Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,16

Gabriel’s head back by the hair, exposing his neck and scraping his nose and chin painfully across the pock-marked wall.

And then he felt the prick of a very wicked knife pressed against his throat. “I-I’m not looking!” Gabriel stammered, hating himself for not being able to control the tremor.

If I were Alejo I would fight these guys…

Something hot and tangy oozed off Gabriel’s bloodied lip onto his tongue. The taste of his own blood made him want to gag.

“Give us all the money you got from the bank.” The demand came from one of the men, shadowy in the darkness of the back alley-way. “Or we’ll cut your throat, dirty Afghan.”

Gabriel swallowed hard and took a steadying breath. “Of course. I have the money right here in my pocket. The left one. All my money is there, in my wallet.”

A hand thrust violently into the left pocket of Gabriel’s long kameez, causing him to totter and the knife at his neck to bite into his flesh. Gabriel gasped and told the men, “But I didn’t get any money at the bank. I went there to deposit.”

“You filthy liar!” one of them yelled, twisting Gabriel’s arm so hard behind his back that his eyes watered from the pain. “We saw you go into the bank. If you’re hiding the money, we’ll slaughter you like a pig.”

They had followed him from the bank! How had he not noticed?

You’ve been a fool, Gabriel. A fool. How could you get so lost in your thoughts?

“But…look in my wallet. You’ll see.” Gabriel swallowed hard, felt his Adam’s apple rub raw across the concrete wall. “There’s the deposit receipt there. You can see that I left a deposit there in the bank. All the money I have now is there in my wallet.”

Sweat ran down Gabriel’s face, along with the blood. He knew that there were only around two hundred rupees in his wallet, a paltry sum, enough to buy some potato chips and a Coke. Thank God he had nothing in his wallet to identify him as a Westerner, as usual. There was only his Afghan identity card, thanks to the Khans.

A snarl and several Pashto curses told Gabriel that, indeed, the thieves were not pleased with the pittance in his wallet or the rumpled slip that told them twenty thousand Euros had been deposited before their victim left the bank and they began to follow him. The man holding the blade at Gabriel’s throat swore violently in his ear. “Hold him!”

Rough hands dug into his upper arms. Someone else pulled on his hair, forcing Gabriel’s face towards the sky. The knife slashed his throat like the sting of a thousand wasps and his eyes rolled back into his head. Everything hazed over midnight, and the world was black before Gabriel Shara even crumpled at the thieves’ feet next to the graffiti-covered wall.

It was terribly strange to be aware that the world was passing by around you, but yet to feel yourself immobile as a stone, limbs heavy as petrified wood. Drifting in and out of awareness, Gabriel finally reached a point of realizing that he could move his lips and try to speak, and what he tried to say was, “Help.”

He was in a dirty room filled with IVs, a few cots, and a chess board on a little table, pieces paused mid-game.

The IVs mean doctors, a hospital. What’s with the chess game?

I’m not dead.

Gabriel felt his heart beat slow and cold. This couldn’t possibly be some kind of freaky afterlife filled with rusting metal cots and eternal games of chess?

Am I dead?

Gabriel attempted to roll over to one side, morbid curiosity winning out over sluggishness. Something stabbed through his neck and chest with the movement, and he yelled, suddenly remembering the alley and the thieves and the knife slitting his throat.

And then he saw Alejo, materializing in this strange room, followed by a short little doctor in a dirty lab coat. “Take it easy, Gabo,” Alejo said hoarsely. “Don’t move. You’re safe now.”

Gabriel forced himself to relax back into the pillow, weak with relief at the sight of his friend. Was Alejo looking about to cry? Over him?

“They had to sew you up pretty quickly,” Alejo said, then cleared his throat. “Someone found you. In the alley. They didn’t cut your windpipe. Do you remember what happened?”

If he held really still, the pain of talking was manageable. “Yes. They wanted…money.” The doctor had moved to the side of the bed and was checking