“We must dim the sun.” The mother squinted up as she adjusted her torn shawl to make a few more inches of shade. They had spent the nights shivering and stumbling aimlessly, the days squirming as they crouched under her pitiful makeshift tent. She had scoured the vast brown expanse for a shoot or shrub, for a trace of water, for a rat or lizard to catch and kill. There was nothing.

“Dim the sun,” she said again. Prayer or resolve, it was barely a croak, but the child caught it.

“How will you dim the sun, Mama?” The dust coating his parched skin like salt had not yet shaken his faith in his mother.

Once upon a time – last week – she had looked out wistfully from the palm trees around her home as she rocked him to sleep, yearning to lose herself in the desert’s wild beauty. She had imagined herself racing to glory on a fierce black stallion. But the dashing warriors were all gone, and if they did return they would find only ruins.

“Mama, look! Water!”

“There’s nothing there,” she said. “The light plays – ” she stopped. “No, I see it now. It’s an oasis. The men are coming towards us.”

“To help,” she added quickly, as the child flinched. “They are bringing dates, and milk.”

“And something to dim the sun?”

“Yes,” whispered the mother, cradling the still little head, smiling into the eyes looking at her with absolute trust. “Something to dim the sun.”

©

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Bandit Fiction, Shot Glass Journal, Across The Margin, Panoplyzine, Feral, Literati Magazine, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Blog: https://hibahshabkhezxicc.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @hibahshabkhez

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