CHAPTER 12

He looked around the place, nothing like comfort but like an animal caged, deprived of freedom and audience. He felt pain from his turgid skin. There was no day for him now and there was no night, but a long stretch of time, A long stretch of time that was very short  and then he will no more exist. Toward no one in the world did he felt any fear now, he know that fear was useless ; and toward no one did he feel any hate, for that hate would not help him neither, so what will be the essence of it. They carried him from one police station to another, threatened him, persuaded him, blustered him and stormed at him. But continuously he says " me no do it" . These are all he uttered, no matter how much they tried to make him speak more he steadfastly refused to say anything else.

Most of the time he sat with bowed head, just staring at the floor or lay upon his stomach counting his fingers, muttering words that the officers can't decipher.  Food was brought to him upon trays and an hour later the trays were taken away untouched. They gave him packs of cigarettes, not knowing he doesn't smoke. But they find it lay on the floor unopened. He would not even drink water, he simply lay or sat, saying repeated words when asked " me no do it " not knowing how when anyone entered or left his cell, when they want to take him from one place to another, they caught him by the wrist, he followed without resistance, walking always with dragging feet, head ducked . Even when they snatched him up by the collar, his weak body easily lending itself to be manhandled. He looked without hope or resentment, no one had seen him save the officials and refused to see anyone, not even his own family. Pain, that is all they will feel seeing him in a state like that. Four days following his capture, and the image of Christopher's dead body in the car came to his mind Everytime . Having been thrown into prison for a murder he knows nothing  about, not knowing if to accept the guilt of the crime. To him, he signed his own suicide papers by agreeing to work with a white. He was blind to his kindness and generosity, but he never regretted it, not for a single day. Not for someone who saw him like a son and a friend. the time he spent working with Christopher was the greatest achievement he had done in his Life. He turned away from his life and the long train of disastrous consequences that had flowed from it and looked wistfully upon the dark face of the waters from which he had been first made in the image of a man with a man's obscure need and urge; feeling that he wanted to sink back into those waters and rest eternally.

Above it all, there was the fear of death before which he was naked and without defense, he had to go forward And meet his end like any other living thing upon the earth. What chances those he have of living or be vindicated, when it is the majority against the minority, the rich against the poor, the learned against the illiterates. And regulating his attitude toward death was the fact that he was black, a Muslim, unequal and despised. Longingly, he hungered for another orbit between two poles that would let him live again, an orbit that will accept people like him, a better place for his kind, that would lift him up and make him live so intensely that the dread of being black and unequal would be forgotten; that even  death would not matter but be a victory.

Maybe it would never come; maybe there was no such thing for him or his kind; maybe he would have to go to his end just as he was, dumb, driven with the shadows of emptiness in his eyes. Maybe this was all, maybe the confused tingling, hope, wishes, elation. Maybe they were false lights that led nowhere. In a society where all they say is that a black skin was bad, a Muslim is fatal, they are covering of an apelike animal. Maybe their race was just unlucky, born for dark doom, but he could not feel that for long, just as soon as his feelings reached such a conclusion, the conviction that there was some way out surged back into him, strong and powerful and in his present state, condemning and paralyzing.

Then one morning a group of men came, ordering him in a ferocious tone.

" Get up murderer!" Sluggishly he tried to lift himself when one of them caught him by the wrist and they led him into a large room in the cook county morgue, in which there were many people. He blinked, taking his eyes away from the bright blinding lights and heard loud excited talking. The array of white faces and the constant flashing of bulbs for pictures made him stare mortified. His defence of indifference could protect him no longer, at first he thought that it was the trial that had begun, and he was prepared to sink back into his dream of nothingness. But it was not looking like a court room, too informal for that. There was in the air whispers of mockery that challenged him. It was not their hate he felt; it was something deeper than that. He sensed that in their attitude toward him they had gone beyond hate. He heard in their voices a patient certainty ; he saw their eyes glaring at him with calm conviction. Though not formally putting it into words, he felt that all they wanted was to put him to death.  For a crime he is innocent of, but who cares. They were determined to make his death mean more than a mere punishment. They regarded him as a figment of that black world which they feared and were anxious to keep under control. The atmosphere of the crowd told him that they were going to use his death as a bloody symbol of fear  before the eyes of that black world, especially black Muslims. 

As he felt it, his heart throbbed painfully. He had sunk to the lowest point this side of death. But when he felt his life again threatened in a way that meant that he was to go down the road . Knowing the procedure is a definite pain but believe where he will be meant to lay will be better. He sprang back into action, alive and contending.

He tried to move his hands forgotten that they were shackled with strong bands of cold steel to white wrists of policemen sitting to either side of him. He looked round; a policeman stood in front of him and one behind. He heard a sharp metallic click and his hands were free, there was a rising murmur of voices, he sensed that it was caused by his movements then his eyes riveted on a white face, tilted slightly upward. The skin had a quality of taut anxiety and around oval of white face, with long wavy dark hair. It was lady Morgana, sitting quietly, with waxen hands placed firmly on her lap.

Omar remembered the first moment he saw her, filled with so much conceitedness for her glory and skin. He also remembered the rejection and despise She showed at a first sight of him, a memory that can never be forgotten.

Sitting beside Morgana,looking straight before him with wide open unblinking eyes. He try to look at her slowly, but when his gaze met hers ; his eyes fell.

He was getting tired; the more he came to himself, the more a sense of fatigue seeped into him . He looked down at his clothes, they were damp and crumpled and the sleeves of his coat drawn halfway up his arms. His shirt was open and he could see the black skin of his chest. Suddenly, he felt the fingers of his hand throb with pain. Two fingernails were torn off, he could not remember how it had happened he tried to move his tongue and found it swollen. His lips were dry and cracked, he felt giddy and craved for water. The lights and faces whirled slowly, like a merry go round.

When he opened his eyes, a white face loomed above him. He tried to lift his body and was pushed back.

" Take it easy, boy. Here, drink this "

A glass touched his lips. Ought he to drink? But what a difference did it make? He swallowed something warm; it was milk. When the glass was empty he lay upon his back and stared at the ceiling. The memory of his mother and the milk she had given him every morning sprang back strongly. Wistfully he wished for days like that again but knows it will never come.

" Do you know this woman?"

" Hmm" he grunted.

" Have she been bad to you ?"

"Not i can say, why no ask her? "

" Then why did you do it ?"

" Me no do it "

" Why were you with Christopher ?"

" No thing"

" Tell this apelike animal to better start talking! I am loosing my patience!" Morgana yelled

" please stay calm madam"

Omar shrugged to her threat, and moved his face away. Fear was far away from his heart, what worse could she probably do to him, rather than death. That was all, and he is preparing his mind to accept that fate.

" Are you so hungry that you can't talk?"

He did not answer.

" get im something, I think he is hungry"

" You better lie down boy. You will go back to the inquest soon. "

He felt their hands pushing him back onto the cot. The door closed; he looked around. He was alone.the room was quiet. He had come out into the world again. He was being turned here and there by a surge of strange forces he could not understand. It was not to save his life that he had come out, he did not care what they did to him. They could place him in the electric chair right now; for all he care.

The door opened and a policeman brought in a tray of food, set it on a chair next to him and left. There was fried potatoes and coffee. Sluggishly, he cut a piece of fried potatoes and put it into his mouth. It tasted so good that he tried to swallow it before he chewed it, he ate so fast that his jaws ached. He stopped and held the food in his mouth, feeling the juices of his gland flowing round it. When he was through, he dozed off to an uneasy sleep that didn't last long before he jolted up suddenly, and sat upright. He had not seen a newspaper, not knowing what the public says of him. But what would he need it for, he can't read, an illiterate doom to fail. He layed back gently on the cot, crossing his arms across each other, placing them on his stomach. Staring at the ceiling, with tears rolling down his swollen cheeks. He didn't want to do that, he didn't want to cry no more but it keeps rolling down. his mother always say to him that everyone brought their fate to this world. If so, then he has chosen the worst for himself, and everyone like him had. He wanted to force himself to sleep, to take his mind away from the troubles and fears. But the anxiousness of what they would finally do to him keeps his mind constantly awake and his eyes from resting. He doesn't want to be scared of death, he doesn't want to worry, at least for once, he wants to be brave. But that courage refuse to come, it denied him. When his mind finally wants to rest away from all his worries, the door creaked open again.