The Storm of Dimensions and the Broken Crossing

The old vehicle the family had rented was shaking violently on the approaches to the Dimensional Transit Gate. Behind them, their Old Countryside was fading into a nebula of oblivion after the local authorities — at the instigation of their greedy Paternal Uncles — had closed every energy outlet to them. And before them, the Cosmic Corridor leading to Saudi Arabia, to the fortified digital Najd Oasis, was churning like a raging sea of blue radiations.

In the comfortable passenger cabin, Mother Larin was clutching little Abdulaziz who was screaming in terror at the shuddering of the vehicle, while Talin was clinging to her seat, shouting selfishly over the roar of the engines: "Bashar! Do something! Our hair will be ruined and our bags will fall into the cosmic void! Why did we come in this ramshackle vehicle?!"

Eldest brother Bashar was pressing the buttons on the dashboard at random, sweat of fear pouring from his forehead, shouting: "The dimensional engine is not responding! The codes are complex and gravity is pulling us down!"

And in the dark rear control corner, Dilan was sitting on the hard floor, surrounded by exposed wires and holographic screens flashing dangerous red. Her tired hands were moving at the speed of light, reconnecting the electrical circuits with her singular intelligence and her mind that reads the codes of the universe. Dilan was not looking at fear; she was reading the catastrophe and silently fashioning a solution for it.

Bashar turned to her and shouted harshly: "Dilan! Instead of sitting silent as usual, move and help me! Can't you see your mother and sister are dying of terror? If anything happens to them, it will be your fault!"

Dilan did not answer him with reproach. She stifled her anguish at his ingratitude as he watched her fingers burn again while she channeled her vital bodily energy through the cells of the vehicle to accelerate the programming. She knew that her family of five persons besides her had comfortable seats, while her seat was sacrifice. With a final tap, and by a miracle of her genius as poet and scientist, the transit gate opened and the vehicle stabilized, to surge through the tunnel of light toward Najd.

The family breathed a sigh of relief. Talin threw herself into the arms of her mother Larin who began kissing her and saying: "Praise be to God for your safety, Talin, and the safety of your brothers Bashar and Abdulaziz, had it not been for Bashar's courage at the wheel we would have been lost!" As for Bashar, he straightened in his seat with false pride, leaning back without glancing behind him.

In the back, Dilan was resting her tired head against the cold wall of the vehicle. Her bodily energy channels were bleeding silently from the dimensional effort she had expended to save them, and her heartbeat was faltering like an early signal of the end awaiting her. She looked at the forward viewscreen, where the golden sands of Najd began to appear through the fortified atmosphere, sands resembling her enduring pride.

She hid her tired face between her palms, and whispered in her innermost heart, a poet outcast under the shadows:

I have no homeland in Najd but hers,

though dwellings and their people be harsh to us

The dwellings had begun to change, but the harshness of her family remained constant, and Dilan walked on along her charted path, step by step, toward the great sacrifice.