He stood before them without greeting them, yanked the merchant with his left hand, and, holding him fast before him, said, “Get ready to die.” The merchant and the three old men began to weep and wail. The Demon said to them ” you wish to weep and wail, let me give you the story of the son that this merchant killed, a true reason to weep and wail even for my kind.
The Boy Who Belonged in Neither World
Us jinn live for thousands of years. As one dies more come to life. Born of the very fire that God All-mighty has created. We walk the earth in corporeal form. For us, we rarely love because no creature could survive as long as we do. My brother as much of a Jinn as he was he could not help but love the humans that roamed the earth. Specifically, there was one girl who he had fallen for completely. She was a simple girl who wasn’t the daughter of a king or vizier, but rather the daughter of a slave. When I asked him why he loved her so much he said that her smile had a way of making him forget his long life. After several years and the girl matured her slave master came to sell her off. This was the chance my brother had waited for many years. He used all of his power to change into a human form and went to buy the girl. Once he bought her he made her his own and they lived together for a good while in peace. After many years had passed and I had not heard from my brother for a while a message came to me that they were expecting a boy.
When the child was born I intended to go and visit my brother and ask him where he wanted his son to live. in the human world with him and his wife or in the world of the jinn with me. There was only a small problem. the midwife who delivered the child had the ability to discern jinns from humans. In that, she saw that my brother was full jinn and his son was half and half. She betrayed my brother and his wife and told the townsfolk of their existence. The town could not allow this transgression against God. The town came with their pitchforks and fire. Even though my brother kept reciting:
No man should burn
Another man in turn
For only the lord of fire
Has the right to burn with his creation
They refused to stop and my brother with all of his love for his wife refused to change back into jinn. He died alongside her hand in hand. As for the boy, he had on his own turned himself to jinn so that he could survive. After I found the boy I named him Jafar and hid him by this tree in a hole as that is where the jinn reside. I went back to the village and massacred them all only to come back and find that this merchant had killed the boy I would raise as my own son. Is my anger not justified. After all the hardship I have seen. Having three of those I love to die in such a short span.
But the story does not end here. After wandering aimlessly for 1000 years, I returned to my hometown and an empty crater in the center of the town square. As I approached the the smooth dent in the earth, the ground started vibrating and a portal opened up. Out of the swirling darkness came three familiar faces. My brother, his wife, and their son. Joy and excitement poured out as I ran out only to run through them. They opened their mouths to speak and asked me in hollow words, ” Come join us, we have much to talk about.” And so I went.