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Perhaps he had gotten everything wrong, and had been dispatched straight to Hell. He tried to think back to his most recent memory. Someone appearing fast, someone strong and large. Then something was pulled over his head, muffling the screams.
After that? Flashes of light. Some strange words. Some music.
And now this... Cold, damp, dark, only faint illumination from above.
Yes, yes, it could be. Not Jannah but al-Nar.
He had a vague sense that perhaps this was Hell, yes. Because perhaps he had not lived such a fine life, after all. He had not been so good. He'd done evil. He couldn't recall what specifically but something.
Perhaps that was what Hell was: an eternity of discomfort spent in a state of believing you had sinned but not knowing exactly how.
Then his mind kicked in, his rational, educated mind. No, he couldn't be dead. He was in pain. And he knew that if Allah, praise be to Him, had sent him to al-Nar, he would be feeling pain far worse than this. If he were in Jannah, he would be feeling no pain at all but merely the glory of God, praise be to Him.
So, the answer was that he wasn't dead.
Which led to: So, then, where?
Vague memories tumbled through his thoughts. Memories, or maybe constructions of his own imagination. Why can't I think more clearly? Why can I remember so little?
Images. Lying on the ground, smelling grass. The taste of food. The satisfaction of water in his mouth. Good cold water and bad tea. Olives. A man's hands on his shoulders.
Strong. The big man. Everything going dark.
Music. Western music.
He coughed and his throat hurt. It stung badly. He'd been choked perhaps. The lack of air had hurt his memory. His head ached too. Maybe a fall had jumbled his thoughts.
Ali Maziq gave up trying to figure out what had happened.
He focused on where he was and how to escape.
Squinting, he could discern that he was sitting in a chair--bound into a chair--in a cylindrical room that measured about six or seven meters across, stone walls, no ceiling. Above was merely a dim emptiness, from which the very faint illumination came. The floor, also stone, was pitted and scarred.
And what exactly did this room remind him of?
What? What?
Ah, a memory trickled from a dim recess in his mind, and he was picturing a class trip to a museum in Tripoli: the burial chamber for a Carthaginian holy man.
A brief recent memory flickered again: sipping cold water, eating olives, drinking tea that was sour, made from water shot out of a cappuccino machine steamer, residue of milk in the brew.
With somebody?
Then the bus stop. Something had happened at a bus stop.
What country am I in? Libya?
No, he didn't think so.
But I am certainly in a burial chamber...
The room was silent except for the drip of water somewhere in the chamber.
He was gagged, a piece of cloth in his mouth, which was covered with tape. Still, he tried calling for help--in Arabic. Even if he were elsewhere and a different language was spoken, he hoped the tone of his voice would draw rescuers.
But the gag was efficient and he made hardly any sound whatsoever.
Ali now gasped in shock as there was sudden pressure against his windpipe. What could this be? He couldn't see clearly and he had no use of his hands but by twisting his head from side to side and analyzing the sensation, he realized that his head was in a hoop of what seemed to be thin twine. It had just grown slightly tauter.
