Nobody

                                    

                                              


                          
'You have no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring you. Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean? Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.' - Rumi
                          


                          
He was standing in front of the mirror but all he could see was ... nothing. He tried to take a closer look. He still remembered that his eyes looked like the frozen heart of Death's River where he was born at a time long forgotten by men but the candles' light passed through him and bounced back from the mirror as if he wasn't there. Yet there he was, licking the last drop of blood on his lips.
                          
Summer in Egypt was unbearable even in the nights. All that heat was suffocating him, night after night, season after season, year after year, even though he could just open his window and watch the Nile giving birth to life in the damn desert. He once believed that since he was born into Gates of Death it would only seem proper to move into Alexandria where people seemed to prosper still. Nile's mud was turning the desert into gold and humans were thriving in commerce and arts.
                          
People seemed to have forgotten the old ways in the rising of the new era but their music still nurtured them. Dancing was still a mystic prayer connecting what's seen and felt with the spiritual world of the unseen. He turned around and took a look at this luxurious dancer's suit. His mothers and fathers would look down on what he had become if they could only see him dancing for the ones who were wealthy enough to pay for this experience. They would have ostracized him. On the other hand, he was the only one left alive beyond any logic or sanity.
                          
His blond hair along with his pale skin made it obvious at first sight that he wasn't born in Egypt. Since he hated giving away any details about his identity, he used to say that he was the bastard son of a sailor and port's hooker who died when he was a kid. People were taking notice from time to time that his impeccable manners didn't seem to fit the story of a homeless, poor boy that had been begging or stealing in order to survive throughout his youth but none made any questions whatsoever.
                          
All that they desired was the privilege of watching him dance. Musicians kept writing music for him, hoping that he would dance their melodies one night under the full moon, converting them from sonic sounds into a transcending experience. Egyptian women used to be the most famous belly dancers in the world. Their hips were seducing to any and all who watched them dancing. Their lust for life and sensuality had been the most powerful calling for submission he had ever seen. 
                          
Had it not been for Zahir's dance that blue moon, years ago, he would have never stayed in that breathtaking heat. It was Zahir who taught him how to dance and later on she introduced him to Sufi whirling. 
                          
An old lady was picking up his clothes from the floor carefully, as quietly as possible. It felt as if it was just like a passionate kiss' time ago when this old lady was the most desired woman of Egypt. Her beauty had faded but magic was still there even though the former Queen of the Nile had fallen from grace.
                          
Zahir had begged him on her knees and tried to blackmail him in every way possible. She even tried to make him kill her since he wasn't willing to offer her eternal life. His path was his own. It wasn't meant to be shared but for a short part of it. She belonged to the Valley of the Dead Pharaohs. He belonged to another river, land, and tribe. Bloodlines define our destiny long before our births.
                          
He knew that Zahir could never betray him from the moment she found him feeding on Naima. Naima had been her best student, far more beautiful and ambitious than any dancer she had ever met. Naima would one day have outbalanced her teacher. She could have even become her own legend, had it not been for Naima wanting not only her teacher's merits and fame but himself as well.