She reached in the grocery bag and took out a green apple. The old car horns and bargaining merchants drowned her noisy chewing of the delicious apple as she walked across the old market in downtown Istanbul... Her home for years she had lost count of.
A gust of wind breaks free the pin keeping her silky veil secure. And as it takes flight for the air she mumbles in Turkish and starts to run for it, but as she tries to tackle the old Peugeots and Volkswagens on her way across the street, she looks up to realize that it's disappeared. Oh well. Not the first time it happened, and since she was already at the marketplace, she might as well shop around for a new one.
"Abandoning your shawl?" a man asked in a plain yet western English accent. The merchant frowned, "Me and customer busy, go away you American!” She turned around, her hand still feeling the new silk veil she was trying to buy. "Canadian actually. Isn't this yours, madam?" The man was in his mid twenties wearing a very expensive looking leather jacket, and a thick, plain white scarf around his neck. "Oh, uhm.. Thank you." She said as she tied the shawl around her head. She looked at the man. He was unsmiling, handsome, standing tall and broad; totally sure of himself. The merchant mumbled as he stepped back into his makeshift shop. She gave a half smile to herself, and turned around again to the courteous man.
He was gone.
She looked at her watch as she took the last bite from her fifth apple today. She was unconsciously obsessed with the ancient concept that Eve figured out the secret of Godhood by taking a bite from the apple. She took off her glasses and placed them next to a big old book, written completely in Old Latin. The title was as dull as the book: "The Archer".
She closed the book and picked up her sketch of that sword. That sword she couldn't stop dreaming about. She stared at it again for the hundredth time, admiring its perfection. "I have the other eleven tokens accounted for… Except for you. Where can you be?"
She stared at it, as if waiting for a reply.
A book fell on the ground with a loud thump that almost made her jump. She turned around to the source of the noise and looked at the one or two remaining people in the library. One of the lights went off, signaling the closure of the university library, and the last remaining people stood up and packed their things. She didn't like this. She sensed she was being watched... And she was never wrong.
"Professor Nur, it is closing time!" The ailing librarian smiled. Not really saying that because she didn't know, but because he wanted to sneak a look at her gorgeous body; whenever he looked at her his heart would beat fast and strong from admiring her beauty, and he felt that it was what kept him alive for the past ten years.
She answered back: "Thank you Ahmed. I'll be right out." Ahmed walked back to the counter and closed the large Old Turkish Philosophy book he had been reading for the past 2 years. He frowned as he thought to himself: "Hmmm... I've known Dr. Meryam Nuruddin for the past 8 years that I've worked here. I could swear that she's looked the same as she did the first day I met her… Must be the chemicals in all those beauty products that the damn Americans send us." Ahmed concluded.
She walked in her usual long
strides across the alley. It was eleven at night,
people were still out in the cafes, smoking hookahs with flavored tobacco and
playing cards. But that didn't make her less paranoid. Her eyes widened as she
unmistakably heard the steady, cautious footsteps behind her.
She was being followed.
Her steps became faster, and
so did the ones behind her.
She was approaching an old
abandoned building which she used to escape to for drawing images of her past.
She ran inside and took cover behind a large crate. She strained to see the
shadow that followed her right into the building but all she could make out was
spiky uncombed hair and a tall strong figure. She followed him with her sights,
careful to keep every sense concentrated on the man.
"Go away." her
voice echoed, "I've warned you."
The figure stopped.
She jumped back and screamed
as a cat darted out of the crate (his sleeping spot) and walked away annoyed. She
stopped to catch her breath, and then looked back up to see that the stranger
had disappeared. She slowly stood up. Trying to feel anything in the air that
might give away the direction he had gone.
"Looking for me?"
A familiar voice behind her asked.
Her reflexes made her do a
backwards flip, then she raised the palm of her hand
towards the shadow, and calmly called out: "Five of Swords"
The space in front of her
hand lit with a bright blue rectangle about as big as her, and it formed into
the image of a Tarot card. The card appeared to turn into a 3D Hologram, and
the five swords emblazoned in the image suddenly came to life, formed together
in a group and darted towards the shadow.
The man raised one finger
towards the rain of swords. Suddenly the sortie converged into a whirlpool in
the air and collapsed into a single point on the man's finger.
Dr. Nuruddin
was looking at this in SHEER bewilderment. "Impossible! NO ONE can do
that!" she screamed.
"Seven of Wands!"
she exclaimed. And the entire room shone with a blinding light emanating from
seven rods floating around her. "Answer me! Who ARE You?" "You
cannot blind what's seen the divine light." the man said, full of an aura
of mystery.
The light dimmed and,
instead, a light shone on the mysterious figure, which was none other than the
man who found her shawl earlier today. She was confused.
"The
divine light? Are you..."
