Uthman's Wrath: The Forgotten and the Car of Fate

A sickly child sat motionless in her mother’s lap. They were sitting on a patch of grass overlooking the water, while the girl’s father walked restlessly around them, taking occasional sips from his water canteen.

“You have to drink something, baby,” said the mother. “It’ll help you feel better.”

The child squirmed and whimpered in her mother’s arms. She had been ill for weeks now, since the first day of the rainy season. Her skin was hot and dry, her eyes sunken and bruised, and she had not eaten anything in days. The only thing that helped her feel better was when her mother held her tightly against her chest and sang songs to her as she rocked back and forth on their mat at home. But she also wasn’t strong enough to stay up very long any more. The father worried about what would happen if she were to die here in the market place where there were so many people who could see or hear them. He decided it would be best to take his family home after all and look after them there until she got better.

The mother noticed a strange object approaching them along the walkway that ran along the water’s edge. It was a small vehicle with no wheels, just a platform with wheels underneath it instead. She didn’t know what it was called but it looked like one of those flying contraptions she had seen high in the air above their village often before, although this one seemed much smaller than those. It was not powered by any animal either; it moved by itself along smooth rails that ran into the water like a jet-ski tire would roll on top of waves, except without waves of course since the water flowed too slowly here to make waves large enough for anyone to surf anyway.

As it approached she could make out a man inside it, sitting at a desk with some sort of controls in his hands like an airplane pilot might use to fly himself across great distances through air instead of water. She guessed he must be controlling its movement somehow and wondered why he wasn’t sitting on a chair instead of standing up for such long periods of time as he must be doing if he were driving by himself all day long around this river basin as she had seen other drivers do before him over the past few months that they had lived here now in this village far away from everything else.

He slowed down as he passed in front of them and then stopped right above their heads just over where they sat upon the grassy bank above the shoreline. He opened his door and climbed out onto his platform, looking down at them below with a big smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear across his entire head while he waved at them like they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other since they last parted ways many years ago at school together when they were still children themselves back in their hometowns some distance away from here each now living alone away from all their family members who are still somewhere far away from them today where they can barely afford to stay alive let alone enjoy life any longer working hard every day for little pay just trying to survive as best they can under horrible conditions but always hoping for something better someday maybe even someday soon if they can find someone willing to help them if God is willing too perhaps somehow if only someone will offer or give them something or another person offers or gives them something or another person offers or gives them something or…something…or…something…or…something…or something—

Suddenly and quite suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly suddenly quickly quickly quickly fast fast fast fast fast fast fast fast fast fast fast fast quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly—

He blinked rapidly several times while he struggled to focus his eyes back onto what was going on around him again where everything seemed different than just seconds earlier as if he had just woken up from being asleep for several hours having dreamed during that time about lots of things some good some bad most boring some interesting but now after waking up again he found himself standing outside this strange machine thinking about how amazing it is how ancient technology like this could cross vast distances through nothing more than thin air which is filled completely everywhere all around us with tiny invisible particles called molecules bouncing around between each other almost constantly colliding with one another continuously never stopping always moving unless we stop moving then they stop moving too until we move again then they move once more making everything look like it is always moving all around us because it really is never staying still ever really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really—