Things of Inalchuq’s life

There were only two remaining except him. His bodyguards. Baraq, Mehrban, and him. At the top of the citadelle, three men, and one door. Against a door, again an assault. The Mongol forces tried to climb the stairs, threw arrows and probably insulted them. And again, they took bricks, and threw them in return. Little stones against an army that devastated their city. That didn’t make sense. Actually, all of what allowed them to survive didn’t make sense. Stones; water boiled in two large jars brought into the room in case of siege, covered with a wooden lid; dry bread without yeast, and bags of dried fruit. It didn’t make sense because it was too little, too common, too human, to resist against the violence of this war. Too little. What is an apricot compared to a spear, a horse, an army, a mongol empire; the mongol empire? Too common. What are two bodyguards and him, a simple governor of a simple city, who drink everyday, eat everyday, go to the hammam everyday, poop everyday, could do against people who kill everyday? Who kill, who take the lives out of other people’s bodies, who transform someone capable of going anywhere into something only capable of going underground? Too human. What are some techniques, some ideas such as boiling water or baking dry bread in advance against the force of Nature, History and Time? In addition to the despair caused by his thoughts, he had to deal with the one that the Mongol soldiers wanted to make him feel. Sometimes, some of them would approach the citadelle, and sit exactly where the three men could see the them from a rectangular, and very thin window. They would take a lamb, pull out its hair, in tufts, with their bare hands, then cut him, everywhere, to burn him, at the end, and laugh. Inalchuq understood the message: “soldiers and arrows are not what is waiting for you”. It became personal. Personal. Was it personal? Could a war be personal? A war is History. History can’t be personal. But Inalchuq had this feeling. He was both. His life was his life. Nothing different from the others. He didn’t know more things than the others. He didn’t live longer than the others. He didn’t make choices way different than the others, because his choices were also influenced by the others. But. Of course there was a but, because during the last few years, his very common life, had an impact on an Empire. This is too big, too big to be personal. No. A war is an addition of personals. Personal feelings, personal actions, personal persons. Can’t they create the war they’re in? Can’t a series of common events lead to major ones? Can’t a discussion between two family members, two humans related by blood as so many humans, lead to the destruction of an Empire? Questions, memories and doubts, these were what Inalchuq was throwing on the Mongol soldiers. Every head crushed by the violence of his thoughts gave to the Khwazermian governor - of what was now a Mongol city - some time. Time to remember. Remember the time. But Inalchuq knew that memories don’t work that way. He didn’t even know in what way memories were going, working, going to work. Was there a way? Memories may not use a way. That’s just a word he knew, and was trying to assimilate with a concept he didn’t understand. But the concept was too enormous and tiny to be explained that way. It had to be compared with another mysterious idea. Like light, yes. Thunder. Memories. Coming out of nowhere, disappearing as fast as they arrived, but remembered for a long time. Inalchuq laughed at the idea that memories can’t be explained without the word ‘remember’. What does remember mean then? Thinking about perfect circles, infinite loops; Inalchuq couldn’t remember a time where he wasn’t doing that. Even when he was trying to remember the past so hard that his head hurt. Remember his days before times of trouble. Or troubles for that matter. The time when he thought he had troubles. Now, he would not call them troubles. He had a system. Dirhams were at its heart. Tamgha, Kharaj and Jizya were the feets, the hands and the head. His three taxes. Tamgha, the price to travel and commerce between cities. If anyone from outside wanted to sell a good inside, they had to pay. If anyone from inside wanted to sell a good outside, they had to pay. Kharaj, the food to work and cultivate land. If anyone was grewing some cereals or raising cattle, they had to give a part of it. Jizya, the punishment to think and praise freely. If anyone worshiped another so-called God than Allah, they had to disburse their soul. Dirhams, dirhams, dirhams. Everybody knew, knew that his craving for wealth overshadowed any hint of caution or diplomacy. He knew they knew. They didn’t know he knew they knew. And keeping things as they were in this “knowing circle” - as he explained it to his friends in the bath - was his biggest trouble. Now, he had another one. Very different. Because he didn’t think that this one was the “new biggest”. He thought it was the last one. The Mongol soldiers were once again trying to enter the citadelle. This time, it felt different. The others knew it too. Bricks would not be enough. This meant that they couldn’t hit while hiding anymore, hit while being far away, hit while making the opponent’s head, face, mind, struggles, life, disappear. They had to take their swords. Hit and cut. Hit the air and they might die, or cut the opponents and watch him die. How can a wealthy man be forced to kill another man with his hands, or almost? No time for questions. The door had been opened. Wasn't there an iron bar preventing it from being forced open? A Mongol entered. Why was there nobody behind him? He screamed. Can screams be understood independently to the language, or is it because of the strength of this moment? He looked at the direction of his late companions. There, he wasn't looking, was that an occasion to jump on him? He aimed his composite bow at Baraq, who was standing to Inalchuq’s left. Why was the sound of the rope so loud? He shot an arrow in what seemed to be the lung. How was Mehrban going to react? Without making any noise, the mongol slowly blinked, let his bow hang down for a second, opened his eyes as wide as they would go, pointed his bow at the governor, and looked at him. There. There, Inalchuq met the Mongol’s look. A real meeting. Eyes are naked, make them meet, and there will be time. Time to think. Think about the time. Time is two contradictory continuities. First, time never ends or changes. Since he was born, a day was a day. Starting as the sun rose and ending when the moon took its place. Time moves slowly forward, and this is why he never saw any change in himself. It didn’t make any sense, but for Inalchuq, he had always been serious, obedient, cupid, loyal and conscious. Now that he could say all these words on him, it looked stupid. He couldn’t say why. The other continuity is the start, the middle and the end. When the bow and the mongol looked at him, he left the middle, and started waiting, fearing, and refusing the end. No. The end started earlier. It’s the transition between the middle and the end that seemed so fast, too fast. He learned a character from a Chinese merchant that could describe his situation. It was a long time ago, but he thought about it now. 难. ‘Nan.’ It means ‘difficult’. 又 is the right hand. 隹 is the short-tailed bird. It is difficult to catch the short-tailed bird with the right hand. Time is a short-tailed bird. The Mongols merchants that arrived eighteen months ago. Their demand to establish commerce and relations with Genghis Khan. The question : are they spies? The order from the Shah to execute them. The meeting between this order and his will to take the precious things they brought. The decapitating of their heads. The goods that he took for him and the ones he sent to the Shah. The little and strong mongol horse that didn’t stop watching him in the eyes. The merchant that escaped. The pause in his life, waiting for something, when nothing was real anymore. The three ambassadors sent to the Shah to ask for ‘the cruel governor’ to be punished, him. The letter that announced the execution of one, with the hair of the two others. The waiting that became fearing. The Mongol army that arrived at Farab. The fearing that became refusing. The siege. The war. The death. The betrayal of Qaracha who opened the gates. The execution of Qaracha by the Mongols, maybe because they didn‘t trust him. The escape into the citadelle with his two bodyguards. The bricks, the sound of the silence, the place taken by the absence, the absence of his past life, of the middle. Now, the right hand of the Mongol holding his arrow that was going to catch him, Inalchuq, the short-tale man. But they can defend themselves. He can count on Mehrban, loyal, and more importantly, fearless, violent. And Inalchuq can count on Inalchuq. He can defend himself. Not against time, not against the infinite destiny of events following each other, and especially not against his own life. But against this man, he can. Because he is just another human, unable to defend himself against the same things. A will to survive, that emerges in his thoughts. Was it a natural instinct, an incapacity to let his body die, that influenced his thoughts? Inalchuq always thought that his thoughts were independent from his body's needs. But it wasn’t. And even if it didn’t make sense. Even if it was too little, too common, too human. Even if another Mongol would take the place of the one he might kill. The moment when the Mongol’s look became less focused, Inalchuq screamed. A scream that brings attention everywhere. A scream shouted because the person has been hurt, and the one when the person is going to hurt another, are the same. There is the same determination. Determination to not die. Scream, run, cut. The right hand was too far, Inalchuq cut the left. The Mongol screamed. Mehrban stood ready, Inalchuq could see him out of the corner of his eye. But he was the one that saved them both. Was it satisfaction of his inner self? “Don’t… Don’t…” Inalchuq couldn’t hear what he was thinking, his heart beating too loudly. Don’t scream? Don’t make me feel sorry? Don’t call the others? Don’t die? Don’t take my dirhams? Another soldier arrived. He screamed, and raised what was for Inalchuq a sword of Damocles. The sun, coming from the thin, rectangular window, reflected on the sword. And a light came out of this encounter. And Inalchuq, by association of ideas - thunder, memory - remembered. But the present continues. Inalchuq thought and saw at the same time. Inalchuq closed his eyes. But this death wasn’t for him. It was for Mehrban, who tried to protect him. Damocles was greater than ever, and Inalchuq was alone. That’s why he closed his eyes. To see a dark world. Where multicolored spots dance. Where you see the present as a memory, because light and image merge into a drawing of the last shapes seen by the eyes. When he opened them, mongols were all over the room. Damocles was everywhere. He understood now. It meant danger. So he closed his eyes again, he closed his ears, he closed the pores of his skin, and decided to never know when his life would end. And to think only about his thoughts. One by one. Inalchuq didn’t live anymore. He was, out of his body. Detached. More than before. Even when he was thinking, trying to reach the most objective point of view, it was only a point of view. Even the owl that can see everything, only sees everything it can see. And what it can see, is not everything. It can’t see itself. It’s eyes, looking at the world. It can’t see itself as the world sees it. But now, Inalchuq has joined the world. By refusing to let the world enter. Closing the eyes, the ears, the skin; it is closing the human receptors. The things that can be learnt to understand. By the others. The ones that give names, meanings, values to what is seen, heard and felt. Closing all of that allows to access to what has no name, meaning or value. The thoughts, that can’t be written or told. Because they are too fast, and maybe too great for the world. If the owl closes its eyes, it can see the same thing its brain sees, its blood sees. It can see the dark, of the inside, of its body. And by closing itself to the world, to what it knows of itself, it can see itself. Inalchuq wasn’t in Farab, he wasn’t governor, he wasn’t Inalchuq. He became nothing, and more at the same time. Nothing, because he lost everything the humans gained over the time, and a human gained over his time. More, because he gained everything the humans lost over the time, and a human hesitated to keep over his time. Do you keep the moral? Do you keep believing? Do you keep thinking of the others? Do you keep reflecting on yourself? Do you keep what you have? The money, the rights, the possibilities, the superiority, the humanity, the chances, the choices? Do you keep this thought that appears in your mind, that you know is bad, the one that you can’t explain, the one that expresses the deepest imagination you have? Do you kill Inalchuq? Do you kill Inalchuq while sending a message to his peers? Do you kill Inalchuq while sending a message to his peers and to him? Do you kill Inalchuq while sending a message to his peers and to him : be cupid with your life, not with silver coins? Do you kill Inalchuq with melted silver in the pores of his skin? In his ears? In his eyes?