1 Departure Reversed

In Tazrouk south east of Tamanrasset where the extensive desert knows no bounds as if the dunes of sands spread their secretive power on man and nature as well as ambiguity. It was summer, when temperature rose above the expected and above the scorch to get rid of every single head might get out to move along the godless Sahara. Afellan, a young man aged 29, raised and grown in Touareg family as all the families there in Tazrouk. Two thirds of his life had been spent seriously and audibly between camels, sand roads and oases. Surely, he had been in search of a more Bedouin life. A deep meaning left adrift throughout the ages of Touareg ancestors in their firm belief of the secret of the message.

Unlike his brothers and sisters, Afellan reached high school. A level could barely qualify him for speaking and understanding Arabic because this latter can intervene in his mother tongue Tamashek in the most delicate and rough way. Afellan's father Zayen as much as he inculcated in him the pride to preserve his traditions and customs; he tried his best to teach his son the value of freedom as the Touareg: the free man. Zayen usually stroke the conversation with Afellan to enlighten his path as well as to pass him many a thing as old as the cravings on the rocks in Hoggar Mountains.

'Look son,' said the father, 'I know that our environment is too hard to cater for your needs and desires, but bear in mind that the desert remains part and parcel of our being.'

'I'm not complaining about our way of living and the dire straits we are living, answered Afellan, rather I'm wondering why we still exist here and now.'

'I didn't really get your point, dear son,' asked the father.

'Many neighbour families have moved to Algiers, and their lives got improved considerably because they choose to,' responded the son furiously.

'Why are you furious,' you absolutely don't know how awful to live on the outskirts of Algiers and the horrible conditions those migrants are witnessing there, let alone the feeling of being a stranger and even an outsider.

'I'm astounded at what you are saying, because what you've just said is only lies and pretensions.

'I'm not lying to you, that's the genuine truth,' answered Zayen with an angry look.

'I'm not speaking about you,' responded Afellan.

'Whom then?' asked the father.

'I don't know,' added the son. The rumours that are just circulating are swift to your sentimental ears, aren't they?

'Can you tell me frankly what you want,' asked the father.

'I need to get away from here and seek another mode of life peculiar to me. Is it possible or do I need the pre-consent of Tin Hinan to do so?' Suggested Afellan.

'You are making fun of our Queen, aren't you? You idiot!!'

'I'm not. I'm only seeking freedom and emancipation. Things have changed as well as times.'

'You would say that your morals get changed and get lower, you bad youngster!'

'You see, my friend Hamish texted me yesterday to tell me or rather to tease me, that his moving with his family to Algiers was the propitious choice. He said it was the convincing decision as long as they are living more than decent life if I wouldn't say luxurious one,' regretted Afellan.

The heat in August in Tazrouk was as misleading as the shaded walls; a wave heat could obstruct the flow of conversation between the father and the son as much as between the center and the periphery. Zayen got out from the room or rather he withdrew from the vehement conversation with his son. One felt overwhelmed by the charge of Touareg heritage whereas another needed the feel to rock that heritage. How awesome is that!!

As time went by and the sun rushed to set behind the dunes and flat rocks, Afellan got out from the house deeply upset, holding a cane in his right hand. He headed for the tree behind the house. He sat himself beneath it, the head down and started scribbling absent-mindedly as if he wanted to sum up all of his void and suffering in one noodle or two, yet helas.!

Deep down Afellan knew that his lack of qualifications and diplomas would be a hindrance to his moving ahead in life and to his serious thinking of migrating to the big cities, notably Algiers. At last, a hefty project sprang to his mind. He remembered the secret his father had insisted for so long to pass to him. Might this secret help me in my coming endeavours or is it useless to track such one.? He wondered, may be to get relieved, or to embark on new journeys not experienced or even not known before.

Afellan got up in hurry and he thought of heading straight to his father but he stopped for a while perhaps due to hesitation or perhaps he reflected on the following steps after getting the secret.

In the kitchen, his mother Fatima was shouting at her little daughter Fella. "Why don't you come at once, naughty kid, to help me through, don't you know that I'm used up by the house chores and Aid Al-Adha, is within one week," exclaimed the mother!!

'Sorry mom, I'm not free at the moment, you can ask Ibrahim instead,' answered Fella indifferently.

'Don't you know that Ibrahim is still in Djanet desert working,' exploded the mother angrily.

'Desert, desert, desert… what after the desert in the name of god!!' the response didn't appeal much to her mother.

'You know that you were born in the womb of the desert like your brother Afellan. There are still some grains of sand between your teeth, the desert never looks down upon its grains. How shall we….how?! answered the mother with a tinge of disenchantment.

'If ever there are any, I'm going to pick them out. It is true that the desert used to be my nursery but not for life…things have changed mom…remember.'

'If any neighbor hears you they will either exclude us from Touareg tribes or they will never hold us in high esteem once again,' regretted Fatima.

After heated discussion between Fatima and Fella, Afellan rushed in in search of his father Zayen.

'Mom, where is dad, where is he ?' asked Afellan.

'He is in my uniform pocket, you see!' exclaimed Fatima

'I'm not kidding, where is he? Something quite significant I do want to open up with him.'

Afellan's high pitch of voice reached Fella's ears to respond to her brother's request as earnest as she could ever do. 'Your dad left home two hours ago for his soulmate Mahmoud. He will come back before the Maghreb prayer.'

'What for?' asked the mother.

'The secret of the Hoggar must be divulgated, must be shown, must be benefitted from,' expressed Afellan arrogantly.'

As Afellan uttered the Secret of the Hoggar, his mother shouted at him as if he blasphemed or he had followed Charles de Foucauld doctrine. The mother didn't only flare up because a secret was being disclosed whether voluntarily or otherwise, but also the irreproachable truth lies in the premonition that the source is twice as much threatened as the target. It is susceptible to gossiping. Gossiping usually plots against holiness.

'Why are shouting furiously? What's behind that secret,' asked Afellan with astonishment.

'Beware! Don't open that topic once again else I'll put my curse on you. Is it crystal and clear…or??'

'Why do you flare up as soon as I approach that matter, why?! you are driving me nuts. Tell me the grounds of judgment behind that secret or…,' demanded Afellan threateningly.

'Or what??…proceed!' added Fatima.

'Or I will set out on a decisive journey to explore that fatal secret that you try hard to conceal from me whatsoever.'

Fatima remained silent and speechless, as though she carried within her a phosphorous rock that was prone to be ablaze at any moment when that secret of the Hoggar was being tackled or even spoken about.

'You'll run the risk of your brain and even you threaten your shaky future, in that case you won't belong to me or even to the Touareg race, understood ?! warned the mother Fatima with a frighteningly acerbic tone.

'Sometimes I do feel that you didn't give birth to me, and such sensation gets certain and terrible every single day,' exclaimed Afellan expectedly.

'You have nothing to say to me from now on. You can wait for your father to clarify many things to you. As for me I can't or rather I ….' Words got blocked in Fatima's throat perhaps she made a part of that or perhaps she felt in-depth that she was guilty of something no one knew about.

Shortly, Afellan rushed out angrily. He was willing to say more but temporarily he couldn't, although he was pretty sure that the opportunity would arise to give rein to his thoughts and inclinations. And most crucially to his self-confident touches of insanity and madness in spite of everything: mother, father, Touareg tribes and many others.

Time in Tazrouk put on a moody scarf, for at times it protected and shielded against all odds while at times it choked and suffocated until one was ready to any misfortune. What a giggle-stirring contradiction!

Zayen came back from his friend and neighbour Mahmoud liable to discuss whatever topic because he was simply high-spirited and elated to welcome all the quirks of nature. He nodded to his little daughter Fella in the corridor as a sign of greeting. She returned the greeting with an indifferent nod.

'Why are you upset?' asked the father.

'Instead of going to your friend Mahmoud to kill the time, it would be beneficial to spend it with your family members,' suggested Fella wisely.

'What happened when I was away?' demanded Zayen.

'You can speak to your son Afellan to get things known to us and to the public.'

'You are speaking nonsense apparently,' mocked the father.

'The nonsense when the ambiguous becomes irritable.'

'Where is your brother Afellan? answer me right away,' asked Zayen.

'Why do you feel jolted in a blink of an eye?"

'I think your mother has misbehaved herself while I was away. Where is Afellan?'

'He is out waiting for you, didn't you see him?!' responded Fella tauntingly.

'All right! I'm going to see him at once,' rushed out the father Zayen as though he visualized nobody but Afellan.

When things go opaque or abnormal intentionally or otherwise, human instinct rebels or is stirred to know what's inside or to get to know who renders it so or who is responsible for concealing it from public sight or hearing. For the sake of preserving peace and serenity or an ordained feel to keep up that secret because the ancestors have done such or the road to transparency is hard to grasp and digest.

It is a blessing for the youth to break away from those damn past idols to emancipate themselves from every moment of crippling camouflage or any attempt to connive treacherous peace. Gone is the age of succumbing to nonappearance and helplessness. The age of Afellan, equally and potentially the age of Fella, has come to place salt and uranium where they should be placed.

As the father stepped out of the house, he encountered Afellan sitting beneath the olive tree distracted and lost in himself. Most perplexed of all, and as far as Touareg heritage is concerned, striking up a conversation with the father when busy or engrossed in some affair, would be demanding and harsh as it entangles the step and laces up the tongue as. In case the conversation is brought to completion, the offspring wound up with a sensation of unfulfillment and displeasure, which could amount to an acute generation gap in the grimmest sense of the term.

'You are over here then!' asked the father

'As long as I'm living here in such box of matches, going nowhere would be the rule not the exception,' regretted Afellan

'Watch out! I can smell a rebellious smoke coming out of that box of matches, can't I? joked the father in a serious tone.

'I do hope you won't put out that fire in me, as things will be worse and I'll have no mercy on nobody, including you and all the Hoggar district,' added Afellan with a menacing voice.

'What do you want exactly? Sometimes you speak out against your mode of living here in Tamanrasset and you think of migrating to Algiers. And other times you seem to oppose our conservative authority,' wondered the father frustratingly.

'First of all I don't represent your authority, second I'm different from you notably when I crave for freedom, difference and renewal,' elaborated he with gaiety and arrogance.

'Why are you such an unruly boy ?'

"To me, an unruly boy is more convincing than an obedient one"

'Don't you sense that you are going to bring disgrace and shame on us by your abominable way of thinking and doing,' interrogated the father

'Don't try to beat around the bush. Tell me the truth that you try hard with your wife to hide it from me.'

'Behave yourself or I'll slap your face, bad boy!!' gets nervous and agitated the father. Which truth are we hiding it from you, naughty!?

'The Secret of the Hoggar,' exploded Afellan

As soon as Afellan uttered the Secret of the Hoggar, the father Zayen got astounded and stood electrified in his spot because he never expected that his son would catch something related to the secret of the Hoggar. As if something beyond dare, something subject to the very few, yet any other whoever cared about that secret he would be either neutralized or banished from Tazrouk, Tamanrasset.

'Why do you insist to know about that matter?' demanded the father.

'You mean to say that secret, rather.'

'A secret or a matter. They are alike.'

'No! it is not a matter but it is a secret. There is a big difference, dear dad,' clarified Afellan.

'Did anyone tell you anything?'

'My mother's enervating reservation told me the least, yet my dream revealed all the most'.

'Who is going to assume the responsibility of the death of one of our family members if you know the insides of the Secret of the Hoggar,' warned the father apprehensively.

'I can't see your point, really,' asked Afellan neutrally.

In the meanwhile, Zayen sighed painfully and exhaustively, he felt the words hamstrung in his chest. He couldn't go any further for fear a mishap might befall the family. Things seemed to go out of control. Grains of the desert sand declined any totality or even a superficial togetherness.

In case you discover the secret of the Hoggar either you die or your mother will die.

'What relates this to that, it is absurd!! Try to make yourself obvious, please.'

'Only two hold the secret of the Hoggar, your mother and the chief of the Touareg tribe here in Tamanrasset, in other words one male, one female,' tried Zayen to speak amply but insufficiently.

'Come on then.'

'The reason why your mother objects to your ever knowing the secret of the Hoggar is that she fears for your life,' the father's response sounds futile as he directed his head to Afellan's left side.

'How come?'

'I don't know, frankly I don't know. Only Fatima knows, only Fatima', expressed the father with flagrant but incomprehensible agony.

'Now I'm getting quite certain that such stuff has become as much challenging and fathomless as blood-freezing,' shivered Afellan's voice with genuine confidence.

'Sorry, I can not tell you any more about the issue, for I'm not fully equipped with information. For me every time I attempt to get an inkling of that secret your mother prevents me or even she hampers me all she can to keep that hidden and buried. That's why, I've become allergic and scared, until I feel that my life is threatened by that secret and particularly by your mother's maze.'

'Don't try to disappoint me because I swore by Atakor to track down that secret and pluck it out from Fatima. I don't even care who is going to incur the risk, me or her.'

'Don't include me in such stuff, I want my life as serene and straight as always. I apprehend change. Change doesn't belong to me.'

'How can you help me?' demanded Afellan.

'All I can do is to flatten the ground for you just you can strike up the conversation with your mother on the issue of the Hoggar Secret because we all know that it is not easy to even approach that topic.'

'Why on earth shouldn't we approach that, is it forbidden? Is it dangerous to this point? It is driving me to nowhere!'

The father stayed mute and silent, as he put out the butt of the cigarette between his coarse fingers, waiting impatiently for salvation and redemption from anyone from anywhere.

'When can you make it? Questioned Afellan.

'Tonight as during which women's Estrogen hormone proliferates and arouses in Fatima the second world of curiosity and sinuosity.'

'I don't care about your sexual drives, I need an appointment as very soon as possible with your wife, the blast is ahead,' joined the son indifference with an impending terror.

'I will do my utmost, be assured, we are not very far from each other, though'

Afellan left his father wordlessly, sometimes fancying the secret in his head, sometimes thinking of sacrificing his family for his proper interests.

Time in Zayen's family rolled on heavily like molten uranium. Everybody is looking for something either literally or symbolically, but anyway all is going to turn out in shivers.