Arabian Wonderland

A school project to come up with an extra chapter for a novel we had to study in class. Written in 2004.

 Prologue

            I long to be with my camels in the desert, but I am stuck here in a huge house (the house of my husband). I guess it isn’t too bad though, I mean, I could be married to a truly horrendous man, like one of the servant girls. I have jewels and riches aplenty, and I have been blessed twice, a boy and a little girl. My husband is a kind man, and fair to those who deserve it. He is a politician, and a real diplomat. When my family was being persecuted, they came to me for help. He was the one who gave them money, and guards to protect them.

             I now begin to understand the advice a wise woman once told me; “Never give of yourself wholly, and he will strive to please you.”   I have been his wife for many years, and where he tired of them after a few years, I still hold my place as first in his affections. The other wives are jealous of me, and are very mean to me. They steal my jewels, and ruin my best dresses on a daily basis. I have learnt to hide my things carefully, so that they don’t know about them, and can’t destroy them.

~*-*~

            We went to market at the end of the month, and I found the most beautiful necklace in one of the shops. I was with one of the other wives, Shayeema, and I dared not buy it, for fear that she would destroy it, so I waited until she started moving off, then asked the shopkeeper to keep the necklace for me. I then moved to Shayeema’s side and carried on as if nothing had happened, and thankfully, she had not noticed anything.

            We went around the market chatting to people (well, Shayeema did anyway, I mostly kept to myself) and looking for things that were worthy of Shayeema’s attention. I bought a simple dress, and a piece of beautiful material.

            When we got back to the house, my husband gave each of the other wives a beautiful dress, but he gave me one simple elegant dress, and enough other beautiful dresses to give one to each of the other wives. They saw this, and they were not happy. I decided, on a whim, to give them the dresses, and called them in. They were convinced it was a trick, but one of the other wives stepped forward bravely to receive it. I told them that our husband had given the dresses to me. I was distributing the dresses between them, to relieve bad feelings, in the hopes that we could all get along better. They eldest chose a dark blue dress that enhanced her beauty, and when I pointed this out to her, she thanked me, and apologised for their previous behaviour. One by one, each of the wives came up to choose a dress, and were pleasantly surprised when I apologised to them, and praised their choices. Some were still suspicious, and I realised, that I would still have to watch my back against those who still did not accept me. Very soon, all I had left was a sky-blue dress (very beautiful, almost dreamy), my simple but elegant dress, and a room full of mostly satisfied and pacified women.

~*-*~

            I snuck out later that afternoon, and went to the market to buy my necklace. When I got there, I found the eldest (Malini) trying to buy the same necklace I had asked the shopkeeper to keep for me. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied that she was buying a gift for someone, and I was not to know who, and walked off.

            The shopkeeper gave me the necklace, and I paid him (with a little tip of course). I was about to walk away, when he called out to me and said, “This is for you, as a little gift”! I saw that it was a pair of pearly opal earrings, and tried to give them back, but he just waved me away, and remarked that whoever married me would be very lucky.

            I got home and mulled over his words as I tried to decide what to wear to the special dinner later that night. My husband had invited some other politicians over for dinner, and instructed us to make ourselves look absolutely beautiful. I suddenly had an amazing idea and set about making it happen.

~*-*~

When I walked into the room and sat down, everyone’s eyes were on me, and I wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. I was wearing a very plain, simple dress, with a sash of the material I had bought earlier, the necklace and earrings, and I had bracelets of twisted hair around my ankles and wrists. I had my hair half up, with a flower in the back of it.

            The whole company kept sneaking glances at me the whole time during dinner, and I hoped that I had not riled up the other wives against me again. After dinner, the men retired to another room to talk, and the women went to another room.

            I thought that they would start making my life a living hell, but Shayeema said (and I repeat her exact words); “ That was so brave, you didn’t know if it would work, or if it would dishonour us altogether! You look like you stepped straight out of a story about a fairy queen, and came to honour your husband!” I then admitted that I was pretty sure it would work, but, I was afraid that the other wives would attack me again for showing them up. They admired my courage, and from then on, I was a sure favourite among them. My husband never tired of me, and I remained first in his affections for the rest of our lives.

~*-*~

            I would like to say that we lived happily ever after, but that is not true. War was declared. My family was killed in a raid not long after that, along with many other people. My husband’s life was threatened, and he fled, along with all of his wives, including me. The enemy caught up with us, and he was killed, but the wives were kept alive for the soldiers.

            They generally just wanted us to clean up their messes, but sometimes they wanted something a little more intimate than that. The first time a soldier asked a woman to do that, the woman refused, but when the soldiers shot her, we got the message, and did what they bid us. Us wives banded together, hoping for safety in numbers, but after a while, women were killed just for fun, just so that the boredom around the soldiers was alleviated.

            I accidentally walked in on one of the leaders having a ‘private session’ with one of the other women, and was sentenced to die. When they took me out, I decided that I would honour my dead husband with the death of his executioner.

             I grabbed a pole and swung it into a man’s face, then grabbed a gun from a man just standing nearby, too shocked to move, and hit him in the stomach with it. I started shooting at men coming for me, just as I realised that they were shooting at me. They bullets miraculously missed me, and I kept shooting at them. I saw many men lying on the ground, presumably wounded, and realised that I had probably killed at least one.             I looked at the other men around, and slowly, I pulled the gun up level to my eye. I thought to myself that I was lucky to be alive now, but if I missed this shot, I wouldn’t get another one. I sighted and shot, then dropped to the ground and rolled away coming up right behind a young boy holding a knife. I seized the opportunity (and the knife) and held it up to his neck. I believed myself lucky to be alive at all, but I yelled to the men watching me; “One step, and I give women’s rights a boost, along with this knife.” I figured that here was nothing left to lose, but I saw the women fighting the soldiers to get away, and thought of them. “I could ask for a safe passage away from here, but instead I ask you to consider this. I will give up my life to protect these women, I will give up all honour to let these women be strong. You can be ruthless, but these women are defenceless and weak. Did you not take an oath to protect those weaker than you? Will you break that oath now? Or do only men count? I will give my life in the hope that these women, and all women can be protected and treasured like precious jewels.” After saying this, I stepped out from behind the boy and dropped the knife. I looked at the sky, and thought that the clouds were amazingly beautiful in the face of death.

The last thing I remembered was a pain in my arm, then blackness. I was not dead yet, but……

Author's Note

Again, completely unedited, very old story that I wrote in school.