My mother caresses the wall where she placed me many years ago.

She pleads with me to transform—from Harith, the tiller, to Haris, the guardian.

Her eyes cling to the wall and the ceiling.

She prays to God, invoking the names of those she has lost over long, weary years.

She looks at the wall with fury, begging me to do something, anything—to stop the Angel of Death from roaming the room, from nearing my sister.

I hear her weeping, hear her whispered appeals, and I gaze upward with her—helpless—toward the ceiling.