Guest Post: “How a UnitArian from Jersey writes about a Muslim Superhero”

I am happy to be hosting this guest post and excerpt on my blog today. Hope you enjoy it.

About the Author

Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife,  mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in   1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to  New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off    Broadway.
Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry as a freelance accountant for several international law firms. She  now operates her own accounting firm in the Washington DC          area, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and two  terrible dogs. When not preparing taxes, she is busy penning her next novel.
Throughout history, literature and the art of story-telling  have influenced politics, religion and culture. The power of  the epic tale is universal. Why is it that those who never   read The Iliad know Helen of Troy? Her story, Homer’s story,transcends the written word and has become a part of our human  lexicon. The power of the written word is undeniable and Pavarti is honored to be part of the next wave of literary revolution.

Guest Post

Have you ever gotten that feeling in the back of your head that    there’s something not quite right about the way you think?  I’ve    always daydreamed about things others have considered impossible or    ridiculous.  I’m the loon who decided statistically charting various vampires’ awesomeness was a good idea.
So when the suggestion was made that someone needed to write about a    Middle Eastern superhero my imagination went into overdrive.  Of    course we need a Middle Eastern superhero!  Others have tackled this    topic to great success, like Dr. Naif of the99.org,  what’s different here is that I am not from the Middle East.
I sat down and started writing and a character named Recai Osman  appeared on the pages before me.  With green eyes and red beard,   Recai stood in the middle of a windblown desert, daring me to take the challenge.
And cue the theme to Beyond Thunderdome.
A problem soon presented itself.  It’s impossible to discuss the Middle East in any meaningful way without bringing religion into the  conversation, and while I’ve studied Islam, I am not a Muslim.  I’m not Jewish either.  In fact, I’m about as far from the religious  spectrum of the Middle East as you could get.  I’m a UnitArian Universalist.
UUism is based on the idea that we all have the right to our own    path to Truth.  For some that Truth is God, for some it’s not.  What    connects us within the UU church is the belief that the search is    valuable and that there is benefit to having a supportive and  respectful community with whom to share that search. (You can read    more about our principles here:

 Our UnitArian        Universalist Principles)
For me, the importance of an individual’s expression of faith within   a community is huge.  I believe in God.  Because of this, I often  find myself listening to the fundamentalist rhetoric of all    religions with a frustrated sigh.  Why does someone have to be wrong    in order for another to be right?
It was with this in mind that I thought about Recai.  What makes a good man?  What makes a good Muslim?  And in a society in which  religion is such a prominent part of day-to-day life, what would be the shape of evil?
Recai is a faithful man; he’s erred and he’s sinned, but his belief  in Allah and in humanity is solid.  Underneath his layers of  confusion and self-doubt is a good man.  His day-to-day life has    been isolated from the city he lives in: Elih, Turkey (Google it for    a good giggle). What would happen if a flawed man was forced to confront real evil, real sin?  Could he rise to the occasion?
Islam and Judaism run throughout Shadow on the Wall. Some of    the phrases and cultural idioms may be unfamiliar to Western    readers, but I hope that you will see a little of yourself in the    characters. The issues they face are written at high stakes, but the    questions posed are ones we must all answer.  Who am I?  What do I    stand for?  Although Shadow on the Wall has supernatural    elements, I like to think heroes exist in life, and I like to think    that religion can fuel the good in people.  Perhaps we’re all    capable of great things.

Excerpt:   

 Recai Osman awoke slowly, flickering in and out of consciousness,    the sun scorching his bruised and exhausted body.   

Where am I?

His foggy mind struggled to remember the last twenty-four  hours.

Gritty particles shifted in sympathy as he rolled to his side.Sunlight assaulted his closed lids shooting pain through his        head. Sand clung to his long lashes and hair. When the        disorientation passed, Recai wiped his eyes with sand-infested   hands, only adding to what clung to his fingers, pressing the   grains deeper into his dry eyes, abrading them. Recai was        covered in particles so fine they filled his shoes and ground  into his scalp between each follicle of hair.

Recai pushed his hands into the warm sand, lifting himself to a    sitting position and looked around. The night before was still a  blur. He remembered the bar at Bozoo?ullar? Hotel and sharing a   drink with a Kurdish woman who reminded him of his mother. Women who lived in Elih knew better than to be seen in a public bar,  but the hotel staff looked the other way; money could buy many  freedoms. Her eyes had been deep-set and so dark they may have  genuinely been black. Their mischievous glint and the sound of  his mother’s language had drawn him in. A thin veil tight around her hairline, she’d caught his attention with the modern style of having it pulled back and away from her shoulders, allowing  him to clearly see the neckline of her dress.

His head spun from last night’s drink and a dull throb built  within his skull. Recai swallowed; his dry tongue thick from  dehydration. Usually a soft bed and a forgiving shower greeted        him upon waking. How had he gotten out here, in the middle of  nowhere, surrounded by nothing but sand? He hoped the dunes he  saw were the ones that resided to the south of the city and not  a feature of some farther, larger wasteland.

He didn’t remember leaving the bar, or traveling anywhere. How  much had he drunk? Surely not more than any other night out, but    his memory was hazy as he attempted to peer into the past. There  were rumors of nomads kidnapping, robbing and abandoning the  bodies of affluent Turks in the desert, but he would remember if   he’d been kidnapped, wouldn’t he? Instead, all he remembered was  drinking bourbon while admiring the curve of the mysterious  woman’s collarbone peeking seductively above her blouse.

The dunes just outside of Elih, Turkey, were not large. The expanse of emptiness made it easy to become disoriented and lost   in amongst the shifting terrain. If he was lucky, he’d have        awoken at night and followed the light of the city toward home.   But now, with the blazing sun above him, luck was something he simply didn’t have.

Men didn’t last long in the dunes without water and supplies.   Recai was resourceful; his conscription in the Turkish military  had been short but very educational. If he’d had a canteen and   some salt tablets, he’d be capable of surviving without food or  shelter for a few days. But not like this…

He shook his head, and streams of sand fell to the ground   around him. Negativity wasn’t going to help him get home.

Recai blinked back the encroaching fog in his mind. The sun and   lack of water already affected his focus, and the temperature   was still rising. Recai took off his shoes and socks, knowing        that despite the burning sand this terrain was best traversed   the way his ancestors had. He needed to feel the earth below  him, listen to the sand as it fell away from his steps.

He undid his belt and jacket and made them into a satchel to  carry what few possessions he had. Searching his pockets he  found them empty. He was as penniless as a wandering Roma        seeking his next fortune. Soon he had his designer button-up  shirt tied up on his head like a Jain turban, and his worldly   possessions hanging from his belt over his shoulder.

The scruff of his untrimmed beard protected his face from the sun, and the turban kept him somewhat shaded. Recai took in his   surroundings and the placement of the sun and set off in the direction he hoped was north.

Recai walked for what seemed like miles, resisting the instinct to second-guess his direction. The sand moved between his toes   but soon he found his footing, and his body responded to the        landscape as if from some genetic memory. He remembered his  father’s words from a trip he took to the Oman desert as a child: Never take your shoes off; the sand will eat away at          your feet. Recai had done it anyway, then and now,  feeling more in control with that connection to the ground, its  movements speaking to his flesh directly.

His father had always been full of surprises: one moment the  strict disciplinArian, the next, he would wake Recai in the middle of the night to see a falling star. Recai had never had  the chance to get to know him as an adult. Instead, he lived  with the enigmatic memory of a great man lost.

Recai stood in the middle of the desert—every direction would  eventually lead to Elih or one of the smaller villages scattered    around the city. But who would take in a stranger? A stranger   with a Hugo Boss turban and a bruised and bloodied face? In’shallah,   he would be delivered to safety.

The sun hung high overhead, beating down so no living thing dared venture into the desert. If Recai had a tarp or blanket,  or anything at all, he would have dug himself a hole and        conserved his strength until night. Instead, at the crest of the  next dune he sat on his bundle to keep his body away from the  sand, refusing to allow it to siphon the remaining moisture from  his system. He stared out at the expanse of desert before him.  Emptiness had never been so tangible to him, nor solitude so deafening.

From his vantage point he saw the crescent shape of the  wind-carved dune. Recai’s face was wind-burned, his shoulders  screamed from the assault of the sun’s rays. The city remained        out of range; all human life seemed to lie well beyond the line  of the horizon.

As he stood, the ground shifted softly beneath him. It reminded  Recai of when he’d been a child on his father’s yacht. He used  to love going out on the water, taking the helm when they        reached the open sea. The city of Elih was landlocked. It was   the place where his father had made his fortune and helped  establish a sophisticated Arab beacon for the rest of the Middle        East, a place where Turks and Kurds co-existed peacefully. When his family needed to escape from the day to day running of the Osman Corporation, a private jet would fly him and his parents   out to Iskandar?n where they docked the boat.

Reaci walked on with his thoughts. He hadn’t been to Iskandar?n in years. Not since he’d witnessed his mother jump without  warning from the helm of the yacht. Her thin hijab blew in the evening breeze before she leapt. It had been blue and Recai  remembered the way it seemed to float in the air when she took final step. Not long after that his father disappeared, leaving paperwork that named Recai the heir to the multi-billion-dollar empire he ran. Recai had been only eight years old. Since then, Elih had fallen into the hands of Mayor Mahmet Y?lmaz and his RTK henchmen—terrorists hiding behind the veil of faith. It made Recai sick to his stomach, the way        the city was falling apart, devolving into crime and ignorance,  but there was nothing he could do. He simply was not his father.

Walking along the crest of the dune, hoping to find a way to the flat area below that didn’t involve sliding down the great sand wall, Recai felt a rumble in his chest. A vibration        surrounded him, calling to him from the air itself. A deep roar rose from the earth. The pitch rose as the noise intensified, now a screaming growl like the Jinn’s song.

The dunes were collapsing.

Recai ran, hoping to keep ahead of the avalanche. The awesomephysics of the phenomenon would have been breathtaking were it  not so deadly. Dropping the satchel that held the last remnants  his modern life, Recai scrambled across the crest, unable to get ahead of the avalanche. The dune song reached a crescendo and Recai screamed back at the spectacle of Mother Nature’s power. He lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees just   as the top of the dune swept out from beneath him, sending him   rolling, swimming in the sea of sand, which enveloped him then whisked him away.

You can buy this book at Amazon. .

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