When the things around him begin to vanish, Bashir searches desperately for an explanation.

This is a two-part story. Come back tomorrow for part two.

* * *

Things Going Missing

Bashir did not notice right away when things began to walk away.

His wife Sherry, for example. Useless woman. Yes, of course he noticed when he woke up on a Monday morning and she wasn’t there, because there was no breakfast or coffee on the table. Stupid woman had probably gone shopping and forgot to make it. Not that she ever really forgot… She was normally quite dependable. Even if her scrambled eggs were too hard, and the coffee was not strong enough. Whatever. He heated up a disgusting frozen bean burrito and downed it with a glass of the orange juice his wife loved so much. He nearly gagged on the juice. How could anyone drink this acidic orange sludge?

At work, his executive mahogany desk was gone. He’d been complaining about it for a year. It was a beautiful desk, sure, but as head of East Asian markets he deserved a bigger one. Maybe they’d finally decided to replace it. That didn’t change the big open space in his office, and the fact that he had nowhere to work.

“Bettina!” he bellowed.  When his secretary didn’t answer, he flung open his office door with a crash. Bettina was not at her desk. She hadn’t even called in sick. He didn’t have time for this. Cursing under his breath, he commandeered the desk, computer and telephone of a subordinate – a tall, blond nitwit who needed to be put in her place anyway – and, ordering two other nameless drones to carry it all into his office, put his head down and got through the day.

Georgie Boy

On the way home, he was four blocks from the house, driving his Lexus RX 350 – which,  by the way, was a piece of junk, with a gummy transmission and a slew of electronic glitches – when he saw a large gray cat walking along the side of the road. Wasn’t that Georgie Boy, his wife’s cat? He slowed, then stopped. Sherry loved this silly beast, though Bashir didn’t know why. Georgie Boy ate too much, and when they let him out at night he inevitably got into fights with other neighborhood cats. Still, his wife loved the animal even more than she loved Bashir himself – he was under no illusions about that.

He jogged to the cat. It walked steadily, eyes forward. When he called its name it glanced back, then continued. He caught up to it and grabbed it by the collar. Gray cat, white chest and paws… This was Georgie Boy. He checked the ID tag: Georgie Boy, with a little heart beside the name, and his wife’s phone number.

“Where are you going, moron?” Bashir demanded. He put Georgie Boy in the car and took him home.

His wife was still not home. He looked around for a note but found nothing. His calls went to voicemail. Had she left him? He checked the closet: her clothes were still there. He raged, shouting at her, calling her every name he could think of. He thought about calling the police, then remembered every detective show he’d ever watched. They’d tell him to wait. Three days? A week? Useless cops. They should all drink orange juice and die.

He’d better feed Georgie Boy. He opened a can of wet food and dumped it in the bowl, then called the beast. “Georgie Boy, big idiot…” The cat did not come. Maybe it was hiding under a bed. Whatever.

A Lone Pickle

Bashir opened the refrigerator and stared. There was half a bottle of ketchup, an ancient jar of mustard, and a lone pickle floating in cloudy green juice. The milk was gone. The eggs were gone. The sliced turkey, cheese, Chinese leftovers from Friday night, the frozen burritos… all gone.

He frowned. “Wonderful.”

Sherry must have cleaned out the refrigerator. About time. Then she’d forgotten to buy more. Typical.

His stomach growled. He stood for a moment in the middle of the kitchen, trying to think. Everything that had happened today had a perfectly reasonable explanation. Strange that they should all happen on the same day, certainly, but coincidences happened.

Bashir returned to the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway.

The Kitchen Table

The kitchen table was gone. So were the four chairs.

For several seconds he simply stared at the empty tiled floor where the table had stood since the day they’d moved into the house. His mind searched automatically for explanations. Was he in the wrong room? Had someone moved the table? He looked in the pantry and behind the refrigerator, then around the kitchen as though a solid oak table might somehow be concealed behind the trash can.

His pulse quickened as he realized that there must be burglars in the house.

“No,” he muttered. “No, no…”

He backed against the wall, his shirt suddenly damp between his shoulder blades. Some gang of lunatics was emptying the place while he wandered around like an idiot feeding cats. They must still be here.

He thrust a hand into his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. His other pocket. Nothing. He checked his jacket, then patted himself down again, more roughly this time.

“Come on…”

He closed his eyes, trying to picture the last time he’d held it. In the car? At work? On the kitchen counter? Normally he could retrace his steps without much trouble, but now there was only a maddening blank.

His heart hammered against his ribs. He forced himself to take a slow breath. “Think.”

No. This wasn’t a burglary. It couldn’t be. Burglars didn’t steal kitchen tables without making a sound. They certainly didn’t carry them away in the thirty seconds it took to check on a cat.

He laughed once, a short, humorless bark that sounded foreign even to him.

On the Bedroom Floor

Maybe he was sick. Stress. Low blood sugar. Hallucinations brought on by that revolting frozen burrito. People hallucinated all sorts of nonsense, didn’t they? He’d heard of that happening.

Sleep. That was the answer.

He nodded to himself. Sleep fixed everything. Tomorrow Sherry would come home with some ridiculous excuse. Bettina would explain herself. The company would sort out the desk. His phone would turn up wedged between the couch cushions or sitting on the bathroom counter.

Still muttering complaints, he climbed the stairs, undressed, and went to bed.

When he awoke the next morning, he was lying flat on his back on the bedroom floor. His first thought was that he’d rolled out of bed. He grunted as he pushed himself onto one elbow.

Then he looked beside him.

The bed was gone. Only four pale rectangles remained in the carpet where its legs had rested for years.

For a long time he did not move. Then, for the first time since all of this had begun, Bashir screamed.

Imam Saleh

By late afternoon, Bashir had exhausted every explanation he could think of. Against his better judgment, he drove across town to see Imam Saleh. If there was some spiritual explanation for what was happening, perhaps the imam would know it. Besides, Saleh’s wife Layla and Sherry had been friends for years. If Sherry had said anything to anyone, it would probably have been to Layla.

Imam Saleh himself answered the door. He was a tall, midnight-black man in a tan thobe and an embroidered kufi, with the kind of calm face Bashir had always found faintly irritating.

“Brother Bashir,” he said warmly. “As-salamu alaykum.”

Bashir nodded. “How’s it going?”

“I was just about to make some tea. Would you like some?”

Bashir realized suddenly how hungry he was.

“I’d love some. And if you’ve got anything to eat, I’d appreciate that too.”

“Of course.”

The imam returned a few minutes later carrying a tray with two steaming glasses of tea, warm flatbread, olives, dates, and a small bowl of hummus. From the tea wafted the sweet smell of hibiscus. Bashir took a long draught of the tea, then attacked the food, speaking through the side of his mouth as he chewed.

Saleh listened patiently as Bashir described Sherry’s disappearance, the missing desk, Bettina, Georgie Boy’s strange determination to leave the house, the empty refrigerator, the vanishing kitchen table, and finally waking up on the bedroom floor after his bed had somehow disappeared during the night.

Throughout the story, the imam interrupted only to ask an occasional question.

“I thought Layla might know where Sherry is,” Bashir concluded.

The imam folded his hands in his lap. “Unfortunately, Layla is on a spiritual retreat in Turkey. No phones.”

“Turkey? Are you serious? Who makes your breakfast?”

Saleh smiled faintly. “I do.”

“Is it possible Sherry went with her?”

Saleh pursed his lips. “I doubt it. It’s not a group thing, she went alone.”

“Wonderful. It’s contagious.”

Gratitude

For a moment neither man spoke.

Then the imam asked quietly, “Do you remember my khutbah last Jum’ah?”

Bashir sighed. “Some pseudo-intellectual New Agey mumbo-jumbo about gratitude? I couldn’t get into it.”

A faint smile crossed Saleh’s face. “It was about gratitude, yes. Though I don’t believe the Prophet ﷺ would have recognized it as New Age.”

Saleh recited softly:

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ

‘If you are grateful, I will surely increase you. But if you are ungrateful, indeed My punishment is severe.’

“That’s from surat Ibrahim,” Saleh went on. “You see, the defining quality of a person’s relationship with this life is gratitude. Two men may own the same house, eat the same food, and have the same family. One thanks Allah every day and considers himself wealthy. The other notices only what is missing and lives as though he were poor.”

Bashir stared into his tea. “So you’re saying my furniture disappeared because I complain too much.”

“Do you complain too much?”

Bashir blew out a puff of air. “Yes, because the world is messed up.”

“What about you, are you messed up?”

Bashir scowled. “That’s not very nice. Aren’t you supposed to be nice?”

The imam gave a half shrug. “I’m supposed to be honest.”

A Prescription

Imam Saleh reached out and touched Bashir’s hand. “Easy, brother. I’m just saying that whatever else may be happening, it would not hurt to be grateful, and to spend some time on personal reflection. Instead of looking for flaws in everything and everyone around you, look within.”

Bashir groaned out loud. “More New Age stuff.”

Saleh continued gently. “There’s something I want you to do. Repeat, ‘SubhanAllah wa bihamdihi’ one hundred times each day. Glory to Allah, and all praise is due to Him. Think of it as a spiritual prescription.”

Bashir said nothing.

“And,” the imam added, “I would be remiss if I didn’t also encourage you to see a physician. Sudden memory problems, confusion, and unusual perceptions can have medical causes.”

Bashir closed his eyes.

What a complete idiot this man was. Bashir’s wife was missing. His bed had walked away. His kitchen table had vanished into thin air, and this sanctimonious fool wanted him to count to a hundred and see a doctor.

He opened his eyes.

The armchair opposite him was empty. The tea glass still sat on the side table, faint curls of steam rising. But Imam Saleh was gone.

Bashir frowned at the empty chair. “Imam?”

No answer. He stood slowly.

“Saleh?”

Perhaps Saleh had gone to the kitchen for more tea. Or to the bathroom. Bashir waited, listening for footsteps or the sound of a cupboard opening.

“Imam?”

His own voice sounded strangely small. He wandered into the kitchen, found it empty. The kettle still sat on the stove. The cupboards were closed. The back door was locked. Knowing that he was being intrusive, he checked the hallway, then the bedroom, the tiny study, and the bathroom. The Imam’s house was really small, he noted. The man was a broke fool.

Broke or not, there was no one there. Bashir returned to the living room. For a long time he simply stood there, turning slowly in place. At last he walked to the front door, let himself out, and closed it carefully behind him.

* * *

Come back TOMORROW for Part 2 – Primordial Muck

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

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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The Albatross and the Quran: A Short Story