On the origins of Evil
Some notes on Destiny
"So they proceeded until they met a boy, and [Khidr] killed him. [Musa] said, 'Have you killed a pure soul who had killed no one? Truly you have done a deplorable thing!'” — Quran, 18:74
“Are you sure?”
“It’s him.”
“Are you sure?!”
“It’s him.”
I am reeling, dizzy. He’s just a little boy. 5, maybe, playing in the late afternoon sun. Internalising reality with wide open eyes. He’s giggling, jubilant under the loving gaze of his young parents, doting at a distance.
I look to my companion, see none of my pity reflected in her face, she’s all conviction and tension instead. Fire in those hazel eyes.
I sigh, “OK, what now?”
She says without hesitation, “We must act. At once. Look for a clean shot. We will not get a chance in the future.” and then lifts her black veil and backs away into the shadows, noiseless.
I’ve never killed a child before.
He’s small, a little plump, with reddish pink skin, coarse and curly hair, playing in the grass in the distance. I circle from a distance, looking for an appropriate vantage point. How can she know for certain?
He’s just a giggling little boy. He hasn’t done anything to deserve this.
I’m told he will, though, that he bears the Harbinger’s Mark, that in the years to come, our society, already crumbling and on the brink, will disintegrate with the weight of his wrath, his disingenuity, his deceit. I’m told he will work “miracles”, wage war on the weak hearts of men, enshroud al Haqq in darkness.
I know the stories. They just haven’t happened yet. What good is it to hurt somebody predicated on tentative, subjective interpretation of a premonition dating back millennia?
How can we even know it’s true, the Prophecy? My comrades point to the Signs, but there have always been signs, for as long as there’s been a Prophecy. My taqwa is fragile enough as it is.
I’ve never shied from wetwork, but there’s something primitively, universally abhorrent about harm to children. I think about all the incarcerated pedophiles shivved by rapists and murderers, half out of a desire for redemption, half out of sheer, overwhelming disgust.
In a way, it’s heartening. It demonstrates that even in man’s abasement, he harbours a desire to maintain innocence in the world.
For a moment, my disgust reassures me that I’m not foregone. Atleast some of God’s light continues to flicker in my breast.
I consider the paradox of attempting to subvert Qismat. How can this little boy grow into the architect of the Malhama he’s meant to if I destroy him now? Surely, she knows that, isn’t stupid, and sent me here anyway.
I shrug, it doesn’t matter. I’m just the gun. Wiser than me have decreed his demise.
I pull my hood over my head, I’ve found the right nest: behind the watertank on the roof of a low building. It’s closeby, this should be an easy job, even if only mechanically speaking. I hurry, maintaining line-of-sight to the little target rolling around in the grass. Enter the building, stairs three at a time, careful not to drop the bag with the gun.
I get to the roof, and see the moon rising gently over the horizon.
The child continues to roll around in glee, blowing bubbles of spittle a few metres from his watchful mother. There are a few other people walking around. Constant wind 2m/s to the west, not that it matters at 300 yards.
No time to waste, crouch, run to the watertank. I glance around for possible witnesses, pull out the sniper rifle, start to set it up.
“I’m in position.”
”Do you have line-of-sight?”
”Affirmative.”
”Witnesses?”
”Negative.”
”Engage target.”
I have him in my cross-hairs. He’s not very stable or still, but few targets ever are. I narrow my eyes, finger on the trigger.
Hesitation. How can they be sure? He’s just a little kid. I’ve read the histories (I’m an assassin, not a savage), and even I can see he doesn’t bear any of the hallmarks of the evil foretold. What if they’re wrong? Can I really do this? Have I sunk so low?
He grows still, sits up, head perfectly in the crosshairs, looking pensive, strangely calm.
And then he looks at me, ominously.
This is impossible. I couldn’t possibly be in view, and even if I was, how could he possibly know what I meant to him?
And yet, he sits, perfectly poised on the grass, and looks straight at me, making eye contact through my scope, as if he sees into me. This is insane.
I pause, strangely mesmerised. How could I possibly hurt him? Is this a Sign?
“What are you doing? Take the shot!”
But my finger is frozen on the trigger, I’m looking straight into the little boy’s green eyes.
And the little boy suddenly grins, raises his left hand and points right at me.
And without taking my eyes off his, I see peripherally his mother look up without seeing me, feeling something amiss and rushing in to grab her son.
She starts to lifts him, starts walking to the tree-line beyond line-of-sight.
I’m transfixed, still holding eye-contact with the little boy in his mother’s arms, frozen.
I can’t do it. I don’t know why. Maybe because he’s a little boy? Maybe it’s me? Maybe it’s his eyes?
And then as she approaches the treeline, the little boy suddenly stops grinning and breaks eye contact, and I wake up at once.
“…hell are you doing?! Take the shot! Take the shot! Take the damned shot, in the name of God and all that is Holy!”, I hear her voice scream, hoarse, in my ears.
I don’t know what happened, my window of opportunity is nearly up. I blink twice, aim once again for the boy’s head at his mother’s breast, and fire at once.
I miss.
Well, not quite. Just as I fire, the little boy turns his head to look at me once again, smiling, and my bullet grazes the right side of his face, shredding his eye in a small sputter of blood and lodges itself in his mother’s chest in a large sputter of blood.
Pandemonium breaks loose, people screaming, running all over. The father runs to grab the child crying atop his slain mother’s body behind the treeline. I don’t have a clear shot any more.
“Keep shooting! He cannot leave alive!”
The father is beside himself, in shock, holding the boy in one arm and his wife in the other, dragging them along the ground for cover. I realise it doesn’t matter if I have to slaughter the whole family, I cannot fail.
I grunt and continue hammering away at the treeline like the vengeance of God Himself.
The father falls in the chaos, chest exploding in a crimson shower drenching his one-eyed little boy.
The little boy is strangely calm, has a bloody hand gripped over his bloody face, and as if he’s always expected this, swiftly backs away to the shadows, lost to posterity.
I’m breathing heavy. I’ve failed. But even more, I realise with horror that I’ve succeeded. The man with one eye will return.
And as I sit there, dumbfounded, I see for the first time my purpose in God’s Plan. I’m here to kick it all off. The Prophecy is true. She was right all along.
And with a nervous horror that sinks in my stomach like a stone, I chuckle and recognise the folly of thinking one could possibly subvert destiny.
No.
Destiny subverts you.
"So we intended that their Lord should replace him with one better in purity and nearer to mercy." — Quran 18:81
This is so good. Thank you for sharing.
Very good story Sidi. Thanks for writing! Have you got a novel or a short story collection in the works?