Binyameen Read online

  *****

  They say sleep is king…

  But its reign vanishes when met with kids’ rowdiness and adults’ worry… for that reason it had surrendered this night to Jumana and Sawsan. Sawsan who had never neglected Jumana’s sleep time, sat absent minded on the bed’s edge after Eyad left, while Jumana kept jumping around her in disbelief that her mother had not ordered her to bed, in fact she was surprised when her mother hugged her while still absent minded and kissed her on her forehead, she carried her as if afraid someone was going to snatch her from her arms, and went down to the hotel lobby.

  She sat on a chair facing the hotel entrance where her eyes froze as she totally disconnected from the rest of the world while Jumana continued playing with alone and enjoying the midnight moments that she had never lived through in her life.

  Sawsan’s brain cells were digging through her memories with Hawjan, and stopped at the last discussion between them, she remembered every letter, she remembered that night when she was avidly watching YouTube videos, specifically the one where a prominent scientist talks in detail about the theory of the eleven intertwined dimensions, she did not know that Hawjan was watching beside her, and the amazement, as he realized that everything he was saying applied exactly and logically to what was happening to them in the Jinn and Human dimensions. Hawjan was sitting on Sawsan’s bed, and she awoken him from his drift when she shouted:

  “Hawjan? Hawjan are you there?!”

  She was able to feel him when he was in the room, the bond that connected their souls did not care about the dimensions that separated Humans and jinn, Sawsan opened the editor on her iPad as she uttered that question and brought her fingers near the keyboard, Hawjan laid his hand atop of hers and answered in typing:

  “The stuff this guy is saying explain everything!”

  “I could not make head of tails!”

  “I had always wondered why influence flowed between our universes in one direction only?! And why everything from your material world affects our world but the oppose was not true?”

  “OK Mr. Stephen Hawking can you please explain it to me in layman terms?”

  “Tell me Sawsan, what do you now see in your room?”

  “I can see everything! The bed, cupboards, desk, window, flowers, sky, clouds…”

  “Is that all you see?”

  “And I can see a cute Jinni sitting beside me!”

  “Oh really! No honestly… look to your left on the bed, did you notice anything?”

  Sawsan was looking directly at him but she can see right through him, so did her hands when she felt the bed next to her… she started patting his softly as she said:

  “So, you are here now? Am I slamming into you now?”

  “Your hand and fingers passed through my face, I felt them as a breeze of compressed air, I saw your veins and blood as your hand passed through my eye!”

  “How exciting… tell me; what did you understand from the video?”

  “I am now passing my hand over your face… It feels like cotton, but my hand can’t pass through the iPad, it feels solid, we can pass through gas, liquids and semi solids of your world, but the higher the object’s density the harder it is for us to pass through!”

  “So, if I closed the door you can’t get out?”

  “I told you I was trapped in your room several times!”

  Sawsan rushed to the door and closed it then closed the window and jumped back on the bed saying in childish gaily:

  “Show me how you will escape now Mr. Efreet!”

  “Had I been an Efreet I could have touched you and you touch me! Efreets can materialize in your world!”

  “ohh really? You mean that if you were an Efreet you can pick me up and take me to the jinn world?”

  “I wish!”

  “Really Hawjan?”

  Her tone sent a shiver down his spine, I felt that he had taken it a bit too far, he felt that she truly wanted to escape with him even if that meant leaving her world and living amongst Efreets! So he tried to change the subject:

  “But things do not work the other way around, objects, matter, light and sound in your world affect ours, but nothing in ours reach yours, because of its high frequency! Jinn for example are terrified of interacting with humans, so many jinn have been injured or even died amongst you, that is why we always avoid your cities even if that forced us… to fly over you!”

  “Hawjan, you can fly?!”

  “Gravity has a much weaker affect over us… my uncles used to fly all the way to Fajaj”

  “In Arabic please!”

  “Fajaj is a term we use to describe a specific point on the edges of the atmosphere, there are specific pools around earth at about a hundred kilometers altitude, where magnetic lines cross opening portals to higher dementias”

  “But why did your uncles fly to fajaj and those portals?”

  “Profit, dealing with witches is the easiest way for profit, especially for jinn who possess abilities like my uncles, despite all of its risks… such magnetic fields can swallow a jinni and entrap him in those higher dimensions… one of my uncles vanished in a fajaj, he was working for a witch in Ethiopia”

  Hawjan noticed terror lines cracking through her face, so he quickly amended the situation:

  “Sawsan, my father was a devilish marid, but had since repented when he fell in love with my mother and decided to leave his family and took us to live far away from them”

  “Your father had the ability to affect our world?”

  “We are from the Fayhee family… descendants of the jinn who had server king Solomon, most of those blood lines mixed with the rest of the jinn population and lost their abilities over time, very few still had them… of those was my father may God rest his soul”

  “What about you Hawjan? Did you not inherit such powers?”

  “I don’t think so”

  “You mean there is no hope that I can ever see you or touch you?”

  “I don’t know Sawsan… The only way we can do that is if I…”

  “If you what Hawjan?”

  “I must serve the marids and go to the damned”

  “The damned?!”

  “The king of devils!”

  “Oh no… heaven forbid!”

  “The damned is not as you picture him… The Damned is a head of several alliances of marids and devils around the world, trust me he is just like any dictator in your world, in fact as far as you are concerned, they are way more dangerous and harmful the he is! In reality the damned and his devils can’t really harm any human, unless that human allowed them to meddle in his life…”

  “So Lucifer and his kingdoms of devils can’t do anything to me?”

  “Of course, they can’t, if Lucifer and his devils can harm humans directly they would have spared nothing! Jinn population is almost ten times that of humans, most of them part of the devils’ kingdoms, yet you never heard of a human beaten by a gang of devils or even killed! On the contrary jinn fear you way more than you fear them, because your danger and affect on them is real”

  “I heard that he is at the Bermuda triangle, is that true?”

  “What is the Bermuda triangle?”

  “A place at sea near America”

  “I do recall that when I visited him with my father and uncles, we crossed the ocean”

  “You visited him?”

  “I went once with my father before things between him and my uncles got tens… I was still a teenager in my thirties”

  “That explains why all those planes and ships go missing there!”

  “The only way for them to affect your material world is by opening a gateway between the two worlds, but they can only open it for a limited time and for specific purposes to avoid attention, to this moment they are trying to open a stable gateway that can allow normal jinn to pass to your world easily, they succeeded in moving ships and planes but most jinn and humans who had tried to pass between the two worlds died within seconds, only king Solomon wa
s able to keep the gateways between the two worlds open; and ever since his death most of the books and science detailing the process vanished, limiting the movement between our worlds to marids and Efreets and a very few humans who did not die in that process”

  “If I were to come to your world I would die?”

  “Don’t say that Sawsan!”

  “You fear for my safety?”

  “Sure I do!”

  “How much?”

  “To the extent that I wish I was the one with cancer instead of you… and if I could I would sacrifice myself to save you”

  “Don’t say that my love”

  She said it spontaneously and instinctively… they both became to shy to talk… until she said:

  “Hawjan…”

  “Yes Sawsan…”

  “Hawjan, do you love me?”

  This specific question is like a bullet if asked by a girl, it must hit an answer within fractions of a second, before the silence slams into her heart and shatters it… but she had truly reined him… so she continued in an effort to gather her shattered pride:

  “How could you love someone from our lower dimension… and her age is barely a quarter of yours and…”

  “I love you!”

  Red blood rushed to her cheeks covering their pink hue, and she twisted a curl of hair between her pointer and thumb as she bit the edge of her lips as she did whenever she was shy, that shyness exploded when Hawjan repeated:

  “I love you… I love you… I love you Sawsan! I swear to God I love you!”

  “Enough Hawjan! You will bark my iPad!”

  “By the way, I utter every word I type on the iPad… but you can never hear me event if I shouted”

  “You are so lucky, you can hear me and hear yourself, I only hear me talking to myself like a crazy person!”

  “Oh sure, spending an hour chatting with a jinni makes you seem very sane!”

  “Are you mocking me?! I will show you!”

  As she said that she pulled one of her pillows and started waving it in the air and slamming it on the bed where he sat, actually where he was sitting as he floated above the bed to watch her and enjoy her innocent laughter…

  “Sawsan… Sawsan? Sawsan!”

  Maram shook Sawsan’s shoulders to force her out of her daydream, Sawsan responded with an empty look as Maram continued:

  “Do you want to drive me mad? I was worried about you! I called your cell phone, your room tens of times and no one answered, and when I gave up, I came down hoping to find you here”

  Sawsan did not utter a word, as she was not in our world, Maram sat next to her and tried to calm her tension:

  “Sawsan, what is worrying you? Because you are about to meet Hawjan? Aren’t you supposed to be happy? Finally, you will overcome the confusion of all those years and know everything!”

  Sawsan responded from the depth of her absence while they both kept their eyes focused on the Hotel’s entrance:

  “I wish I never listened to you Maram! I can’t hold it together… my heart is about to stop!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, I am the one who should be terrified! You are used to jinn, but I will meet a jinni for the first time today… As much as I am excited, I am terrified to death! Between you and I, I am starting to wish that everything you said was actually an illusion, and that I to am schizophrenic imagining that I am about to drink coffee with a jinni in the Marriot’s lobby!”

  Movement at the hotel’s lobby was minimal at this late hour, only the security guard and receptionists and a few tenants returning from their late nights in Paris. And suddenly time stopped… stopped in respect for the moment of souls meeting, forcing science over everything, even breaths and whispers.

  The escalator connecting the entrance to the lobby escorted that moment, as a man in the late thirties appeared, he had the handsomeness of the Mediterranean with his bronzesh features, sharp edges, tight muscles and extended height; in his arms was a beauty in her twenties, one look at her would send all Hispanic ladies into a state of permanent despair.

  They were dressed in outfits that impressed everyone in the lobby, as if the sultan of Frensh couture Christian Dior and his Oran assistant Yves Saint Laurent had risen from their slumber just to tailor that elegant black suit and the dark red velvet dress. Sawsan felt her heart totally paralyzed, and her shock was elevated when a boy appeared behind them and ran towards them yelling:

  “Jumana! Shalamlik Jumana Shalamlik!”

  Jumana turned and ran towards him answering his Syriac Fayhee greeting:

  “Shalamlik Elyaseen! Shalamlik!”

  Paralysis spread to Sawsan’s entire body, she tried to stand… leaned on the edge of her seat… but the numbness stole her balance and she almost fell before Maram rushed to support her as she observed that man and his wife as they walked towards them.

  *****

  Despite Eyad’s lavish lifestyle and Husam spending a few days in heaven, they were utterly impressed by the private jet, only the windows reminded them that they were in a plane not a VIP reception hall in some presidential palace. Comfortable gigantic moving leather seats for each of them, set in a crescent shape around a meeting table and a screen that covered most of the wall separating them from the cockpit, the first few hours passed quickly in intense discussions regarding how they can best take advantage of this amazing cinematic opportunity, Eyad was the most excited:

  “A billion dollars! I expect the box office sales would exceed a billion dollars!”

  Binyameen smiled as he said:

  “A billion dollars? Only? Is that the ceiling of your ambition?!”

  “If we are talking about my personal ambitions, I don’t think any thing short of shattering all box office sales in history would satisfy it!”

  Binyameen had a mocking smile on his face as he pulled out a hundred dollar bill and started a stare contest with Benjamin Franklin’s image that reflected on his dark glasses… suddenly Binyameen ripped Benjamin’s face in half as he shredded the bill into small pieces his smile got wider and turned into a slight laughed while he piled it in his palm then blew causing a monetary storm in everyone’s faces. He cut through their astonishment with a mocking statement:

  “The Dollar… is that all you care about…”

  Eyad responded in objection:

  “Who does not care about the Dollar? Idealism has no place outside books and myths, but reality only acknowledges the banknote my friend!”

  “I have shredded a paper! Just a piece of paper, worthless save for Benjamin Franklin’s picture, the inventor, musician, writer and diplomat, how did the world reword his brilliance? By putting his picture on the worst crime in human history!”

  Hussam finally calmly intervened:

  “Do you want to convince us that you did not call us to close a large material contract?”

  “Elyana… fetch me my checkbook please”

  Elyana jumped on her feat and fetched the checkbook and a pen from Binyameen’s bag and handed them to him, he wrote a number on the check and handed it over to Husam:

  “Here you go, a check for a billion dollars… write anyone’s name on it”

  Husam grabbed the check and shredded it the same way Binyameen shredded the bill:

  “I would like to let you know that I am the most asceticism person on earth!”

  “The least I would expect from someone who had visited heaven is to shred everything in this life and throw its pieces up in the air”

  Eyad objectionably commented on their discussion:

  “I do hope that you understand that I am not the materialistic amongst you, my father is a billionaire, and money means nothing more to me than it does to you, but it is the love of challenge and achievement! And what do you mean by the worst crime in human history?! And what exactly is it that you want from us?!”

  Binyameen pulled a gold coin from his pocket and started toying with it as he said:

  “OK… I guess it is time to discuss our real proje
ct!”

  Husam and Eyad gazed upon that strange coin, etched on it were wings surrounding earth and the number one and on its circumference were the words (GLOBAL POUND), Binyameen went on:

  “We my friends are living in an intricate illusion, a devilish plot that started a thousand years ago, and spread secretly amongst humans till it controlled the world we live in”

  Eyad stopped him in a mocking tone:

  “I think you are obsessed with global conspiracy theories, the Freemasons and the Illuminati and …”

  Husam who appeared much more interested in what Binyameen was saying intervened:

  “Eyad I think what he is saying is way passed the theories you mentioned”

  Binyameen continued as if he did not hear any of what they said:

  “Mr. Eyad, can you tell me what your father’s billions mean? They are but numbers you entrust to banks, aren’t they? You trust the numbers the banks show you and the exchange rates, what if the dollar price went down, or the Riyal or and currency your wealth is accumulated in, say by half, or tenth or zero… what would remain of that wealth? Why did the civilizations of earth who had never stopped fighting each other all agree on one thing: The global financial system? And who owns that system? Who controls all the global banks? Who can bring your father’s wealth down to zero with a press of a button?”

  “The Knights Templar”

  Said Husam as he gazed out of the window, Eyad responded:

  “Even you believe in conspiracy theories? Listen, I have watched and read a decent amount of movies and books, and know Dan Brown’s novels by heart, I can’t deny that it mentions some facts but it goes out of its way and exaggerate to connect those facts in a way that shows the world as a toy in the hands of a gang that controls everything”

  Binyameen went on:

  “It is true that they did start as a gang, appointed by the crusaders a thousand years ago as protectors of mount Zion and the temple of Solomon, but they had dug up the land and excavated Solomon’s most valuable treasure: what remained of the manuscripts! And when Saladin controlled the holly land they returned to Europe and used the knowledge they found to tighten their grip on its financial resources, allowing them to influence both religious and political authorities… They established then the new financial order where they substituted the real value of money with credit… “Trust” was given by their well and control of ledgers and numbers. It is a simple equation really: Control the currency and you control everything!”