Aisha fic
Aisha. Age Ten.
She lies in a hole in the ground.
This is her hole.
Sand tickles her, sticking to her sweat-chilled body; gritty clumps that itched when she shifts.
It’s cold, the new day is closer than the one just passed and the crisp desert night seems to have sucked every morsel of heat from the world.
Aisha pushes herself deeper into her ditch, pressing her cheek to the ground, trying to find some memory of yesterday’s sun in the sand that it bore down upon.
The tiny grains of sand stick to her lashes but she pays it no mind; for this moment she is one with the sand. There is just her, her hole in the ground and the mountain; just another part of the desert’s cruel vastness.
The moment passes with the shifting of sand and a low faraway rumble. The noise starts so subtly that it takes her a while to register the change.
Aisha flattens herself - to be one with the sand and rock - and feels the rumble becoming closer, louder, heavier. It shakes the ground like a deep growl in her chest. She knows the sound’s source but feels no fear; there is something familiar in the rumble; vibrating like a cat perched upon her breast.
Her fingers tighten around the device in her hands. It’s cold steel and wires coated in something soft and sticky. She can’t see it well enough to check it by sight - not in the gloom of the moonlight - but its mechanism is simple and nigh unbreakable and her nimble fingers are clever. Everything feels right under sticky axle grease.
She rolls over, resisting the urge to look up out of her hole. Right now she is merely a shadow in a deserted mountain pass. She lies flat on her back, looking up at the inky night sky.
Breathing the air.
Feeling the rumble in the ground getting closer.
Feeling the knife.
The back of its blade presses hard against her spine; the metal bitingly cold against her knobbly bits of bone.
The rumble has become almost deafening, the only sound for miles and it's loud.
She resists the urge to grab at the knife - to feel its comforting weight in her hand - it’s a silly desire, a childish impulse to make herself feels safe. As though a small blade were her only defense against that which came. Foolish.
She can see movement, lumbering machines that are as slow as they are loud. How anyone could think to take a country with such things is beyond her.
Her heart quickens, excitement and fear threading through her veins as the tank drives over her hole, over her, darkening her world to black.
Surely they must notice her.
Surely.
Aisha twists the detonator; her fingers can feel the unheard mechanisms click into motion and start its countdown.
She waits.
The air smells of diesel and oil and before she has time to be truly frightened the night sky returns and the tank ambles on, completely oblivious to her.
She exhales and rises from the dirt.
Her heart is thudding hard in her chest and for a moment she feels thin and bony and weak, but it’s only a momentary thought, leaving her mind as the bomb leaves her fingertips.
Her arm may be thin and bony but she isn’t weak; wiry muscle strengthen her limbs and her aim is true.
The sticky bomb hits the retreating tank with a barely heard thud and moments later the world turns into a bright fireball of burning oil, shrapnel and screams.
Aisha stands up, enjoying the flame’s warmth on her face. To either side of her fireballs are lighting up.
Her brothers and sisters.
Their own personal battles.
A body stumbles up and out of her tank’s hatch; a body silhouetted by fire. He throws himself away from the wreck; falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes and slowly, painfully crawling away.
Another silhouette rises; but this one twitches and spasm, covered in flames. He manages to pull himself half out of the tank before curling in on himself; his screams quietening to a low keening and then even that ceases completely.
No more leave the burning metal coffin.
Aisha scrabbles out of her hole and is running on thin legs, pulling the cold knife free.
The crawling Russian is sobbing, words coming out between harsh, stilted breaths.
“Бог! Пожалуйста!” He cries looking up at her.
God.
Please.
The dull moonlight illuminates tear tracks mixing with soot and blood on his face.
He looks younger than Aisha had expected.
In her mind, the spectre - icon - of the long dead Stalin birthed, in her imagination, a faceless horde of moustached men; big, weathered, old.
This man is but a boy, not much older than herself.
He chokes on another sob; trying to crawl on broken elbows.
She squats down beside him, a hand brushing off his oddly peaked cap and tentatively resting in his sweat soaked hair.
“Бога нет.” She says flatly as his eyes widen with fear.
There is no god.
Her hand tights and the blade flashes; blood like oil coats her hand, spurting out over her face and darkening the sand.
There is no god. Those words echo in her head; they feel as tangible as the blood on her hands and the sand between her teeth.
The Russian boy dies; another casualty in their futile conquest of these lands. She spits the taste of blood from her mouth; saliva mixes with blood, sliding down the hammer and sickle red star badge pinned to his cap.
There is no god; that is the one truth Aisha believes in.
She stands - knife in hand - lean and powerful in the dark and then she runs, laughing, into the night.
Later, with the sun’s glow lightening the horizon, they sit around a small but warm fire; sharing the night’s tales. Ahmann - taller than most, but fat from rich food and an idle childhood - pauses mid-story to glare suspiciously at the piece of meat in his hands. After a moment he tosses it away.
Tarif - with no father’s name to add to his own, all bones and wild, hungry eyes - snatches it from the air. Ahmann scowls at him as if the other boy had stolen it from his plate but he backs down under Tarif’s flat gaze. Though the boy is considered small - even among them - Aisha has yet to see anyone take his challenges lightly.
Aisha spears a piece of her own meat, pinning it to the bottom of the bowl with her knife like she would a snake. To her it is simple. She is hungry. It is food.
Ahmann clears his throat and continues his story; pointedly ignoring Tarif’s toothy grin from across the fire.
Aisha frowns. Ahmann is bragging about a killing, about slitting a Russian tank boy’s throat. He holds up a peaked cap. A souvenir. A trophy.
Aisha stills. The red star badge is still marred with her spit and the Russian’s blood.
Aisha’s hands tighten around her bowl, the wood creaking under her grip. The fat whoreson is claiming her kill.
A hand touches hers, attempting to calm her. She looks at the hand’s owner, Fahd is shaking his head slightly, an annoyingly understanding look on his face. She narrows her eyes at him - too idealistic and too clever by half - Fahd is the one Aisha finds herself sharing a fireside all too often. He has an irritating habit of believing he knows what Aisha is thinking.
But she isn’t stupid; she wouldn’t stick the lying pig now. Not right at this instant.
“Something wrong, girl?” Ahmann asks, smug and condescending. To his left Tema shifts irritably, her lips thinner than a knife’s slash; she is proud and fierce and broad enough in the shoulders to give any boy a whipping.
Aisha grins at her, then shifts the grin to Ahmann, biting viciously into the meat on her knife.
“Not one significant thing.”
He looks away; an acknowledgement of losing as Aisha sees it, but she feels no satisfaction.
No one else seems to notice that the rest of Ahmann’s story is subdued, filled with less bravado and less flair, trailing off into vague mumbles and declarations of tiredness.
Tomorrow Fahd will smile his understanding smile while Aisha rages. The sun will be burn down on them, but between Fahd’s amused smiles and Aisha’s own anger, she would be overheated even if they were knee deep in snow.
It was mine, she’ll say like a sullen child.
Yes, but there is no proof that Ahmann is not the brave strong man he claims to be, Fahd will reason.
Aisha will feel her chest go flat, as if all the hot burning rage she’d been harbouring had finally ran out of fuel. For a moment she’ll feel lost - left adrift - but then something heavy, cold, will settle in its place. Something as sharp and hard as a knife shoved through someone's windpipe.
It will be more comforting than she will ever imagine; a feeling which she will embrace for life.
He is a lazy, stupid child who tells tales of killing dogs to wolves. She’ll say. Next time, there will be proof.
And then she’ll not speak of it again, no matter how much Fahd will try to entice her. Aisha will be done with trivial thoughts of yesterday’s petty arguments.
Instead, she will consider proof.
It will have to be something light.
Easy to remove.
Instantly recognizable.
Aisha will thumb at her earlobe and smile a wide, lazy smile .
Next time she will not be made the fool.
Next time she will have proof.
She lies in a hole in the ground.
This is her hole.
Sand tickles her, sticking to her sweat-chilled body; gritty clumps that itched when she shifts.
It’s cold, the new day is closer than the one just passed and the crisp desert night seems to have sucked every morsel of heat from the world.
Aisha pushes herself deeper into her ditch, pressing her cheek to the ground, trying to find some memory of yesterday’s sun in the sand that it bore down upon.
The tiny grains of sand stick to her lashes but she pays it no mind; for this moment she is one with the sand. There is just her, her hole in the ground and the mountain; just another part of the desert’s cruel vastness.
The moment passes with the shifting of sand and a low faraway rumble. The noise starts so subtly that it takes her a while to register the change.
Aisha flattens herself - to be one with the sand and rock - and feels the rumble becoming closer, louder, heavier. It shakes the ground like a deep growl in her chest. She knows the sound’s source but feels no fear; there is something familiar in the rumble; vibrating like a cat perched upon her breast.
Her fingers tighten around the device in her hands. It’s cold steel and wires coated in something soft and sticky. She can’t see it well enough to check it by sight - not in the gloom of the moonlight - but its mechanism is simple and nigh unbreakable and her nimble fingers are clever. Everything feels right under sticky axle grease.
She rolls over, resisting the urge to look up out of her hole. Right now she is merely a shadow in a deserted mountain pass. She lies flat on her back, looking up at the inky night sky.
Breathing the air.
Feeling the rumble in the ground getting closer.
Feeling the knife.
The back of its blade presses hard against her spine; the metal bitingly cold against her knobbly bits of bone.
The rumble has become almost deafening, the only sound for miles and it's loud.
She resists the urge to grab at the knife - to feel its comforting weight in her hand - it’s a silly desire, a childish impulse to make herself feels safe. As though a small blade were her only defense against that which came. Foolish.
She can see movement, lumbering machines that are as slow as they are loud. How anyone could think to take a country with such things is beyond her.
Her heart quickens, excitement and fear threading through her veins as the tank drives over her hole, over her, darkening her world to black.
Surely they must notice her.
Surely.
Aisha twists the detonator; her fingers can feel the unheard mechanisms click into motion and start its countdown.
She waits.
The air smells of diesel and oil and before she has time to be truly frightened the night sky returns and the tank ambles on, completely oblivious to her.
She exhales and rises from the dirt.
Her heart is thudding hard in her chest and for a moment she feels thin and bony and weak, but it’s only a momentary thought, leaving her mind as the bomb leaves her fingertips.
Her arm may be thin and bony but she isn’t weak; wiry muscle strengthen her limbs and her aim is true.
The sticky bomb hits the retreating tank with a barely heard thud and moments later the world turns into a bright fireball of burning oil, shrapnel and screams.
Aisha stands up, enjoying the flame’s warmth on her face. To either side of her fireballs are lighting up.
Her brothers and sisters.
Their own personal battles.
A body stumbles up and out of her tank’s hatch; a body silhouetted by fire. He throws himself away from the wreck; falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes and slowly, painfully crawling away.
Another silhouette rises; but this one twitches and spasm, covered in flames. He manages to pull himself half out of the tank before curling in on himself; his screams quietening to a low keening and then even that ceases completely.
No more leave the burning metal coffin.
Aisha scrabbles out of her hole and is running on thin legs, pulling the cold knife free.
The crawling Russian is sobbing, words coming out between harsh, stilted breaths.
“Бог! Пожалуйста!” He cries looking up at her.
God.
Please.
The dull moonlight illuminates tear tracks mixing with soot and blood on his face.
He looks younger than Aisha had expected.
In her mind, the spectre - icon - of the long dead Stalin birthed, in her imagination, a faceless horde of moustached men; big, weathered, old.
This man is but a boy, not much older than herself.
He chokes on another sob; trying to crawl on broken elbows.
She squats down beside him, a hand brushing off his oddly peaked cap and tentatively resting in his sweat soaked hair.
“Бога нет.” She says flatly as his eyes widen with fear.
There is no god.
Her hand tights and the blade flashes; blood like oil coats her hand, spurting out over her face and darkening the sand.
There is no god. Those words echo in her head; they feel as tangible as the blood on her hands and the sand between her teeth.
The Russian boy dies; another casualty in their futile conquest of these lands. She spits the taste of blood from her mouth; saliva mixes with blood, sliding down the hammer and sickle red star badge pinned to his cap.
There is no god; that is the one truth Aisha believes in.
She stands - knife in hand - lean and powerful in the dark and then she runs, laughing, into the night.
Later, with the sun’s glow lightening the horizon, they sit around a small but warm fire; sharing the night’s tales. Ahmann - taller than most, but fat from rich food and an idle childhood - pauses mid-story to glare suspiciously at the piece of meat in his hands. After a moment he tosses it away.
Tarif - with no father’s name to add to his own, all bones and wild, hungry eyes - snatches it from the air. Ahmann scowls at him as if the other boy had stolen it from his plate but he backs down under Tarif’s flat gaze. Though the boy is considered small - even among them - Aisha has yet to see anyone take his challenges lightly.
Aisha spears a piece of her own meat, pinning it to the bottom of the bowl with her knife like she would a snake. To her it is simple. She is hungry. It is food.
Ahmann clears his throat and continues his story; pointedly ignoring Tarif’s toothy grin from across the fire.
Aisha frowns. Ahmann is bragging about a killing, about slitting a Russian tank boy’s throat. He holds up a peaked cap. A souvenir. A trophy.
Aisha stills. The red star badge is still marred with her spit and the Russian’s blood.
Aisha’s hands tighten around her bowl, the wood creaking under her grip. The fat whoreson is claiming her kill.
A hand touches hers, attempting to calm her. She looks at the hand’s owner, Fahd is shaking his head slightly, an annoyingly understanding look on his face. She narrows her eyes at him - too idealistic and too clever by half - Fahd is the one Aisha finds herself sharing a fireside all too often. He has an irritating habit of believing he knows what Aisha is thinking.
But she isn’t stupid; she wouldn’t stick the lying pig now. Not right at this instant.
“Something wrong, girl?” Ahmann asks, smug and condescending. To his left Tema shifts irritably, her lips thinner than a knife’s slash; she is proud and fierce and broad enough in the shoulders to give any boy a whipping.
Aisha grins at her, then shifts the grin to Ahmann, biting viciously into the meat on her knife.
“Not one significant thing.”
He looks away; an acknowledgement of losing as Aisha sees it, but she feels no satisfaction.
No one else seems to notice that the rest of Ahmann’s story is subdued, filled with less bravado and less flair, trailing off into vague mumbles and declarations of tiredness.
Tomorrow Fahd will smile his understanding smile while Aisha rages. The sun will be burn down on them, but between Fahd’s amused smiles and Aisha’s own anger, she would be overheated even if they were knee deep in snow.
It was mine, she’ll say like a sullen child.
Yes, but there is no proof that Ahmann is not the brave strong man he claims to be, Fahd will reason.
Aisha will feel her chest go flat, as if all the hot burning rage she’d been harbouring had finally ran out of fuel. For a moment she’ll feel lost - left adrift - but then something heavy, cold, will settle in its place. Something as sharp and hard as a knife shoved through someone's windpipe.
It will be more comforting than she will ever imagine; a feeling which she will embrace for life.
He is a lazy, stupid child who tells tales of killing dogs to wolves. She’ll say. Next time, there will be proof.
And then she’ll not speak of it again, no matter how much Fahd will try to entice her. Aisha will be done with trivial thoughts of yesterday’s petty arguments.
Instead, she will consider proof.
It will have to be something light.
Easy to remove.
Instantly recognizable.
Aisha will thumb at her earlobe and smile a wide, lazy smile .
Next time she will not be made the fool.
Next time she will have proof.