The Prophet's Ladder Read Free Page A

for Amina, and he’d practically ruined the dinner. Why did I have to go and challenge Hassan? I need to learn to just shut up every now and then.
    It was a moonlit night, and Tunis was still alive with activity. The streets were full of shoppers and youthful couples daring to hold hands in the darkness of a shady street corner. Men crowded the cafes watching footballers or the evening news. A number of foreign tourists could be seen: Europeans, Americans, even a few Chinese walking down the main boulevards, some led by tour guides pointing out the various attributes of the ancient city.
    Ali arrived at his family’s apartment after winding his way through the gates of the old medina and its narrow alleyways. The cramped home was dimly lit, in stark comparison to Amina’s family’s bright house. The place was ancient, built many centuries ago and modified and rebuilt several times since then. The cold stones and brick of each room echoed with the history and stories of old Tunis, of generations of family who were born, lived, and died within the walls of his home. Ali loved it here, and would not move for all the world. And yet, tonight it appeared more drab, more run down than usual. His mother coughed from her corner bed, a harsh, bilious sound.
    “Mother, how are you? Are you feeling alright?” Ali approached her form, frail, desiccated. It wasn’t a simple cold, as he had told Hassan. She was dying, and had thus far refused treatment despite his protestations.
    “Praise be to God, I am well enough my son.” She looked up from her bed, her eyes slowly focusing on Ali. “Your father is at the Jamea, praying. He will be back soon. I am sorry I did not make anything for dinner…”
    “Mother it is alright, don’t worry. I have already eaten with Amina’s family.”
    “Ahh, how is lovely Amina? When will you be married?”
    “Not soon enough for your liking.” Ali smiled at his mother. A lifetime of manual labor coupled with the birthing and raising five sons had made her look far older than she was, a woman of fifty. She was a devout woman, so proud of her children. She did not understand Ali’s work, being illiterate, but she had clipped and saved each piece Ali had written for the newspaper, and would always show off the scrapbook to her friends, commenting on each editorial and column as if she were an expert.
    “Mother I am going to go write on my computer now. Do you need anything?”
    “No my son, thank you. I am going back to sleep.” Her frail form rolled ever so slowly to one side and her breathing slowed. Ali crept away and picked up his laptop from his room. Once he had shared this room with his three older brothers, but they were gone now. Two had moved out after marrying; they continued to work the hanut shop with his father. Another had signed up with the army and was stationed in the south on the Libyan frontier.
    He turned on his computer, a ten year old laptop that he had refurbished in his spare time, and logged on to his blog. The number of subscribers had upticked slightly since he’d last checked, which was good news. He wondered if Amina’s father would carry through with his threat of reviewing the blog; he had never known the man to even look at a computer, let alone browse the internet for a specific website.
    The comments on his most recent post were a mixture of rabid support, trolling, criticism, and dismissal. He had expected as much. One post in particular alarmed him; the author was clearly a Wahhabist, an Islamic ‘fundamentalist’, and he had threatened painful deaths both for Ali as the author and his family for begetting him, in addition to their assured, everlasting damnation. Ali ignored the comment and pushed on. He had set up everything using a pseudonym, so there was no real danger. Some of his long-time subscribers had posted more nuanced critiques, and these were much appreciated.
    A few hours passed as Ali checked the news outlets, agglomeration sites, and his