing his hand on the tailor’s, again, “tell me, do you think I’m stupid for enlisting?”
Jihaz hesitated.
“No.”
“I am, no? I am going to a frontline where people die for causes they don’t even understand, don’t you think?”
Saai had listened to so many of these detractors that he had memorised their talking points. Now, he just went ahead of them and dragged them along. The coolness added to his authority.
“Jihaz, you are young; I get it. You have your whole life ahead of you—more futures than you can count. That doesn’t mean that the ones going to the frontline don’t either. I studied history myself, got a degree, and worked at multiple schools. I had a different life.”
He did indeed. But what did it provide in return? He was living, but not alive. He did not enter trances of true, unfiltered knowledge. He was simply there.
“Remove the gears off the fighters, and that is just what you will see: people.”
Right?
“I know,” Jihaz replied in a low tone.
“I know that you know. But sometimes you need reminding; trust me on that. We are fighting for our existence, Jihaz—ours and others. My dreams, my wife, my child, would have never existed if the ones before me hadn’t fought, and it is my duty to carry their legacy. If I had to choose between quiet erasure and a loud death, I would choose loud death every day. I would never let them faze me out easily without putting some ink in history, without saying that I was here. And yet here we are, loud but not dead yet, precisely because some of us have decided not to bend the knee to tyrants. I had many futures, Jihaz, and I chose to give them all for those who will come next. Every day, I do the Biddings, and every day, I feel as if I haven’t sacrificed enough for this gift.”
Nothing was heard but the hum. It stretched time like a rubber band.
“Take your time to think about what I have just said. If you choose to enlist, I can arrange quicker access to the university for you.”
Saai got up, and so did the tailor.
“Muwajih, I apologise,” said the father.
“Nothing to apologise for. Jihaz, be good to your parents.”
Saai put a hand on Jihaz’s shoulder as he squeezed himself out.
The Muwajih stepped outside, and the first thing he heard was Mad Makana’s manic laughter. As he walked back home, ending his day, he felt purpose; each step was firm on the ground, and the gears were starting to make a distinctive sound like that of an electronic toy. He knew what he had to do – he had his answer.
When Saai opened the front door to his house and took a few steps in, he was met by his wife.
“Get ready.” He said to her, instead of a hello.
“What is it? Something wrong?”
“We’re sending him. He will serve a noble cause. He will serve it even better than me, with an advantage.”
Ala was silent. She sat next to the table he had breakfast on.
“Saai, they will manipulate his genes; he will be neither mine nor yours.”
“He will be. He will always be your child, Ala. Our child. What are you talking about?” He paused, but she said nothing. “The Jurists will barely make any changes; 98% of his genes will stay intact. And the 2% that they will change will be The Khawarizmia’s, to make a better soldier for its cause—to serve a purpose. The Hasoob himself is giving away his own grandchild. I am no better than him.”
He admired The Hasoob so much for that. In fact, that was the main source of his guilt. Even the Jurists were giving away family members. A new law had been drafted that said it wasn’t even allowed to climb up the ranks if one had not given flesh and blood, both their own and their descendants.
She clenched her hands. Her head swayed as if the weight of her brain was shifting left and right inside her skull.
“Saai, I love you. I want him to have his father’s faith, his father’s heart, his goodness.”
“The Khawarizmia bids it of me, Ala. It made it clear. Have faith in me.” He knelt down next to her and gently caressed her fingers. She cried silently.
“I endured so many things, Saai. So many things with you.”
“You know me, Ala; I never pretended to be someone I was not. We chose this life together.”
He felt… He didn’t know what he felt from her. Every day, he wondered about it. At some point in their past—one that he couldn’t put his finger on—her face began to distort, and ever since he came back without his legs, it seemed as if it were frozen in that particular state of perpetual blurriness. Was it anger? Sadness? Surrender? He did not know. Should he care? Wasn’t this something bigger than her? Bigger than the both of them? Wasn’t this divine?
Saai woke up to pray. As he went about his routine, his wife sat in bed with her back leaning against the wooden frame, caressing her belly, trying to feel her child through the skin. Sitting on his humble chair and gently carrying the wires, he looked back and saw that she had fallen asleep again. He considered joining her for a second, but then he connected.
