Sublime

“Walaikumsalaam,” Doctor says, turning his head to see who is talking as he pushes himself out of that other time, sets his mind like someone adjusting his watch to the current time zone.

Hussein, in his place behind the wheel, was looking angrily at his watch and muttering inaudibly. One of the waiting truck drivers approached him and said plainly, “No goods can get through without the right documents.” Hussein quickly got out of the minibus and went up to the makeshift office. He paid a bribe known as a goods-transit document, and

The siblings’ identity cards came in handy here, at last; Anabiya was an influential region, and many of its sons were fighting in the Free Army, based in the countryside north of Aleppo.