Shadows in the Desert

As the sun was setting down, it was shining on the isolated Al-Qaryah village with its desert in the Middle East. Besides being a long time settlement, the village had high-rise mud-brick and stone buildings and narrow pathways that twisted, and twirled in a way similar to a maze. Even though many other towns, cities, and nations had developed over the years, the elder members of the community were rooted in history and cultural traditions and were convinced that such foreign cultures could not take root in Al-Qaryah.

But, on a fateful day, their tranquility was thrown into chaos.

Layla, who was a girl of about twenty, had been living in Al-Qaryah all her life and was known as a very kind person who was always helping her neighbors as well as taking care of her aged parents. Being a beautiful girl with long black hair and bright, intelligent eyes was the prime topic of the town. But behind this beautiful face, Layla was concealing a secret.

Six months long, Layla had been receiving letters, they were awful and blunt. Unknown by name, the writers of those notes had been slipping them under the door of Layla's parents' house at night. At the outset, Layla thought that they were children playing games, however, the content of the pieces turned out to be all the more insistent and alarming. The notes were, however,roguishly threatening her to abandon her company with the village elder's son, Omar, with whom she was seen talking. The warnings were included in the letters as saying that she was not allowed to get acquainted with a person of Omar's stature, someone who was thus destined to be the leader of the village someday.

Layla, in her striving to downplay the fear, went further thus practically making herself anxious. She started to think that someone was watching her even during daylight hours. People whom she met on her way when she was warm-heartedly welcomed, suddenly turned the other way. There were whispers behind her back, and she sensed herself gradually growing apart from a community she had always belonged to thus creating an unseen barrier between her and that community.

On a fateful night, Layla heard a knock at her door. The hour was late, and her parents were already asleep in bed. She was hesitant and felt her heart's pounding deeper. The knock came again, this time louder than before. Overcoming the sense of foreboding, she pulled the door open.

It was Omar standing there with a panicked expression on his face and fear in his eyes. He was sweating heavily as if he just got out from running. "Layla, you must come with me," he urged in a low voice. "You are not safe."

Layla felt a chill run through her body. She desired to trust him, but the question haunted her, "What is really going on?" she inquired, her voice betraying her insecurities.

Omar caught her hand, yanking her away outside. "There isn't any time for explanations! We have to leave the village at once," he said.

As they made their way through the narrow passages, Layla felt the eeriness of the village on that night where everything seemed silence-struck. The usual ambiance of the life- children would usually be heard playing, animals would usually be heard roaring, and the murmur of people would fill the air- was nowhere. The streets looked desolate, and the quietness was unbearable.

They got to the town's border, and the way to the desert stretched away in a way that the unending night seemed to swallow everything. Omar paused, then he turned to her with a tense face. "Layla, I tried to guard you up to this point, but the power in the village is in the hands of people I do not unclearly comprehend. "

Layla felt that her blood had gone cold. "What do you mean?" she asked, agitated.

Before Omar could respond, a group of men came out of the dark and surrounded them like a wall of protection. They were all wearing the same traditional upper garment, and their faces were covered with scarves. Layla could identify some of them as the town members-men she had known for her entire life.

One of the men moved ahead, pulling down his scarf to show the face of the village elder, Omar's father. His eyes were firm and held the coldness and calculating anger of a predator. "Layla," he said, his voice was thick with scorn. "You have brought disgrace upon this village. There isn't any Usable place for you here."

Omar attempted to be sheiclding her but the elder caught him, pushing him aside with a strength that belied his age. "You were cautioned, Layla," he said, he started on a graver note. "You were given snothing to stop, but you didn't do it and now you must suffer for it."

Layla felt weak in her knees, her anxiety transformed into terror. "I don't know what you mean," she murmured, her voice was almost a whisper.

The elder's eyes narrowed down. "You did not uphold the customs of this village. You falsely white my son, and consequently, the only reasonable punishment for this is death."

Before Layla could react, one of the men came up from her back, to usurp a clean hand on her mouth. She kicked out but there was no way for her to get out. The elder nodded to the others and they started to pull her towards the desert.

Omar did his best to stop it, but his father left no choice for him other than being left on the ground. "You are no more a child, Omar," the elder said coldly. "This is how it must be."

Layla was taken through the sand, a situation that made it seem like the men were carrying her almost without her own feet in contact with the ground. She wanted to yell out, nevertheless, this sound was actual a voiceless attempt for help due to the hand on her mouth. She wept whilst those tears, which she thought were for the priestess, gave way for the bitter thoughts of what was about to occur in her mind.

They came to a place that was a long way off the village, a place where the desert shallows the village, fire and a sound. The men dumped her on the ground, and the elder came forward with a long, curved knife that scintillated in the moonlight- the very tool by which he would kill her.

"May your soul find peace in the afterlife," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.

The knife sliced down.

---

As dawn broke in the village of Al-Qaryah, the patterns of daily life resumed uninterrupted. The sun's first rays over the desert produced long shadows on the sand. The villagers slid seamlessly into their tasks as if nothing had ever happened, as if Layla had never existed.

But she lingered in memory, a ghost that would not easily leave the village. Her parents were told that she had approached her house and left it in shame after experiencing a sense of guilt. Omar, on the other hand, was tashed, becoming a mere shadow of the boy he once was.

In the inclement weather, the fresh blood in the spot where Layla’s body lay was a silent witness in the place of the wind where the whispers of the time were. She would never be brought up in conversation again, and her name would fall off the radar, victim to terror and ritual.

But even while dust was blowing across the expanse of the desert, it would never forget, and the village of Al-Qaryah would never be like before.

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