Moonshot [Part 13] – The Planet Rust

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Author’s Note: I consider dreams to be signs from Allah, and as such I never invent dreams for my stories. When I need to know what a character is dreaming, I think of that character before I sleep. I put myself in his mindset, and become him. In the morning, when I wake, I write down my dreams immediately. That’s what happened here. I dreamed this for Deek – with the Thunkan giants, Karkol, the planet Rust, and all.

***

“Lift as you climb.” – African-American proverb

Honey On Sunlight

Abdul Basit Abdul Samad

Rania sat at the kitchen table staring at her laptop screen, studying the city of Fresno’s residential permit guide, as at the same time she listened to the perennial sound of ‘Abdul Basit ‘Abd us-Samad reciting the Quran. The late Egyptian reciter’s voice was like honey on sunlight at times, and at other times was a pelican flying just over the surface of the sea, then a peregrine falcon diving into the water. Suddenly it went deep, and was a subterranean river pouring over a never-seen waterfall. Allahu Akbar, may Allah have mercy on him.

The document she was studying helped homeowners understand what they must do before building a structure on their property. It detailed the required documents, a submittal checklist, review timeline estimates and the city’s fee schedule for things like plan-checks, permits and resubmittals.

Beside her on a table were three empty blueberry yogurt cups, and she had just scooped a large spoonful from a fourth cup into her mouth when the door opened.

“As-salamu alaykum Mom,” Sanaya called out.

“I’m in the kitchen!” Hand to her mouth, swallowing the yogurt.

The girls joined her, dumping their miscellaneous belongings onto the table. Amira checked her phone, looking glum. She missed her Baba, Rania knew. Amira and Deek had always been best friends.

“I thought you were on the keto diet,” Sanaya commented. “You know those yogurts have a lot of sugar.”

“They’re low fat.”

“And high sugar.”

Rania sighed and pushed the yogurt away. Sanaya was right. If she ever wanted to lose the extra weight on her hips and upper arms, she had to get serious about quitting sugar. And she did want to lose weight. Deek always told her she was beautiful, and their love life was healthy, but part of her wondered if her weight gain was one of the reasons he had left. She’d actually cut out all true junk foods in the last several days, and had already lost a few pounds. Deek would like that. The thought made her smile.

She needed to get serious about exercise. When she was young, her go-to sport was swimming. Her own mother had grown up swimming in the Tigris river, and had taught Rania from a young age. Rania was on the school swim team until she turned 12 and began wearing hijab. The problem now was that she didn’t have a private place to swim. She supposed she could make herself a burkini and swim at the community pool. She was quite talented with a sewing machine. Or she could start jogging in the neighborhood.

This Time Was Different

In the past, when she and Deek had fought, she had never worried that he might leave her. But this time was different. She knew that in these last few months she’d been nasty to him at times. She’d been under so much stress with the bills, and it had changed her. She wasn’t proud of it. And now Deek was rich.

It wasn’t that she thought Deek would take his money and find a younger, more beautiful woman. He wasn’t like that. But maybe the money gave him options that he didn’t have before. And maybe some of those options were more attractive than a life with Rania.

She hated herself for thinking these things. For all her faults, she had been good to Deek, and loved him, and cared for him, and supported him while he struggled. She was a good wife. She didn’t “deserve” for Deek to leave her, and she shouldn’t blame herself. But she couldn’t help it.

Sanaya snatched up the discarded yogurt and began to eat it.

Fa inna ma’ al-’usra yusraa, Abdul Basit recited:

So, surely with hardship comes ease.
Surely with hardship comes ease!
So once you have fulfilled ˹your duty˺, strive ˹in devotion˺,
turning to your Lord ˹alone˺ with hope.

“This is Abdul Basit, isn’t it?” Sanaya asked. “He’s so good.”

Rania paused the recitation. “Yes, mashaAllah. A great man. Do you know when he used to travel in the Muslim world, presidents would meet him on the tarmac? May Allah elevate him in Jannah.”

Sanaya craned her neck to peek at the screen. “What are you working on?”

“I’m studying the city’s requirements for building an addition to the house. I have a meeting with an architect tomorrow morning, I want to be ready.”

“What are you going to build?”

“An office for your father.”

Amira looked up hopefully. “Is Baba coming home?”

“Of course he is.”

“You talked to him?”

“No, but I -”

Amira tossed her phone onto the table with a clatter, then pulled off her blue amira hijab and threw it randomly onto a kitchen counter. She shook her head, letting her long, wavy brown hair flow to her back.

Drove Him Away

“Come on Miri,” Rania said, using the girl’s nickname. “Don’t be like that.”

“Mom, you know I love you,” Sanaya said in the tone of someone imparting a solemn secret. “But you did drive him away. You need to go see him.”

Rania threw her hands up. “I don’t even know where he is. I’ve been leaving messages but he doesn’t answer. But it’s okay, it’s not the first time we’ve had a fight. We always work it out, inshaAllah. I love your father and he loves me. And what do you mean I drove him away?”

“I was there, Mom, remember? In the driveway when Baba brought home the new car? I heard what you said.”

Amira perked up like a lion scenting a deer. “What did she say?”

“She said Baba was an anchor around her neck, and that she was seeing someone else.”

“Mom!” Amira leaped to her feet.

Rania gave Sanaya a baleful stare. “Yes, I said that about the anchor, but I was under a lot of stress and I didn’t mean it. And I have NOT been seeing someone else. I was having lunch occasionally with Dr. Townsend at the hospital. I’ve stopped doing that. I even transferred departments so as not to be around him.”

“Why did you have to transfer?”

“Because he won’t leave me alone. He thinks there’s something between us, and there isn’t. I love your father and no one else. I would never, ever cheat on him, I swear it.”

Every Penny

Amira sat back down. “Why do guys do that?”

“Do what?”

“They never take the hint. Even when you say no they keep coming like hungry dogs.”

Hearing this out of her 16 year old daughter’s mouth was worrisome, but Rania didn’t have time to deal with it right then. She filed it away, to be addressed later.

“We believe you, mom,” Sanaya said. “Right, Miri?”

“Whatever.”

“How are you going to pay for the new office? How much will it cost?”

“Your father gave me a hundred thousand dollars. It will cost every penny of it, and maybe a little more. But that’s okay, because your father deserves it.”

“So… We’re rich now? Baba succeeded with the crypto thing?”

Rania nodded slowly. “Yes. It would appear so. He bought that little Porsche with crypto. Didn’t even pay cash for it.”

Amira pumped a fist in the air. “Go Baba! That car is bad-ass.”

“Watch your language. What does a person’s bottom have to do with anything?”

The girls laughed uproariously. Sanaya wiped a little yogurt from her chin.

“It’s how people talk, Mom,” Amira explained.

“It’s not how we talk. We choose our language consciously. Everything we do and say is in the service of Allahu Subhanahu wa Ta’aala.”

“Yes, yes.” Sanaya lifted an eyebrow. “So can I get me a slice of that crypto score?”

“Don’t worry,” Rania reassured. “Your father always does what’s right.”

Earth Will Die

Earth was going to die. A terrible catastrophe was coming. Deek saw it in a vision, clearer than the faces of his children. The entire world would ignite in a conflagration that would burn even the seas and rivers. The vision struck him like a sledgehammer.

That evening, Deek gathered Rania, Sanaya, and Amira around the kitchen table. “I’ve seen it,” he began, voice low. “I know Earth will die.”

Rania’s jaw clenched. “A dream, Deek?” she said, arms folded. “What proof do you have?” The lamp’s warm glow revealed the worry etched on his wife’s face and the tightening in Sanaya’s shoulders.

Sanaya’s foot tapped the tile floral. Amira looked down at her phone. “How would we live on some alien planet?” Rania pressed on.

“I have spoken with Karkol,” Deek explained. “The Thunka who deals with my company.”

The Thunka were a race of red-skinned giants from the planet Rust. They ran an interstellar cargo service between Earth and other planets, and Deek happened to know one of them, a purchasing agent named Karkol who Deek had occasionally hired to procure alien antiques.

“Karkol has agreed,” Deek went on, “to transport us to Rust. I know it will be difficult. The atmosphere is breathable, but light. It will take time to adjust. And the gravity is heavier than ours. But you know there are dozens of humans living on Rust. Diplomats, merchants, pilgrims.”

“How would we live?” Rania demanded. “It’s out of the question.”

Sanaya and Amira did not want to leave their comfortable lives and friends. In the end Deek’s family all refused to leave. Their refusal drove a steel spike through his chest. They didn’t understand the urgency. Why wouldn’t they believe him? He had always been honest with them.

Ozone and Oil

There was a little time yet before the catastrophe, he sensed this. He would go on his own, in advance. He would build a home, learn the language, and prepare a welcome for his family.

When he left, Rania turned away. He hugged his daughters. Amira hid her face in her hands.

On the Thunkan ship, everything dwarfed him: the height of the ceiling, the width of the corridors, and his own bed, which he needed a ladder to climb into. The giants were five times his size and he stayed out of their way, except when he needed to follow one through a door, since the 30 foot high circular doors would not open for him, as his weight was not sufficient to trigger the floor sensors.

He was lightheaded due to lack of oxygen, but he would acclimate as his body created more red blood cells. The air smelled of ozone and oil. All around, crates loomed four deep. The shipping labels were in Thunkan, he could not read them, but he knew they were destined for many different worlds.

Translating

I need to contact Earth,” he told one giant. The great creature led him to a panel computer. Deek spoke into it.

“Call my wife. Rania Al-Rashid in Fresno, California.”

A disc swirled on the screen, then a word appeared: TRANSLATING. A moment later the computer spoke in a metallic rasp:

“PROVIDE TRACKING NUMBER FOR WALL LIGHTS FROM FRESNO CALIFORNIA.”

Frustration flared. Deek waved his arms. “I need to call my wife!”

“FRUITS FOR YOUR LIFE.”

It was hopeless.

Buildings Like Cliffs

On the planet Rust, he staggered through the city, its buildings towering like cliffs, every door and window yawning wide.

Ochre dust swirled through the city’s broad avenues. Masks—dust-coated and ritual-bright—covered every face, including his. Immense red-skinned trees, trunks wider than buildings, reached toward a salmon sky. The call to prayer sounded from burnished bronze temples that rose like cathedral spires, and giants flowed from all directions to worship. They were not all red-skinned, as he saw now. Some were green, and others brown.

He entered a cafeteria the size of a stadium. Food was considered a Thunkan right, and was free. Tables grown from living stone bore steaming blue fruits and braided pastries. Hunger and hope warred in his chest. He sampled a fruit—and spat out its bitter flesh. Glyphs curved across a holo-menu, but he could not decipher the symbols.

A Sponsor

At his lowest moment, a green-skinned giantess in a finely cut gray suit approached with a tray of food. In spite of her obviously feminine contours and jewelry, her voice rumbled like an avalanche as in passable English she explained the foodstuffs. She was a university professor, specializing in alien languages. Her name was Anako.

Anako informed Deek that he must find a sponsor within one month, or he would be sent back to Earth. She herself could sponsor him, and get him a job teaching English at the university. With that income, he could build a house suited to his size.

Deek sighed in relief. Everything would be okay. He and his family could survive here. Anako took him to a computer terminal that specialized in alien communications, and he called his family.

“You’re asking too much, habibi,” Rania said. “You should return home. The scientists say they can repair the problem.”

Deek’s heart leapt to his throat. “What problem?”

“The ozone layer is degrading.”

“You must come to Thunka immediately!”

But Rania would not have it. Crushed, he returned to his temporary dormitory home and lay on his bunk.

Bound To Perish

Anako found him with the news. Chemical pollutants in Earth’s atmosphere had ignited the ozone layer, burning it away and allowing solar and interstellar radiation to flood in. Everything on the surface of the planet was dead.

In a daze, Deek wandered the city. It was night time, and a warm breeze rippled his shirt. Looking up, he saw myriad lights of freighters landing and taking off. In a city park, a sea of violet grass waved in the wind.

He found Rabiah Al-Adawiyyah sitting with her back against a tree as wide as a house, rocking back and forth as she recited the Quran. He fell to his knees, averting his eyes from her pious visage.

“It’s all gone,” he said numbly.

In answer, Rabiah recited in Arabic from Surat Ar-Rahman:

Every being on Earth is bound to perish.
Only your Lord Himself, full of Majesty and Honor, will remain.
Then which of your Lord’s favours will you both deny?

Deek pressed his face into the grass. “Why did this happen?”

“Great doubt,” Rabiah said, “will eventually lead to great awakening.”

Deek stumbled away, mumbling, “Everything is gone.”

“Deek!” Rabiah called after him.

“Gone.”

———- “Mister Saghir!” ———-

Deep Yellow Sunlight

With a gasp, Deek jerked awake. He was in the back seat of November Evans’s car, which sat idling at a red light. They were on the outskirts of Fresno. Fields and roads were illuminated with that deep yellow hue that only occurs in the hour before sunset. Deek blinked, heartbeat thundering, and pressed his palms to his eyes.

“You were dreaming. I was about to come back there and shake you awake.”

On the radio, a man’s voice crooned:

She’s gone like last week’s moon
Gone like a forgotten tune.

November’s slender fingers brushed the volume knob as she turned the music off. “Are you alright?” Her voice was gentle.

“I guess.” In his mind he was still stuck on Rust, smelling the sour grass as the warm wind whipped at his clothing. The lights of ships above. Shaykha Rabiah saying, “Great doubt will eventually lead to great awakening.”

Why had Rania been so stubborn? Why wouldn’t she and the girls come with him?

And maybe more importantly, why had he left them behind? Why hadn’t he remained on Earth to die with them? That would have been more honorable.

A Heavy Dreamer

With shaking hands, he texted his daughters and asked them to meet him at the hotel restaurant tomorrow for lunch.

Then he texted Lubna to let her know he’d be dropping by in an hour or so. Lubna didn’t like surprise visits, at least not from Deek.

He would also visit Rania tonight, but he did not text her. He wanted to surprise her.

“You’re a heavy dreamer,” November commented.

“Not always. Things on my mind right now.”

“I apologize,” the driver said, “if I overstepped in our conversation about your family.”

Deek waved this off. “I’m having trouble adjusting.”

“You’ll find clarity. You have a good heart.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s part of my job to assess character.”

“I was thinking of changing my name,” Deek said out of the blue, “to Asad. It means lion.”

November Evans rolled the towncar right up to the Marco Polo’s front door. She turned to study him. “I don’t see it,” she remarked, “but sometimes we grow into our names.”

I Like You Too Much

Not knowing what else to say, Deek exited then stepped up to the open driver’s window. “You want to work for me?”

November winked at him with one pretty brown eye. “Negative. I like you too much for that.”

Deek regarded her. Part of his mind was still on the planet Rust, standing beneath trees the size of buildings, feeling the hot wind pull at his shirt.

“Lift as you climb,” he said.

November nodded solemnly. “Lift as you climb. Take care of yourself, Mr. Saghir.” With that, she drove away.

Deek’s phone buzzed with a reply from Lubna: “No visits today. I’m not in the mood.”

Deek’s mouth formed a firm line. He knew, and Allah knew, that he had not been a good brother to Lubna. He thought about the San Francisco woman’s cardboard sign: “Tried Everything.” That was true for Deek himself, and Lubna, and Marco, and even Zaid Karim. All of them struggling alone, like castaways on remote planets, each thinking they were alone in their particular world. But they all lived on the same planet. They were all part of each other’s world. And Deek wasn’t leaving anyone behind this time.

Not even taking the time to go up to his hotel room, he walked to his car, started it, and headed for Lubna’s house. What he intended to do would be tricky. She, like Deek, was proud. Plus, she didn’t like him much, and didn’t trust him. Which was his fault, and was something he must rectify at all costs.

[Part 14 will be published next week inshaAllah]

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

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See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

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Kill the Courier |Part 1 – Hiding in Plain Sight

No, My Son | A Short Story