Since today is the beginning of Ramadan here's an update. Sorry I haven't been updating much, my teachers have made a slew of projects due this week, so I've been kind of busy.
I watch the approaching Arab army and feel an eerie sense of Déjà vu. Those damned Arabs destroyed my father nineteen years ago and once again they descended upon my family like a generational curse, except this time it was my turn to pay. I pace back and forth, unable to do anything about the news, but too worried to go back to sleep. I don’t know how long I am in that position before I hear my son’s voice saying, “You’re going to fight them aren’t you?”
I turn around and say, “Humza, what are you doing here! I thought I arranged a ride out of the city for you.”
“I asked him to wait. Something about your tone of voice suggested that you weren’t going to follow through with the escape.”
“I’m going to be fine.”
“Your opponents are the Arabs. They’re bigger than you with more men and resources!”
“If martial prowess depended solely upon size and number of men, Persia would have long since perished. But we have something more important to protect, and so we live.”
“Persia is gone, dad. It died with the Persian empire,” my son screams at me, “you’re simply trying to prop up its shambling corpse!”
“Do you think Persia is simply a boundary, a place on the map?” I say to him. “If so you don’t understand and will never understand. I cannot abandon this place without abandoning my honor.”
“Damn your honor! I’d rather you abandon it than die, but if you cannot leave, then at least let me fight with you.”
I look at my son’s defiant face, ready to perish with me, and feel a tender bud of warmth sprout in my chest.
I kneel down to hug him, tears pouring down my face.
“Oh my son, what would your mother say to you throwing away your life like this?”
He stiffens and says angrily, “Don’t bring mom into this. She’s dead and the dead cannot say anything.”
“Then listen to me son. Do this for me. Run away and live. Live no matter what you have to do. Go find a place of your own to belong to, with friends you love dearly and a sweet heart who will care for you even if you get on her nerves sometimes. Find your own Persia. Even if I die, I will be in your heart, watching over you with your mother. And when you have a family of your own, bring them here to my grave. I want to see my grandchildren.”
My son begins to cry during the speech, wiping his snot off afterwards.
“Okay, dad. And when I bring my family to your grave, I’ll tell them this is the resting place of the greatest warrior who ever walked the face of the Earth.”
“I’m counting on it, son.”
And so I walked off to the ramparts to watch the fires of the encamped Arab army and wait for the battle that would surely come at dawn.
The next day, I heard the soldiers on the wall whispering fearfully.
“What’s the matter?” I ask them.
“The Arab commander is Junud al-Haqq, his father conquered Gwadar. Surely this is an ill omen indeed.”
“Are you old women, to cower at every shadowed fantasy?”
Still, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of destiny at this news, like divine machinations beyond my control were moving the world like puppets to create this situation.
“Shake off your uneasiness and prepare yourselves for battle. Look they come,” I said pointing at the seething mass that was the Arab army rolling towards the city walls. However, a very strange thing occurred when the Arabs reached. Instead of attacking the city full scale, only a quarter of the army attacked, taking minimal risks and making few gains.
Are they looking down upon us, I think, slightly outraged but happy that we had been granted a ghost of a chance. At dusk I circle around the battlements to congratulate the men, and bring the night watch schedule for the next week. However, I receive a rude shock when after this quarter of the Arab army made camp another quarter come to continue the siege and I finally realized their fearsome strategy.
“Those bastards!” I think, “They’re planning to use their superior numbers siege us nonstop and stretch our men to the breaking point, then overwhelm us.”
For the next seven days the city tries to hold out, but in the end it is no use. We need every defender on the wall at all times while the enemy was at the gates. At the end some are so tired they fall asleep on the battlements and become casualties of Arab arrows. I have to prop myself with my own sword to avoid collapse. All I can do was motivate my men and pray for a miracle which will never come.
Then on the zenith of the seventh day, the enemy released a cacophonous war cry that split the heavens and began rushing with their mass of camel archers towards the city, some getting off their camels to climb the walls, others just plain jumping on top of the wall camels and all. Then I see Junud al Haqq, and I drew my scimitar and charged towards him with my mightiest stroke. His own flashing blade parries and we begin our deadly duel. I felt like my entire life since my father’s death has been building up to this situation. To dance with this stranger to whom I was connected by a twist of fate. As we pile on a thousand cuts upon each other I ask myself why? What gave this little conflict such significance? As Junud took advantage of my precarious footing on the wall to knock me off the edge and as I left my sword in his arm as a farewell present I found my answer. With my death, and the conquest of Persepolis, Arabia would swallow Persia. But, perhaps, Persia will swallow Arabia too, if only a little bit. If that is the case, I feel a little sorry for us. Self-righteous a holes are an acquired taste.
, but it would be great to have a flag for the last province without a flag.
p), or Arab Mesoamerica as we usually call it. The 2 blue fields are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
)
