Terror

Everyone just sat there, that’s what I’ll remember. Ali was slumped on the floor of the train car, unconscious, hands clenched around his chest, and everyone just sat there, staring at him.

Then, almost as though they all thought of it at the same time, they all looked at me.

I raised my hands in a placating gesture. “It means ‘God is Great,’” I said. “Think of it as the equivalent of someone saying ‘Oh my God.’” I could tell that my accent wasn’t helping things.

As one, they all looked back down at where Ali was laying. I could have kicked him, the stupid bastard; of all the things to shout when you’re having a heart attack.

“Does anyone know CPR?” I looked around the train car. I could do it myself, but it would diffuse the situation a lot of someone else took charge; it would turn my cousin immediately from a threat to a victim in need of help... and, by association, me into a hapless bystander instead of the Surviving Co-conspirator.

Nobody moved. I muttered a curse under my breath and scooted out across Ali’s seat, into the aisle, resisting the urge to kick him as I scooted around his awkward self.

I knelt next to him and rolled him onto his back; his keffiyeh came loose and the agal rolled under the seat before flopping open. I didn’t find a pulse in his throat and couldn’t feel breath against the back of my hand.

The front of his stupid conservative living-my-culture thawb was tangled up in itself, and the buttons only ran a little way down his front; he was wearing something heavier underneath, and I wanted to get it all cleared away.

Someone was on the floor next to me: a younger man, the long-haired outdoorsy type of west-coast American. He was pulling Ali’s head back, clearing his airway and preparing to perform the mouth-to-mouth portion of CPR. I nodded at him in thanks and encouragement.

Frustrated, I took hold of both sides of the collar and ripped open the thawb; it was a cheap cotton thing that parted easily.

Underneath was a heavy vest, covered in pockets, each pocket stuffed with a thick bundle; cables looped from one packet to the next.

I looked up at the American kneeling at my stupid, backward fundamentalist cousin’s head, then up at the faces of the commuters peering down at me. Time seemed to stand still. I opened my mouth to form placating words, but none came.

"Allahu Akbar," I said, almost a whisper.