Maidah

Running running running. Panting barely breathing. the monster at his heels. Shahnama had been given a grand name by his young and idealistic parents, his father illiterate, but his mother had recalled some poetry she had loved from her urdu class in middle school before she had been pulled out to marry her cousin and live a respectable life taking her place in the family. He heard a gutteral sound screaming amiii bachao, and he realized it was his own voice. Even as he ran he thought of the foolishness. 

She's dead. Why am I calling her. 

He never cried. Not when his father had dumped him and his brother at the shop as an apprentice. Not in all those nights of cold and hunger. Not even when his brother had died from the rapes and the beatings. Never. He stepped on some sharp rocks in the oasis, but didn't notice till his foot buckled. He was only 12, but he knew enough to know he would die if he didn't run. Just like Nuwan. His legs gave out just as he cleared the green foliage into the desert sand bleached white. All his life he had been told to go into the desert alone was death. That pause was enough for the monster to catch up to him.

Brown chaddar swinging, the monster was panting as well, his face glistening with sweat under the turban covering his head. His dhoti had been hurridly redone, since he had unfastened it when he had cornered Shahnama. The AK47 swung casually on his back, he hadn't bothered using it for the boy. He picked up Shahnama by the scruff of the neck, only to cuff him so hard on the head that the boy tumbled over the sand to the bottom of the dune. 

man qatala nafsam...

The voice startled them both. Shahnama dazed, jerked at the new voice, glassy eyed with terror and pain, looking up at the top of the dune. The monster's hands twitched to his gun briefly, but looking at the decrepit old man he relaxed. He turned to give his full attention, the boy a lesser priority. 

The stick dug into the desert sand as the Dasyu leaned his weight into it to get up. All living things had sought shelter in the burning heat, but he stood barefoot, a lifetime of living holding up his bones.

"Baba, tussi to bathay he raho, gir na jawan" (Hey old man, just keep sitting you may fall down) the monster laughed.

"insaanit hzaren salan khan hte rahe aahe، ۽ hzaren saala wadheeka rhinade. para jang ۽ jhidro abde lage tho" Humaniy has lived here for a thousand years, and will live here for a thousand more. but war and strife seem to be eternal 
The wind blew as it always did, sucking the coolness of oasis to the greedy desert, tugging at Dasyu's simple robes and long white beard.

"Jang! main jang larya si, ithay tau bus thora khail si. Tu bathay hi raho, main ni chanda kay tussi kuch ho jaya. Ai tu bus a etem si"  (War! I'm not fighting a war, just having fun. Keep sitting, I don't want anything to happen to you. This is just an etem/orphan)

"Fa am mal yateema fala taqhar" Dasyu may have seemed old, but he had walked the sands every day. His stick lashed out faster than the monster could see, clipping the throat.

The monster fell to his knees, clutching his throat trying to scream, eyes popping. Almost comically, his dhoti fell apart around his ankles. 

One more flick of the stick clipping the side of his head, and the monster tumbled down the dune, eyes staring unseeing, unceremoniously naked from the waist down, at Shahnama's feet.

Shahnama had seen death. Too much death. It had always come with the coppery stench of blood in the dark. His beloved mother, pale bloated lying in child birth and black blood, arms limp fallen sideways to the floor. His brother, frail, too skinny, curled up next to him cold and stiff on the charpai in the morning, blood and bruises congealed all over this little body. Yateem, the 5 year old orphan, coughing from pnemonia into his blood soaked hanky, finally succumbing somewhere in the night in the dormitory. 

But this. This was different. The blinding sun, the dusty white sand coating everything, the monster was just... a fat brown man with a small flaccid penis, neck at a funny angle, life winked out in seconds. 

He gaped up the dune as Dasyu, who stood looking out into the horizon unperturbed.

"wa laa tamootunna illaa wa antum muslimoon" the old man said, using his stick again to release a deluge of sand from the top of the dune sliding down to Shahnama who had to scramble out of the way. 

"hina khe etem chhade diyo" (leave him orphan) Dasyu said, addressing Shahnama for the first time.

Shahnama's brain hadn't quite caught up. looking at the half buried body, looking up at Dasyu, he just stood mouth agape.

"pahinje zindagi gzar" (go live your life) Dasya once again gently prodded Shahnama with his voice, breaking the spell. 

Shahnama blinked twice, gathered his wits, and then ran ran ran, this time steps not haunted by a monster, but light and airy as if he was stepping on clouds. 

Onward to his lifetime of living.