By Fathi Afifi
I want my son, he said. Bring me my son.
He looked up, but no one was around to hear him. The dim lights overhead flickered, casting sporadic shadows in the already-murky subway station underground. The long low benches, their original wooden seats darkened by grime and polished with use, were empty save for a few men further down the tunnel of the station.
My son, the man repeated in a whisper. Where have they taken him?
Again, no answer. But this time the four men turned to look his way. They turned as one, their eyes appearing dark and hallowed in the gray-white light—almost like empty sockets, but the man didn’t want to think of that. He looked away from them and pushed the thought out of his mind.
In a moment they had reached him. He felt them surrounding him. He looked up.
You mustn’t mention your son, the men told him gently. This is the second-to-last stop before the last stop. We’ve already got both feet in the underworld, in the underground. If they hear you complaining, the train will come faster, and you will be taken away. You would do best to remain quiet. You’ll stay longer here.
They’ve taken my son, the man tried to explain. He was in the train before me. But I was sicker than he. He was vulnerable because he was smaller, lighter, and they wrapped him in their arms and took him away.
He might return, the men said. The train runs both ways. The further in you go, the less likely it is that you will come back. But he might. He just might. Have courage. And be strong, or you’ll go too.
I wish, the man said, and he felt himself crying, but it didn’t matter anymore that strangers saw his tears. He let them fall, feeling a release, as if the liquid melted invisible chains that fettered his body to this bench. I hope they come to get me. To take me to him.
It doesn’t always work that way, the men said, and one of them—the youngest—shook his head with frustration. But it just might, he added then. He didn’t like to see tears. It just might.
A train whistled wailed through the station. For a moment they looked around, disoriented, unsure from which direction the light came.
"Angreek87"
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