Fiction

---

In the years he had been hiding, Muhammad read many books. One that intrigued him spoke of a witch that had lived many hundreds of years deep in the heart of Europe. When a young man appeared whose presence threatened the power and authority of Baba Yaga, she followed him to America intending to kill him. Always a step behind she missed her chance but discovered he planned to fly back to Europe. Baba Yaga disguised herself and boarded the airplane on which the young man planned to return. Through her magic she would destroy her enemy and go home victorious. Unfortunately for Baba Yaga she didn’t realize her victim got off the plane at the last minute and the witch found herself flying home without accomplishing her mission.
Enraged, Baba Yaga took revenge on those around her. She summoned the vast extent of her magical powers and in the twinkling of an eye hijacked the plane. It disappeared from modern day airspace, simply gone from radar, with no trace as if it had vaporized.
Her craft of magic enabled Baba Yaga to take the airliner back in time and place to the medieval forest in which she dwelled. She forced the pilot to land and imprisoned all the crew and passengers on board. From that time on to the present, rumors abounded in the region about a bird as big as the house of a rich man that ran around on the ground back and forth on its skinny legs.
The magic! That’s what made this story come alive for Muhammad. He was a man of magic. He had immense powers that he could summon. All of nature responded to his very command. He had brought great disaster on those who opposed him. One such, a man by the name of Job, angered Muhammad so much because of his purported righteousness that he commanded armies to carry off Job’s livestock and kill all his servants. He called fire down from the sky to destroy every one of Job’s sons and daughters and their families. Then he brought great misery on Job by causing terrible and painful sores to fester all over his body. Muhammad didn’t suffer well those who displeased him.
One other time in Muhammad’s memorable life he had commanded the forces of nature by taking the great prophet who called himself God’s Son – such hubris! – to the roof of a sacred temple and offered the entire city that lay before them if the man would call down angels to catch him. When the prophet refused Muhammad took him to the peak of a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. Muhammad offered everything on earth to the prophet if he would only worship Muhammad. The prophet would not. He said He would revere only the Father, and Muhammad’s rage burned within him. For that moment he let it go, but promised to resolve his differences with the prophet at a more opportune time. He did, assuring the man’s death on a Roman cross.
Violence in the present day around the world had increased to an acceptable level. Through the powers manifested in him Muhammad emerged from hiding to complete the grand task for which he had been waiting all these years. He had the authority and capability to demonstrate to those who would follow him, and to all the world, that there was one way, one path, and that he – Muhammad – was the light that would shine into every corner of the globe. Destiny promised that Muhammad would rule all through the force and might of Allah. Armies under his command would sweep throughout the nations and all would submit. If any refused, if any disobeyed or rebelled, they would taste the wrath of Muhammad’s ire.
Over the years faithful servants tended Muhammad’s hiding place in Iran during his occultation. Some were Iranians themselves, some from other Muslim Shiite nations who had been raised generation by generation to watch over the sacred place of their spiritual leader. Those who truly believed and obeyed all that the Prophet had decreed for Islam and its people gained unimaginable rewards, both in the life of the flesh and in paradise. Because of his supernatural essence, though a man, Muhammad needed little. He didn’t crave human companionship because he rested in the spirit with the source of all that was or ever would be. Yet servants needed to feel useful, and he accommodated them as much as his patience would allow.
As the greatest Imam of all, Muhammad would reestablish justice. He hated that the schism many years before had torn apart the family that the Prophet had birthed. Muhammad knew as a Shiite that he was in the true ancestral line of his namesake because of the supremacy of his very being. None other had been granted his mystical capabilities. After all who else could exist for over thirteen hundred years and appear as if he was only in his late twenties? Who else had magic at his disposal to rival and surpass that of the witch Baba Yaga? Yes, Muhammad al-Mahdi would show Shia and Sunni the truth, even those Sunnis who despised the prophecies and looked down upon their brother Shiites. The Sunni tribe, for all its pride and arrogance, would submit to the true path of Allah.
Muhammad made his way through the airport terminal. At his side Javad barely kept his excitement under control. Younger than Mohammad but a dedicated servant of Allah, Javad had arranged for the theft of the passports each carried and assured that every last detail of their identification paperwork had been resolved.
Tickets in hand they passed through checkpoint after checkpoint. They stepped through scanning devices revealing each intimate detail of their bodies while uniformed guards examined their shoes and every possession they carried. Of course, nothing was amiss.
The flight was on time and with the boarding announcement they stood in the long line of passengers waiting to board the jumbo jet. They were only two of over two hundred such passengers plus crew members soon to suffer the indignities of air travel. Muhammad kept his smile to himself. It would be a short flight.
So many people. So many possessions. Muhammad and Javad by design traveled light. But everyone around them crowding, jostling, and yelling revealed in the desperate search for seats, storage, and sanity the unhappiness of the human condition. Muhammad would not bring them happiness, but he would bring them true righteousness, more than Job could ever imagine.
All eventually settled down and the flight got underway. In their first class seats Muhammad and Javad each closed his eyes in prayer. It was the appointed time but circumstances prevented them from full adherence to the ritual of Salat, prayer toward Mecca five times daily. Allah would understand. This was a mission from him after all.
The plane took flight. Babies cried. Conversations began. Many on board took out phones or computers. Others sat quietly. Muhammad and Javad waited.
Less than an hour out soon after watching the Asian coastline disappear Muhammad tapped Javad on the knee to alert him. Javad nodded and began to pray fervently under his breath. Muhammad stared straight ahead, eyes piercing the seat before him, but not seeing a thing. He reached into his spirit and was rewarded with a voice that whispered in his mind, “Now.”
Sweat broke out on Muhammad’s face as that which was using him as its instrument caused his body to writhe in pain. The force without and within grew stronger. Blood spurted from one of his eyes as pressure in an artery caused it to rupture, but Mohammad didn’t notice. Sweat and blood were both the same at this moment. His breath came in heaving convulsions.
A flight attendant noticed his contortions. Startled, she rushed over. “Sir,” she said, “what is the matter?” She reached for an emergency alarm.
In that instant all went black.
Muhammad floated in the peace of the world of the spirits far above and beyond the mortal coil. He saw below him the airplane and within it his earthly body. Javad, the flight attendant, and the remainder of passengers and crew lay comatose in seats and aisles. Not a one stirred. The plane and all within it would remain in this suspended state until Allah dictated.
The disappearance of the Malaysian plane that had been bound for China and disappeared without a trace created a worldwide outcry. How could it have simply vanished? Had it vaporized? Was that possible? Aircraft that large had to leave some debris, the piece of a wing, a seat, a life vest, an oil slick. But there was nothing.
Families cried in dismay. They raised prayers to their gods and received no answer. The pain of missing loved ones overcame many; they collapsed in the midst of wherever they happened to be.
Days passed. It was discovered that the cell phones of some on board rang instead of going immediately to voicemail as they would if destroyed. The mystery deepened.
Months came and went with no further word on the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner. Ramadan was celebrated. Muslims everywhere fasted and prayed. The time of Hajj approached and Muslims throughout the world began journeys to Mecca to fulfill their religious duty for pilgrimage to the holy city. Thousands arrived by plane, by land, and by foot. They gathered at the Kaaba and began their walks of religious observance seven times counter-clockwise round the great cubed building. They pushed and shoved to reach the Black Stone rubbed smooth by hands over the centuries. If some could they kissed it and declared, “God is Great.”
Hundreds of thousands of people observing the rites of their religion in this one city at this singular time: Again the voice whispered to Muhammad, “Now.”
He summoned all his strength and will. He called upon Allah. The ethers flickered as energy coalesced at a single point. Mighty spirits in the realm shrieked as power was sucked from them.
A man near the Kaaba grabbed the sleeve of his friend and pointed. In the center of the square in the midst of uncounted people an odd light glowed. It grew in intensity, metal iridescent in the noonday sun. A roar erupted from that spot and radiated outward. The wave of sound obliterated those who were near. It picked up people further away and thrust them into the air like the delicate cotton-like seeds of a dandelion. The man who had first noticed the disturbance melted: a chocolate blot in the desert sun. His friend simply ceased to exist.
Those watching on the periphery saw the metallic shimmer take form. It took the outline of an aircraft. The shape grew in substance and size. Before the frightened eyes of the watching crowd a complete airplane materialized out of nothing.
Silence descended.
No one said a word. Only the ragged breathing of the assembled multitude of Shia and Sunni Muslims could be heard in that fiery furnace under the sun.
The two branches of Islam came together for pilgrimage but because of their differences were always uneasy with each other. The supposed time of harmony wasn’t always a united scene. But now men who often hated each other that had come together here only because of the name of Allah and his Prophet grasped one another’s hands in fear. Nothing in their experience had prepared them for this miracle before their very eyes.
The door of the airliner cracked open and a gasp went up from the crowd. A man appeared, a man as no other. He was dressed in white. More than that: an unearthly glow of holiness emanated from him.
Those closest to the plane that were still alive fell to their knees. Like a rip-tide wave moving outward from the beach into the ocean, people dropped to the ground. The swell of humanity bowing in reverence swept over the city. Those miles away with no notion of what was occurring plunged to the pavement, knowing only that if they didn’t their lives were forfeit.
From the opening in the plane high above the square the man who had appeared spoke. “I am the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. You will worship me and do as I command in the name of Allah. Allahu Akbar. God is great! The tribes of Shia and Sunni are now united. Together we will conquer the world.”
The time of deception had come upon the earth.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR