Page 163 of The End of the World As We Know It

What? No, I haven’t run into Henry again. Not yet. That certainly would make a cleaner and tidier kind of end. But good stories, real ones, or the ones that feel real, don’t wrap up so neatly.

Besides, stories don’t really end, do they? Well, I suppose the stories will end when all the storytellers are gone. But there are still a few of us stubbornly kicking around.

Let’s wait until the morning to talk about where you or I are headed next. Let’s not spoil this moment we had, are having. I want to savor it, like the fine meal it was.

Hey, man, you’re exhausted. Look at you, can barely keep your eyes open. You get some rest.

Don’t worry, I’m not tired yet. I’ll stay up and tend the fire. Keep watch for a bit. Make sure none of them cannibal vampires show up. They are a pesky lot.

Tomorrow.

You and I, we’ll figure out where the story goes from here tomorrow. It’s gotta go somewhere, right?

Sweet dreams.

THE MOSQUE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Usman T. Malik

They met the blind mullah and his dog by a haunted mosque in Sheikhupura on the outskirts of Lahore.

The mosque, a narrow, green-domed structure flanked by two minarets, was situated on the highway between a tire shop and a bakery. In the shade of its eastern wall, the old man lay on a charpai, puffing smoke from a gurgling hookah. By his head a cloud of flies buzzed over a jar of honey placed on a stool, an oakwood walking stick propped against the latter. The dog, a droopy-eared spotted mongrel half-hidden under the jute-twine bed, panted by the man’s sandals in the afternoon heat. Occasionally it lapped at the red clay bowl of water in front of it.

Nasir rolled Parrot to a stop before the mosque’s entrance, but kept the motor running. He glanced at Palwasha sleeping in the rear, head against the rickshaw’s canvas door, a thread of spit dangling from her mouth. She stirred when sweat from her forehead trickled down her cheek in a glistening line. Nasir turned and swiveled the battery-operated fan in the partition toward her.

He retrieved the revolver from the partition compartment, slipped it into his vest, and smoothed the cotton kameez over it. Then he stepped out, looked up and down the deserted highway, and, lifting a hand in a friendly greeting, walked to the man on the charpai.

“Salam’o-Laikum, bhai-jaan,” he hailed the man in his accented Urdu. “My name is Nasir Khan. I’m traveling with my niece and we’re looking for some food, if you could spare any. We have things we can trade.”

Dreamily, the man blew out a smoke ring and sat up on the charpai’s mattress. He lifted his white farmer turban with an age-spotted hand and scratched his head. “Nasir Khan, eh? Where’s home? Where’d you come from, son?”

“Balakot, bhai-jaan. I worked at a hotel there.”

The man nodded, his milky-white gaze on the highway, and replaced the turban on his head. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you.”

The dog had slipped out from its resting place and stood watching Nasir, its head tipped to one side. It was larger than Nasir had initially thought, its tail curled like the noisemakers he had seen balloon vendors sell in Abbottabad before the wabaa. When he took a step forward, it growled.

“Easy, boy. We’re all friends here,” Nasir said to the dog soothingly in Pashto, then switched back to Urdu: “I gather he won’t bite?”

Up close the furrows in the man’s forehead were deep, the wrinkles around his cataract-clouded eyes thick like spiderwebs. A black taweez hung around his neck. His chest-length beard was oiled and entirely white. He must have been in his seventies.

He got up, stretched, one large brawny hand on his low back, and felt the ground with his feet. He found his sandals and slipped them on. “Hero won’t hurt you, will you, Hero?” The dog wagged its tail and gave a short bark. The man bent and petted its head. “He’s watching out for me. We both watch out for each other. Such are the days, aren’t they, Hero?”

Hero craned his head back and licked the man’s hand.

In his previous life, Nasir hadn’t liked dogs. They were dirty, and touching them broke your wuzu, so you had to do ablution again before praying namaz, but now he found himself reaching out to caress the animal’s head. Hero yipped and retreated, then nosed forward, his tail stiff and moving powerfully from side to side. He sniffed Nasir’s hand a few times and tentatively began to lick it.

“Good dog,” Nasir said, wishing he had a piece of bread or a bone for him. “How long have you two been here?”

“We never left, you see.” The old man patted under the edge of the mattress and came up with a small tin can. He fished around in it with gnarled fingers and brought out a key ring jangling with keys. “We stayed right here through it all, watched the entire city die. That was three months ago. Sheikhupura’s population before the wabaa was two lakhs. Two hundred thousand people.” He sighed and gestured east toward Lahore. “Lahore nearly forty lakhs. Forty lakhs! And what about all the villages between here and Lahore? Everyone is gone. Every mosque between here and Lahore and for all I know the entire world, deserted. No one to take Allah’s name anymore. How could I abandon my mosque to owls, bats, and jinns? Na son, I will stay here in the shadow of my elders until I’m dead, too.”

Nasir watched him pick up the walking stick and shuffle to a side door of the mosque, the dog following on his heels. The man opened the heavy padlock on the hasp. “Stupid to lock up now, but force of habit. It’s the only thing that keeps us alive, you know, force of habit.” He called back over his shoulder, “You hungry? I have plenty of canned food and—Hero, keep out!” He prodded the dog gently with his foot to nudge him away from the doorstep. “You know you aren’t allowed in there.”

Hero sat down at the threshold, head on his paws, and gave a little whine as Nasir came to the door. Nasir’s gaze went to the graveyard behind the mosque, hundreds of ancient marble headstones jutting out from the earth, then at the large dirt mound between themosque and the graveyard. He peered into the mullah’s room, at the sparse furnishings—another charpai, plastic table, shelves lined with copies of the Quran and biographies of the Prophet, and framed magic squares filled with Arabic numerals and letters hanging on the walls.

Nasir Khan tapped his foot on the doorstep, considering for a few moments, then turned and went to fetch the girl.

His name was Khizar and he was the mosque’s imam—or had been. After the wabaa hit and, town after town, village after village fell, there wasn’t anyone left to lead in prayer.