In the House of My Enemy

Sunset colors splashed the western sky, paint in a cosmic painter’s hand unfettered by conventionality or concern for the color wheel. Blue, orange, red, mauve, indigo all harmonic beauty without jarring contrasts. The fine silt suspended in the air after the sandstorm filtered, diffused and diffracted the slanting rays of the setting sun; a unlikely but effective palette. It painted the sand around me in a warmth which would be welcome in a few moments, but now slipped into unconscious background. I remember the beauty only in retrospect. At the time, I lay face down, unaware of anything but thirst, fatigue and loneliness. Though I didn’t look to confirm, I would not have been surprised to see the patient death watchers circling overhead waiting for their next supper provided by a hapless road-weary corpse. I raised my head, staring into the unnoticed beauty of the western sky; my destination hidden far beyond the horizon and knew I would never see it. Home, family, friends, plenty of water and food. The lifeless body of my camel stretched out in rigid testimony to her valiant last efforts to carry us home. A sharp reflection stabbed against the kaleidoscopic background. I shook my head in disbelief. No one else could possibly be moving in this sand-hazed world. But it came again. I stared. It flickered again; a mirage, a figment of my delusional wishful mind or there was someone moving toward me. I gathered my remaining strength, pulled at the unknown reserves and pulled myself to all fours, then to my knees. I waved feeble arms and cried out in a cracked voice. The point of light shaded into a shape, at first only a suggestion of humanity then into the figure of a man striding directly toward me. Time lengthened distance shrank. The robes of a desert dweller swirled about the long stride of a man. Limbs and head resolved out of the distant blob. Twenty paces from me, the figure stopped and looked directly at me. With the fading light behind him, I could not distinguish features. Then he spoke and my blood chilled. The voice of my enemy; the one I fled from in fear and ran toward in hatred. Hope died and I shriveled back into myself and collapsed to the wind-blown sand. I must have groaned, for he finally spoke. “I’ve found you.” I nodded, despair flapping its bat wings around me. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. He approached and I cringed for the death blow I knew and expected; the one I would have dealt him if I could. He reached within the folds of his robe, searching for his sword. But instead of sharp steel, he produced a wine skin. Was it to be death by poison? I preferred the steel. He pressed the skin to my lips. Despite my fear, I drank. Almost immediately I felt life flowing back from desiccated muscle and organ. He held it there until I drank nearly half the contents. Then he sat next to me on the sand and supported me. I leaned against him in unutterable weariness. “You pursued me for death. I pursue you for life.” His voice dashed against the doors of my hatred, my rebellion. I had no tears. “Why?” I rasped. “Let’s set up camp first” he said, pointing westward into the last glow of sunset. A string of camels plodded toward us, growing, as he had, from shapeless objects into individual animals and people. In the last bit of light, a camp sprang up around me. Tents and tethered beasts, a fire, laughter and jests among those who obviously knew and respected one another. The scent of cooking food filled the star-bright night sky. The sound of distant hyenas, cheated of their share of my flesh, spread across empty land. But here there was light and heat and sustenance. Safety in the house of my enemy shocked me; Mercy at the hands of my mortal enemy. Who could’ve known? I shook my head at the wonder of it. Then I knew something had indeed died within me; I died, that sun-splashed evening and was reborn from hatred into love. The quality of mercy surrounded and infused me and I gave into its welcoming embrace. I died, but left no corpse for vultures and hyenas. But it was just as real, or maybe more real, than that physical death which was not perpetrated on me by wind and san or at the hands of my erstwhile enemy. ***** Definition of mercy: Khawnan (kahw nan) Hebrew for The slanting rays of a setting sun; pitching a tent, abiding with. Strong’s Analytical Concordance 12.12.11