The Chronicals of Alaraf

My Godson has the same dreams I once had when I was his age, and I could not be more proud of him.

    On account of those dreams, he became a soldier of the night, in darkness rescuing the lost and broken from collapsing structures, like a scent dog, he and his team infiltrate, remove, and transport survivors to freedom away from those whom first confined them-

    Then, he carefully restores their shattered dreams, like feathers, by re-zipping the barbs between his mother’s fingers just the way I was taught by the very same cat who taught me to care for a tariqah.

       In the redwood cabin, the man you call “Park Ranger,”  I call Uncle.

He is not tall, yet people believe him to be larger & scarier than entire nations.

    He is not loud, but people claim he is – his name rings across oceans like an ominously loud horrorshow whisper, as if saying it loudly or respectfully would summon hungry ghosts of hidden sycophants, as if he had fangs, claws, and deadly poisons hidden in every strand of his hairline at low-tide in the late autumn of his years.

     They think he screams at men.

      But instead, inside the cabin there is only books, tea, and the writing mechanisms he uses not to fight man, but to wrestle with God Himself, as human beings continue to wrong themselves.

        The Cabin is larger on the inside, but barely.  The refrigerator, however, is stocked with the most wonderful variety of cheeses to placate injured animals; and when I was 17, I was one of them.

       “Sometimes, child, it is better to be a cat than a human being,” he once said to me, before I knew his name or anything about him, as I curled on a rug in front of the most exquisite fireplace, with the most ornately wired fire-screen I ever viewed; of strange & beautiful creatures I could not name dancing or fighting, seemingly animated from within by the flames behind it.

       He had no television when I was a child, he had a black typewriter* instead of fancy word processors back then.  And a large table by the back door holding an obscenely large set of ostentatious, incredibly ornate & well crafted ancient black scales just as his regular home decor

*Fighting God feels more substantial with the satisfying clickity-clack of fierce mechanical keys the same way hanging up a landline phone in sudden disgust feels more impactful than pushing an onscreen button to “end call.”

       …And because of all these things, men took everything about him personally- instead of seeing a Persian cat in constant debate with God over the horrors Allah seemingly chose in preferring human filth, in all it’s shades of shit, clay, and mud, to destroy what was once perfection, they assumed he fought human beings with his constant observations of their moral failures.

      Men always think every criticism is about them, because they do not know God, they think my Uncle yells at them rather than their Creator- that he addresses human beings instead of the One whom created humans of the filth of mud as God’s seemingly first & only mistake, an error of a species that also, equally, has hearts of shit.

      In my dream, his reputation had become so terrible, Real monsters visited him-  the types with tusks, claws, and disheveled fur- with eyes that burnt souls, and terrible voices that silenced everything from lecture halls, to courtrooms,  to even minarets, silencing Adhan with  inhuman cries from wounded cryptids.

      The monster I saw in this dream was the size and vague resemblance of a winged tiger, stripes of black and cerulean blue, many wings, and large tusks at a distance- then as it drew closer to the cabin, padding on soft paws, the nose was wrong, the ears were pointed, black, tufted and quite long like a lynx, the face longer than a tiger, but shorter than a wolf’s- with the bite of a smilodan, and mirror-eyes that seemed to trap all the colors they observed without having any true color inherent to them.

     It did not limp, but it ambled carefully, wings dragging through puddles and discarded redwood needles, until it finally arrived at the cabin.

      I fully expected it to bow, from my typical perch on Uncle’s roof, but to my surprise, the terrifying creature simply allowed itself to collapse a few yards outside the door, mouth open, panting showing the bright essence of the dagger sharp teeth that were finer, and even more deadly-seeming than it’s tusks.

      I did not wish to disturb my uncle’s writings, so sometimes I would just sit on the top of the shingles, quietly enjoying the clean air and presence – and from here, I could imitate natural, inhuman sounds to get his attention to incoming visitors,  without myself being seen, by hitting the roof loudly with a branch, hissing loudly to make him scurry to check on the other outside cats, or if that failed, tapping on his pipes like a tommyknocker before quickly hiding in the branches of his gigantic pink powder-puff mimosa adjacent to his house.

      I hate people, too.

       This case was different.  There was nothing I could do to tell him there was a Monster at his door; or the Monster would also see me; those ears are far too large for my comfort for my normally benign schemes.

      So I held my breath, flattened myself behind the awning, and simply prayed.

      …and to my immediate surprise, inside the cabin I could hear the familiar frustration when his thoughts have been [unfairly] interrupted.  I could hear him tidy his desk, put on his coat, while muttering under his breath about “disrespect” (my ears are also large and well-trained:) before hearing him slipping on a pair of mittens next to the front door which he opened assertively as soon as he was wearing his judicial public face.

     …and to my shock, he patted the monster on the head as he passed right on by it, to March behind the house & yell at me.

      “HOW LONG IS IT YOU ARE ON MY ROOF & IN MY TREES‽- GET DOWN FROM THERE, LITTLE CALICO PERSIAN. YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE EVERYTHING BROKEN & HOLEY.  WHY IS IT YOU ARE THERE-“

       “I may be your cat, Dayī, but remember I was raised by your Rooster.” I replied, as I carefully climbed down the window sills to the ground below.

        “…’Raised by a Rooster?’ He still a Persian cat.  That does not preclude the dignity expected of your Mother’s child.”

           “I never met her, Dayī- one day you should tell me about her more.”

             “Oh, and how will that happen when you choose to sit on my roof instead of talking?”

         “I am on the ground now, Sir.”

I tried to smile, and it just sort of came out lopsided instead, so I just shrugged.

     “Ack!  No calling me ‘Sir’…merci: Do better.”

      “Kheyli bebakshiid, Dayī. I did not want to be eaten by your guest.”

        “Are you recently ignorant?  He is not eating anybody!  He is injured- look at his panting!  He does not move with aggression, he does not threaten you- and you, of ALL people, fear him…?”

      And I felt sudden shame, so I simply bowed my head rather than implicate myself further, as he gestured me to follow him back to the monster at his door.

       “Look at him, Look at this-” he said with aggressive frustration as he put one between those terrible tufted black ears to calm it as he reached to separate the tangled wings and feathers on the creature’s back.

        It panted heavily like a human being would before tears, but the Beast remained in silence except for sharp, shallow breathing when injuries were touched, when the Pupils of those great and terrible eyes retracted to points of shock and pain.

       When Uncle-Dayī was finished, the beast posed like a great cat of wounded dignity, head down, as three sets of wings were spread around him…I did not know proper decorum for interacting with monsters, so I looked away hoping I was protecting privacy so I would not later be destroyed.

      Uncle then stated thoughtfully, “We are going to see why he cannot fly, look at him, he cannot hurt you.”

       Although his emphasis felt like a verbal slap to the face, I complied.  The beasts’ head now laid heavy, eyes closed as he continued to respirate through pain- yet, up close, I could see how he was a patchwork of beauty.

      There were indeed three sets of wings- blue, white, and red ones; while the cerulean and Raven black striped fur was well groomed, whiskers drooped, but his body seemed intact.  The interesting thing about the blue fur is it stopped just above the forelegs, under the wings, to reveal a rather ugly, motley pattern of random sparrow-colored feathers interspersed with tiny ones of brightest sunshine yellow giving the illusion of a Louis Vuitton pattern.

        “…That was stolen from Morocco, not fashion.  Your thoughts are too loud, little one.”

       “Es tut Mihr leid,” I replied, as I helped Dayī spread all six wings to fully examine them around the patience and painful panting of the beast who grew them.  Once they were completely unfurled, only then could the damages even begin to be seen.

       “This is a servant & messenger between too many, each set of wings is an Oath or ‘Proof of Service’ to each one, however, greater number of those served?  Greater problems.  Let’s look:”

      The first set of wings were ornamented with platinum or silver wires and ancient gems stones against feathers that changed between blue and black with a patch of crimson to teal secondary feathers in a like a dramatic mallard, except the shape of the wing feathers was more ravenlike.

     “They’re beautiful,” I said to Dayī.

      “This set are anorexic, circulation is cut by the filigree, and they can not sustain flight now he is no longer a little Rohani-cub,”

     Uncle repaired to the cabin and returned with a fine wire-cutter and muttered under his breath in foreign poetry as he carefully and judiciously cut the abusive filigree and then gently applied antibiotic to each harm.

     “Why would a spiritual creature need medicinal cream…don’t they just, you know,  heal as soon as the problem is remedied?”

       “Same reason you do, whether the administration of medicine or personal care; it heals.  I keep the wires in place, just give room to grow so the wings may grow correctly once more-  can you flap the blue wings?”

      The creature obliged, and although the ornate blue wings were now free, the effort showed a greater, second injury on the far larger, far grander set of wings, much like a swan, primarily, but the secondary feathers were an inky indigo black, and through the middle of the wing shaft, was a clear bullet wound that not only punctured the root of the wing, apparently went straight into the body cavity entirely.

        “Astaghfirullah,” was all I could breathe, and I instinctively pushed against the uninjured white wing to find, to my surprise, the feathers crumble to powder on my palm.

       “Authentic wings, strong, bleached white and useless when every feather crumbles.  Wasted potential like a yearling Ahkal-teke at a petting zoo with the 30 year old pony mules.  Useless and frustrating and broken uselessly in useless uselessness” uncle cursed, “Up with the haram wing, angelic beast”

     ….and before I could ask what, precisely, “haram wing” referred to, the creature bared his rather sizable tusks and canine fangs in defensive growling as Dayī touched the clashing dirt brown and dandelion feathers under the three broken, yet magnificent wings…which showed to be a 4th set of wings, closely hugging the body of the creature closely as a vest.

     “They are not mine by nature, they belong to the dead.  I did not grow these myself”

       “YOU CAN TALK THIS ENTIRE TIME TO US AND REFUSE US‽  WHY DO YOU DO THESE THINGS.  EVERY. SINGLE. [PERSIAN INTROJECTION] TIME. YOU DO THIS TO ME.  EXPLAIN YOUR INJURY.”

…Uncle glared directly Eye to eye with the creature unblinking with clear and direct -academic focused frustration which absolutely looks exactly like profound rage to the unitiated-

     And the beast set his ears back, put his massive tails between his haunches, and simply stated:

“No.”

     Then laid directly on the Earth and thumped his tailed simultaneously for emphasis.

     “You can not or you will not…”

     In reaction, the pupils dilated to fine points as the creature pointedly shuddered.

      “That means:  Can. not.  There are differences between servants, slaves, students, and family- and it all lies within the finer nature of compulsions, external & internal.   This creature is not a free thing, or he would not be so confused a state.  He looks as if he is in life.  Too much &  Too much big and useless beauty into tacky horror.  Is Barely Persian except as maybe a nightmare future rug to terrify first students with for Ashura prayers.  But, meat likely isn’t even halal enough to feed to beggars, also stringy and fed so improperly even as a rug needs to have Ayatul Kursi burnt into it by a Ruqui in full fast during Lailat al Qaldr”

        …and to my immense confusion, the creature started laughing. just enough for Dayī to get his hand under the bones of the mottled brown and yellow feathers to stretch out the most motley pair yet-  the top of the wing somewhere between a red-tail hawk and a roughed grouse…and as we moved it aside, beneath them was a complete absence of feathers, fur, and even skin, exposing a clear hole to three ribs of the ribcage bleached white and a heart encircled with more of the filigree from the blue wings, this time filled with broken glass in black & blue, melted and fired repeatedly until crystalline.

      Uncle cursed again,

      “We cannot remove the projectile while the heart remains constricted by my nephews wires and broken glass arts.  We must cut the wires to allow re-expansion.” He stated carefully, maneuvering his wire cutters carefully between two of the three exposed ribs.

      “Why isn’t he reacting in pain?”  I asked as Uncle continued to work carefully separating the cloisonné around the heart without destroying it further.

        “Once the pain goes past the skin levels and exposed nerves nothing else bothers him much.   Old injury, hides new injuries, though.  Ha!” he exclaimed, “I got the bullet- I do not think it is normal caliber, Intelligence caliber”

     …and surely, he did…at the end of his pliers was a small metal object bullet, transmitter, speaker thing the size of a thumb-tip.

       “Without the broken glass, it would have killed him.  Nephew is Awliya-level craftsman-  now we see what we can find about it.”

         Unbidden now, was the table close to the wall holding those ominously antique black scales again.  He keeps the thing in his cabin in California, 6000 year old high Avestan scales of Haqq, the same way a braucher might keep a scythe or broom in the kitchen decor- ancient yazidi jurists just randomly keep several foot tall holy judicial relics created of metal so fine Damascus Steel melts in content to see it…kept equally judiciously next to the stack of hats & mittens and on a table above a $24 shoe rack from Lidl right beside the back door to the rose garden and bear preserve.

       But what would I know?

Anyway.  So he placed the bullet on one side of the scale and on the other he placed a map of the world, and on the equator of that map, in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, he placed a Compass.

       He stepped away, and oddly, the scale balanced.  From the drawer of the table he removed a pearl headed straight pin and a thread kit, attaching a black thread to just under the thread of the needle.

      Uncle then judiciously placed the needle impregnated by thread at the point of the compass, pointing towards the NorthEast.  Then removed the metal bullet, replaced it carefully with the sturdier of the white and black feathers, as he dropped the bullet into a nearby glass of water, then shook the Compass violently a few seconds and replaced it upon the map.

        Stepping away again, the scale rebalanced and this time he used a red headed pin and white thread, the compass pointed NorthWest.

        “Now, Accuracy check” stated Dayī, as he removed the feathers and replaced it with a small curl of wired glass tangled with blue feather down, shook the compass, and for a third time, replaced it on the map.   The blue thread on the black headed pin- drew to full line side by side with the white thread.

       “Doroste.  Accuracy on point.  Now, we attempt the last two each” reshaking the compass yet again and replacing the blue cloisonné wire with a small fluff of the hideous brown and yellow grouse/hawk feathers and this time, after full arm settlement, the scale steadied and yet the compass ticked like a metronome between Northwest a click short of the white and blue lines, to West by several inches.  So he placed brown and yellow strings.

     lastly, the crumpled & pathetic feathers from the final wings we had yet to examine, just, simply crushed red/yellow feathers of common macaw, broken and pulverized.  shook the compass, and the red thread directly overlapped the black, even more closely than the blue thread snug against the white.  The brown centimeters away, the yellow by inches, and the red and black, as one solid line directly North-North-East.

       “Get me tail feathers, at least two types, and apologize to him even if he says he does not hurt”

     I jogged outside helpfully and the winged beast already displayed his mess of tails helpfully.  The reddish heronish powder-down was too fragile to collect, the iridescent peacock feathers seemed overlarge until I decided to simply pray and break one off at the eye of it, took the smallest white/black under-support base feathers as well & I also coaxed some loose fur from the orange and silver foxtail, and finally managed to obtain a few iridescent scales from above the base that seemed looser than the rest and returned to the Scales.

       Repeating the process, he now had a map crossed with a spectrum of floss, which he carefully trimmed so Each string only existed within the borders of each landmass it crosses.

      “Some are causes, some are cures” he said, as he carefully set a green thread through Vancouver and Silver through California, “if we do our work carefully, clear pattern will emerge to show the path forward.”

        “Most of the strings go through North America…except for the red & black” said I

      “Now look,” said my Dayī as he took a thicker ribbon and tied it from the end point of the Red/black threads all the way across the ocean to cross every line to touch and cross the lowest Geographic point, the silver thread of this very cabin, and at the point where the very most threads crossed.

      “Oh little town of -“

       “Bedlam,” I replied miserably. “No desire to visit, do you?”

         “ONLY the exact same reasons as you, idiot child. If you are going to lie, at least do it well or not at all” uncle replied soberly.

         “Kheyli Bebabshiid, sorry. now what?” I Asked genuinely, and yes, he was precisely correct in ways I would not wish to admit.

       “We question the beast, you stay silent and only listen.  Keep your hands on him calm and we will try to get him to say in words why he comes for help with fatal wounds and no willingness to tell stories of them or even show them willingly. Who knows what else is wrong?  His kind does not die, but Rohani can turn deadly rotten quickly.”

      “What causes it?”

       “Creatures of Haqq dissolve in lies – we examine all injuries first, then let us ask again if he would talk.”

      And so, I followed him outside once more.  The last set of wings was in such a sorry state they were barely identifiable as such looking more like an uncomfortable blanket of broken feathers of red and gold, with 4 fractured blue primaries on each and wing shaft bones pulverized to crunchy sand inside the skin. He did not even wince when we examined this set.

      “You cannot cut them, they can only be burnt off.  If they grow back, they are better.  if not, they no longer drag. Khalas.”

         I nodded, until I accidentally touched a white wing feather than crumbled like talc to the touch

        “Would that work for all sets?”

         At this time, a small red Squirrel with an unusually animated grasp of English climbed the beast itself to face us both directly.

         “Fire and bleached feathers would make a Simorgh into untasty S’mores with bleach-cracker crust if the whole darned thing wouldn’t just explode.  Best thing to do is pluck and crumble the white turkey feathers right off and see what’s left.  Duke’s jewelry tends to improve each time It’s reformed, [so long as you leave growth plates,] and the under-wings are pure Alsace Phoenix”

     “Alsace phoenix…?”

      The Squirrel scurried under the creature’s armpit and bit the ugliest, brownest part of his wing- for him to fully unfurl it to reveal the exact same hues as the pulverized parrot feathers, but better- on the underside of them: patterned with angular runes and even little pink flower patterns and geometric stars on some of the blue feathers.

      “They aren’t naturally mine; they’re grafted.  I didn’t grow them”  said the winged creature, almost embarrassed.

      Uncle motioned to the creature to wait one moment as he unceremoniously scooped up the Squirrel with both hands and bid me to follow him back into the cabin.

        “Please sit on the scale,” and so I did, as he scraped the Squirrel off his hand much the same way one would remove a filthy glove…

       …and the Squirrel weighed more than I.

        “Ruqyah the rodent, merci.” said Dayī almost dismissively,

          “How strong?  Full Al Wird Al Latif, or dhikr the Shahadah at it until it’s terrified of us?” asked I,

            “Ayatul Kursi and blow on it like he is candles on a furry birthday cake a few times.” Uncle dismissed

           “What will that do?”

            “Annoy him very much if it does not work as intended”

            “I am so sorry I did not get the dress code for the local fire ritual, I thought we were all dressing like animals when Alex writes fucked up stories full of metaphors of actual feild conditions of mystic geopolitics.  It’s frankly her/his/whatever they are responsibility to write me more accurately and respectfully!  Squirrels, it’s always Squirrels with him… but if he CHOOSES to write me with greater care,  even depicting me speaking the correct blend of languages, it could become a gross violation of operational security.   It’s difficult enough to be under a foot tall and packing enough heat to roast my own chestnuts.

     Hey, if I’m going to be written as a Squirrel, can I at least have my normal human clothes?  I have literally worn the exact same clothing you met me in 2011.  It’s easy enough to describe, I’ll do it for you…

       ‘The Squirrel dressed like an Amish police officer, if the Amish had police officers, which they don’t, but if they did- it would totally be this red and grey Squirrel wearing black and blue with charming little suspenders and his little black brimmed hat which had a tiny little police badge on it that said “CHIPMUNK INTELLIGENCE AGENT: BOBBY DE SQUIRREL”

       “That’s it, you ruined this story entirely.  What is wrong with you kid?  There is a dying lovecraftian horror outside on the porch and you literally just decided to write that I am packing multiple weapons, including acorn grenades and small throwing knives hand carved out of discarded fork tines to avoid talking, even in metaphor, about whatever stupid Sufi nonsense you seemingly self-replicating Persians keep finding yourselves in.”

       The Amish cop Squirrel gestured at Uncle “…and I do not even know who this man is with the giant scales, in person.  But I swear to blitzen I will regret it if I look it up, and knowing you, half of what my files would tell me would be horrible and inaccurate.”

        We both nodded sagely at the Squirrel who continued his diatribe,

      “SQUIRREL! OPSEC you say!  Yet, I always remain the exact same in every missive and story”

         “Untrue” I said, “I made you a bobcat once that I named “Squirrel” in a story once… I was holding you by the foot and referring to you as “the Prophet of New Hope & Bristol, the 13th Imam we found in that weir-“

        “THE SQUIRREL IS NOT THE 13TH IMAM AND WE DO NOT SPEAK ON THE WELL IN WHICH WE FOUND THE SQUIRREL”

          “Indeed, we do not discuss such things. Well.”

           “ARGH!  NO WELLS, EITHER!”

             “Astaghfirullah” I replied, as I picked up the Amish cop Squirrel and placed him back on my shoulder to resume tending the metaphor on the Pir of my Pir’s redwood porch.  “Would Stephen McNallen know what to do with an injured eight winged Islamic fylgia?  Are these common among the Karan people he served next to?”

      “These aren’t even common in Persia or Türkiye- this one is just sort of its own thing- like Gritty or maybe something you find in an alley on your way home from a rave before the drugs wear off-  it’s kinda like a hexenwolf-trissm-thing but blue and over complicated.”

      “I’m right here, you know”

said the beast.

       “Well then, beastie- since the entire plot of the story is out the window, what is the end of the metaphor.”

        “Someone else opened the hole to heal my heart, got distracted, didn’t remove the bullet, made a hat from my skin, then proceeded to mock my injuries with platitudes.  His slave or student shot me- but ended up shooting himself since my wings mirror his own.”

        wings grew in thick and dark, but too big, overshadowed everything, so the guy who matches them? we make them brighter with bleach and elaborate grooming rituals 5 times a day to keep them perfectly beautifully useless for flying anywhere at all without being a great big white target.”

      “…and the parrot feathers”

       “hurts less if they can’t possibly get broken more.”

        “Your metaphors suck, Alex, you are too hard on your own writing, and I don’t think anyone, including yourself, have any idea how to fix the scene you are describing.

       “Richtig, Doroste, and that is Correct,” I replied.