Where is Manar?
Book One: The Twin Star
Chapter 1: Falling with a Cow
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Wind violently slaps my face!
Why?
"I tried to open my eyes against the raging wind, only to see the ground rushing toward me like a madman — as if it had decided to swallow me before my time."
"Good God.. GOD ALMIGHTY!" I screamed with everything I had, but my voice stayed behind me, swallowed by the speed of the fall. "How did I end up here? Did I drink something last night?"
"No, man. You don't drink."
"Haaa? Who said that?"
Mid-conversation with myself, a strange voice answered — a voice that made me jump out of my skin. "Look up, sweetheart." It sounded like someone talking inside a tin can.
I looked up. A massive, furious shadow swallowed the sun for a moment, before the horrifying details came into focus...
A cow.
Yes, folks. A cow. Picture this: you're falling from the sky — the vast, wide-open sky — and some creature has the audacity to share the drop with you. Or... a cow.
"My sincerest apologies, O Mother of Milk. Is there truly no other spot for you to graze? As you can see, this godforsaken sky is considerably wider than the grazing fields of your shepherd's twenty-sixth grandfather." I said this without the slightest pleasantry.
"Damn you, you pampered brat! Let go of my tail before you start philosophizing!" she shot back, veins bulging on her forehead like carved trenches.
When I noticed her tail — I had been gripping it for dear life. I let go immediately. It seems... I had misread the situation.
"Hmph." She exhaled through her nose with contempt. When I looked properly, she was standing — arms crossed. Or... front legs? Who knows. They're cow limbs after all. She'd taken a full hostile stance, chewing hay, jaw moving left to right.
"Bro, you want some food?" she said, her voice shifting.
"Huh — what did you say?" I blinked.
"Bro, my mom says come eat," she replied, still chewing, jaw swinging side to side.
"Hey cow, who wants your food?" I snapped. God. Was she about to feed me cow slop or what?
Then!! Her shape changed entirely. She exhaled from her nostrils with a force that rattled my soul. Her horns looked ready to gore the sky itself. Her scream was sharp — sharp like your damn widowed neighbor's scream. And her kick? I regret to inform you... it was faster than the Emir of Kuwait when Saddam came knocking.
"Damn you, you cow, (Salami)."
Angry, childish voice. Kick to the forehead. Received with full "love," people.
Then everything began to dissolve — the cow vanished, the sky evaporated, even the ground that had been racing toward me shrank away like a bad dream.
I woke from the dream-coma to a throbbing pulse dead center on my forehead. A very real kick had launched me back into my room after that cow ejected me from the sky. I opened my eyes slowly to my familiar ceiling, and through the gap in the door caught a glimpse of the little "rat" making his escape — followed by the rapid thunder of small feet devouring the stairs.
The ball sat beside me on the floor. Sole piece of evidence. The cow arguing with me in the sky had been nothing more than my little brother, who had decided to test his aim on my forehead while I slept.
"Damn you, you little cow!" I roared. If I don't introduce him today to a meet-and-greet with my old shoe, then I'm officially a K-pop superfan and I deserve it. I peeled myself up from the floor — where I always end up sleeping — leaving the bed behind me neatly made, exactly as "Maytham" left it. I mean as he left it. Last night.
Beside me, the gaming console was still wheezing through its final moments, and the TV showed a frozen screen at the last save point... as usual, sleep had beaten me before I could save the world.
On my way out I tripped on the folded edge of the rug. Tsk... I always trip on it, and I can never be bothered to fix it.
I went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water, hoping to flush out the remnants of the flying-cow dream. The sting of the water on my forehead confirmed that reality is considerably more painful. I looked in the mirror: a red bump, bold and proud, dead center on my forehead. "Ow... that rat never misses."
I wiped the spot.
For a brief moment...
Something felt off. My reflection had lagged — just a fraction of a second — as if the one in the glass was watching me lazily before bothering to copy my movement.
Just a fraction of a second.
I blinked.
Normal.
I muttered: "Clearly that hit was harder than I thought."
I came out and descended the L-shaped stairs, stopping as I do every morning at the landing where the majestic eagle statue stands.
"Morning, Wolf — how are you today? I'll hunt you a fresh rat. I know you're tired of bird." I said this while running a hand over the head of the statue we'd nicknamed "Wolf." Yes — an eagle named Wolf. In this house, you come to accept that logic took an open-ended leave of absence a long time ago.
I continued down into the warm living room. The dining table sat in the middle, a shade plant on it that had been stubbornly defying time for years. No one knows when it gets watered or how it survives — but it refuses to die. Seems it learned resilience from my father.
Behind the table, the TV was spitting out its steady drone of news that found no way to my ears. On the right, an antique clock hung above the room's door as if keeping watch over time as it passed heavily. And there, at the head of the table, sat my father — eating with the solemnity of a man signing state decrees. His eyebrows, permanently set to "stern," were performing at their absolute best. In his lap sat "Manar"... my little cupcake, who looked like a doll with hair flying as if it belonged to Medusa.
My father was feeding Manar quietly and with complete focus. I approached them, a smile forming against my will, the red bump on my forehead entirely forgotten: "Peace upon you, O men!" I blew flying kisses toward Manar. My father replied without lifting his eyes: "Hello, Sami."
As for Manar — her eyes lit up with that pure childish delight as she tried to answer through a full mouth: "Thami... thum-thum!" Her pigtails flew as she laughed, as if my scrambled words had overturned the entire balance of her small world.
"Manar, speak after you swallow," my father said, wiping the food from her face with paper napkins — tenderness hiding quietly behind his usual sternness.
At that moment, my mother's voice arrived from the kitchen — that voice that does not accept debate: "Sami, could you help me set the table?"
My mother believed a good soldier doesn't ask "why" — he answers with "yes sir." So I took the tray from her hands with a wide grin: "Your orders, officer. Execution in progress." I began moving dishes to the table, and that's when I spotted the "damn rat" crouched behind my father's back, watching me with eyes gleaming with victory and anticipation.
I set the dishes while watching him from the corner of my eye: "Manar, my kitten — what do you say we hunt some rats after lunch?"
"Sami, leave him alone!" My father cut in, stroking the little one's head and fixing me with a look I know well: the "older brother who must be the bigger person" look.
I objected bitterly, pointing to the monument on my forehead: "And when did I ever do anything to him? Look at me — I've grown a coconut!"
"And why do you call him a cow? You know how furious he gets from that." My father said this, and at that moment Alaa popped his head out from behind him. He looked exactly like me — a miniature version, jet-black hair, black eyes sparkling with intelligence and mischief. His little face concealed behind its innocent features a thousand diabolical schemes.
I thought to myself: if I told my father I'd been arguing with an actual cow in my dream — would he forgive me? Or send me to the nearest psychiatric ward?
"Alaa, get up and apologize to your brother," my father ordered — invoking that great paternal principle: "You're the older one, act like it." The gap between us is twenty years, which my father considers vast, and which I consider a "missed opportunity" for Alaa to be my age and face me man to man.
"Sami... I'm sorry," Alaa muttered in a frightened tone, arranging his face into that guilt expression he's mastered. But I know him. He learned these tricks from me — I'm the one who taught him how to wrap mischief in innocence. The tricks of my "little student" won't work on me.
"Sami, come get the rest of the dishes," my mother's voice cut through my vengeful thoughts. "Coming!" I called, finishing the table arrangement. My father turned the TV up slightly; his sacred ritual required us to stuff our minds with world news while we stuffed our stomachs with food — as if we were about to reshape international politics with broth and rice.
In the age of smartphones, my father remained loyal to this black box, convinced it had a flavor all its own. I still maintain its flavor tastes exactly like boring news. Finally, the family gathered around the table.
"In the name of God," my father said, and we echoed him in one voice — then launched our assault on the food.
"Manar, come here," my mother called, lifting her from my father's lap so he could eat in peace. My mother was the "Minister of Defense and Care" in this house — well aware that no matter how formidable a man is, he remains a child who fails at caring for another child.
Manar climbed down and walked around the table toward me on her confident little legs. "Hey, my cupcake — where's your brother's kiss?" I lifted her and kissed her until she protested with her tiny hands.
"Enough, Sami — you're bothering her," my mother said, watching us with quiet satisfaction.
I looked at her as I handed Manar over: "You know, Mom? Manar is the most beautiful thing in this world. Not like certain rats who throw balls."
"Enough bullying — the boy apologized," Mom replied, settling Manar in the chair beside her.
Manar laughed through her broken speech: "Mama, Thami says hello to the men... Are me and Mama men?"
We burst out laughing. She'd been storing my "manly" greeting from when I came downstairs, food blocking her from responding, and had been waiting to launch it like a little missile of innocence.
I looked at her with theatrical outrage: "And another thing, young lady — my name is not Salami! Do you think I'm some kind of processed meat?"
"Yes, Mama's flower — your brother says strange things most of the time. Don't trouble your beautiful mind with it," Mom said, smoothing Manar's hair.
— End of Chapter 1 —