What Brother Ismael Forgets

   Four spoons     four plates     four cups     on the mat. 

No one’s coming.

It's half past seven. Br. Ismael stood on his balcony and observed the sun set behind the brown-roofed houses in silence. A faint spring scent of petrichor, narcissus gardens and daffodils surrounded him. The streets of Kew Gardens were smooth without any bumps, all white lane markings neatly painted.  The recycling bins stood erect at each corner. 

He glanced at Mr. Compson rushing home, his silver hair drowning from sweat and his tie loose. 

“Oh, there's Mr. Compson again struggling to open his house door….It’s about time someone robbed him already,” Br. Ismael thought, his hands folded on the sturdy and smoothly carved rail. He felt safe up here. 

Mr. Compson, aggravated, kicked the narcissus flowered pot (for the fifteenth time already) and picked up his briefcase from the ground. He left the scene. Br. Ismael could not contain his laughter at this sight, even though it was not his first time seeing this. 

The sun, unamused, crept slightly under the trees.

He looked at his watch. No one’s coming. His eyes searched for any familiar faces in the street. He spotted Mr. Gong at the front door of his Black Bean Restaurant, his hands dancing in the wind, shouting in Korean, “du paboya, yeogiwa.”

Though he did not understand anything, he enjoyed Gong’s reaction. Apparently, Gong was annoyed because the delivery boy had been running late with the deliveries. As Mr. Gong reached for the boy’s collar, the delivery boy tripped on his cycle, dragging Mr. Gong down with him. Again, Br. Ismael released an evil guffaw, for he wanted to laugh at anything...about anything... anything so that he won’t remember how no one’s coming.

Br. Ismael grew fond of this delivery boy: stout and frail, beard short from a goatee, pecan skin and droopy turtle eyes. “This kid should ROB Mr. Compson's house already,” he chuckled.

 He stared at the delivery boy as he got back on his feet without offering to help Mr. Gong off the floor.

“Why, isn't he the perfect guy for my daughter Laila,” Brother Ismael pondered, “I'll need to ask his age...and maybe invite him or let my daughter glance from afar.  Now… where would she be now?” He took out his phone and called her.

This phone number is not in dial, Please….

Tap! Tap! Tap! Ismael ended the call. He was afraid to call again.

No one’s coming. No one’s coming. 

He looked at his watch. It was seven thirty two.. thirty three?

No one’s coming. No one’s coming.

He heard a siren go off, “Oh it must be my Abdullah.” Abdullah was his son: an artist who was later forced to paint his body with smoke and cement.

Br. Ismael attempted to reach the door to let his son in, limping through excruciating pain. The veins on his left leg felt tight like twisted cloth: still soaked with ten years of blood as he walked over hundreds of mangled and charred bodies.

“Uggh,” he exclaimed. It was not the doorbell. It was his alarm, reminding him to take his medicine. He turned it off, rushed to the ledge in the living room, and re-kindled the fire on the creamy white candle. He accidentally burned the ashy white hairs on his thumb.

When was the last time you felt fire, huh?  I told you already,

no one’s coming. 

 He crossed his right leg and stretched his left near the lunch mat: the four spoons, plates and cups placed neatly on it. The flame on the candle lit the empty room. He looked at his watch again, seven forty two.. Forty three..four?

A watery fog took over his sight and a light yet burning substance slashed his cheeks vertically. He wiped it before it could reach his chin. It was just a tear. 

 By impulse, he collected the spoons, plates, and cups and returned to the balcony. He placed his left hand onto the frail? and chipped? rail. A few splinters planted itself in his fingers. A tiny dagger, you may call it. Hope it wakes you up to your senses. That no one is coming.

Placing the plates and lunch utensils on the floor of the balcony, he slightly placed his other hand. The rail, as if committing suicide, gracefully fell backwards, and was demolished itself on the now sandy yet rocky land. Br. Ismael, perplexed by the unusual view, rubbed his eyes. The watery fog that disturbed his sight earlier amplified into a cloudy mist. 

He looked for the delivery boy: no one. He looked for the flower pot that was demolished before: nowhere.

“I don’t know what..what time is it? Where am..? Where’s Abdullah and Laila? Indeed, they must be home by now..I better call them..”

But he only looked at his watch. Seven fifty.. five..six? 

He rubbed his eyes again. The watery fog was no longer due to his tears, but another substance in the air. 

He heard the words echo:

“la ilaha illa Allah!”

“la ilaha illa Allah!” 

He looked up again at the outside view. Mr. Gong was not there holding on to the boy’s collar. There were instead stiff men in beige uniforms with ballistic shields, beastly dogs, and batons. Strutting in line with one another at first, they began to grab any person in sight. 

Br. Ismael was irritated by the fact that he can no longer see the bare ground out of the balcony. Multiple shoeless feet covered the path. Hands in the air moved front and back in a tidal motion. Each had a force stronger than the one before it. Swiftly, they picked up rocks, and with no hesitation, aimed at the other side of the conflict.  He saw people coming out of Mr. Compsons (locked?) home. Was it Mr. Compson’s house? It no longer had a protective roof but laundry wires hung from one side to the other on top of the buildings. It held what seemed like a father’s socks, and a shirt similar to- “Isn’t that Laila’s blouse from last Eid?” he exclaimed in bewilderment. 

Now,  think about it. When was that “last Eid?” You see why no one is coming?

He slapped his forehead, then rubbed his eyes once again, only to see that his son’s only black suit was also hanging on the wire. 

“Baba, don’t leave yet! Let us stay!” 

“Huh? Was that Abdullah? Has he come home?” He peeked inside his home, but there was only silence. The white candle has melted and engulfed the ledge. Confused by the sudden voice of his son, he looked back outside. There, down there! There was Abdullah in between the corridor of Mr. Compson’s home, his knees bent, his arms wrapped around his father’s--

“Me, is that me?” 

          Yep, that’s you. You’re-

--shoulders, begging him to wait inside just for a while till the protests cool down a little.

“Baba, it’s too dangerous, you stay in with Mama and Laila. I’ll find a way in which we can escape.”

The father, reluctant to hear his son, dashed out with tear gases in a bag and joined the protests. His wife and children, unwilling to imagine the doom that might follow, went after him.

No one’s coming. No one’s coming. 

“HEY, ABDULLAH!! THE FOOD is running cold....” Br. Ismael’s voice echoed in the silence of his Kew Gardens home.

Br. Ismael could no longer find his family (and himself) in the midst of the chaos out there. He didn’t know what was happening, what the protest was about and how his “double” down there was loaded with tear gases. 

It’s not that you don’t know, you need to remember.

Remember that there did not exist any recycling bins at this corner, that this was not Kew Gardens he was looking at. That this was not seven fifty eight or fifty nine in the evening. 

His daughter Laila’s face reappeared, dragged out of the fog by a man with a brown uniform pulling her hijab. 

“Stop! Stop that!” Br. Ismael screamed on the balcony, moving forward only a tip away from the morbid air. He grabbed the plates in a frenzy and aimed at the uniformed man, but it only brushed on him, creating no effect on the already hectic scene. 

He was ready to jump off the balcony when he saw his double quickly run to his daughter and tried to set her loose from the uniformed man. His bag dropped and the tear gas bottles peeked out.  Instantly, some protestors with gloves took sight of it and grabbed one and opened it.

Nothing could be seen any more. Smoke trailed upwards, blurring out Br. Ismael’s view even more. Stung by its trail, he stumbled backwards into his room and coughed, gasping for just any clear air that might bring him back to his senses. Coughing and rubbing his fragile eyes, Br. Ismael sat back on the lunch mat. 

He sat there for two hours in silence.

“No one’s coming,” he said. He still had only one plate in his hand and placed it on the mat. 

                   “No one’s coming, because everyone’s dead.” 

He stared at the clear reflection on his plate. It’s nine fifty-four in the evening. An itchy feeling crawled under the flesh of his throat and swirled in circles. 

 Hesitantly, he went back to the balcony. This was Kew Gardens, the rail was smooth once again,  but the smell of petrichor was completely gone. He took his belated medicine pill and entered the bathroom to perform wudhu, an Islamic cleansing ritual before praying. Cleansing with clear water, he prayed that every stroke would cure him. He feared he might forget that Abdullah, Laila, and his wife died ten years ago in Egypt during the Arab Spring. He feared that he might forget their struggle to fight for a decent and peaceful meal. He feared that he might forget that no one will ever come tomorrow. 

That he will think,

                               They are coming.