Chapter XIII. The guiding cow

The shepherd was at the door of the mourning mother’s home at noon that day.

Until your son comes home, my sister if you need someone to take care of your cow, give it to me. I’ll look after it for a while, milk it, sell its milk, and deliver you the price in exchange for a cut of the proceeds.

And this is the cost of her milk for a week in advance, as a way to demonstrate my sincerity and good intentions. This person is one of those who guarantee me. If you like, I may leave you the cost of its milk as a pledge.

His mind says, “Anything you want, woman, you will get it.” The important thing is to give me this beast, for that lunatic swore, Basel, to hang me upside down and flay my skin from my bones if I did not return the cow to him.

In the evening, Major Basel was traversing the wilderness while towing a cow behind him with a rope, a hunting gun, and a traveling bag on his back. He spent the night in his tent at the base of a mountain with his loaded hunting gun close by; There is one animal in these wilds that you must always be aware of and wary of: the wild boar. If it attacks you, no amount of ammunition will be able to stop it because of its thick skin, which is covered in countless layers of grease and fat, which prevents bullets from penetrating and reaching any vital organs. Therefore, in massacres, pigs are killed by being struck or electrocuted on the head so, you must always be alert.

He released its rope in the early hours of the morning while keeping an eye on it from a distance.

Animals always go back to the places they are familiar with; therefore this cow must begin visiting the same pastures and locations that Walid frequented; he may be concealed in one of them or close by.

At the very least, he would unavoidably assume that it had broken free of its bonds while the mother was unaware, left the pen, and set out to fend for itself if he saw it and did not see anyone nearby who might run to help itself.

Paradoxically, he recalls that on his last night in Nurhan’s arms, he made fun of the weather and vowed that they would watch it till morning. Now, he is watching it and even pursuing it, following it wherever it goes.

The cow came to a halt in a meadow not far from the village. Walid was not likely to be concealing himself here, but there was no way he could. Now that the cow is in charge, it determines where they go and how long they stay.

As he observed it, he considered the guiding cow! It only acquired this position because it is privy to information that he is not. He wouldn’t have needed it if he knew where the boy was.

Similar to cows, many leaders and stakeholders roam and play wherever they choose, leading nations and people wherever their irrational personal lusts and desires take them. Battles and human deaths have occurred throughout history for no other reason than that the leader was motivated by his desire for the booty or the love of the woman he desired.

Today, in many Arab countries, the leader’s lust is clothed in the cloak of the homeland, so that all his desires and desires become a safety valve for the homeland and the citizen. In the face of internal and external conspiracies, those that ravage security and safety, and the future of the country and the subjects.

Sometimes the leader has no secrets, but he persists in terrorizing the followers by making them believe there are things going on outside of themselves that they are unaware of and are powerless to stop, including external plots and fatal obstacles. Through his control of the currency, he is able to procure the troops’ loyalty and keep them happy, allowing him to continue using them as his tools to repress the vast majority of the populace.

He also has many weapons for stability thanks to his control over institutions, wealth, and power, and he also has numerous instruments for the disorder, which he may use whenever he wants if he senses symptoms of discontent with the state the nation has reached.

For instance, since he is the owner of the security apparatus, all it takes to bring about chaos is for him to order the arrest of criminals, murderers, thieves, fearmongers, and bandits. At that point, everyone will be groveling at his feet pleading with him to take action in the face of the chaos they have caused as a result of their lack of understanding of the perils and difficulties involved in managing states.

The ancients called it fraud and deception because it involves making a personal interest the focus of a whole society and then intimidating everyone by implying that if this interest vanishes or is not satisfied, they would all perish.

The way the tamarind vendor interacted with his customers was how he spent his time thinking about his strategy. He would give Walid the option of returning or not, earn his trust as a hunter who happened to come across him in the wilderness, and then somehow persuade him to be encouraged to return to his home. He would come up with an idea at the time, but since this cow has plenty of time, it seems like he has a lot of ideas and is not in a rush.

As dusk fell, the cow remained in the meadow but began to move. He followed it and quickly realized that it was going back to the village! He wished he could threaten it with anything along the lines of “I’ll hang you upside down or I’ll flay you from your flesh” in order to get it to comply and return to the pastures because he was sure that it was going to sleep in its corral.

Intervention is the only option left. As he pursued her, he seized the rope and guided it away. As long as it didn’t go back to the village, he attempted to let it go any course it liked. He ventured further into the woods before spending the night among the trees and tying it to the tent.

He left it alone in the morning; it didn’t stop anywhere. It kept moving forward and away, cutting through the trees and the mountains, pausing briefly to nibble on some weeds before continuing on its journey. After four hours, it stopped and turned to the right, moving along a dirt path that was hidden by the trees.

It ascended a hill, something no cow could have done unless it knew the route by memory. The major sensed the boy approaching him as if the cow were headed in his direction or toward a spot where they used to sit. It eventually descended the hill toward a spring of water and started to sip.

He was secretly keeping watch from the top of the hill when the cow started to bleat loudly. Moments later, he noticed a little boy emerging from one of the mountain’s caves, staring around him in fear and awe.

It is unavoidably him, exactly as in his photos, and it is not surprising that he is still here and has not gone back to his home because the freshwater is right next to him, the water spring is tucked away between forests and mountains, and hours away from the vineyards, where he can sneak into it and take whatever fruit he wants, and he is an expert at doing this. He knows how to hunt in the wild without a gun, so he won’t succumb to starvation quickly.

Walid exited it and stepped forward, carefully peering. Oh, you cow! Have you had enough of what you were doing? Are they following you? Do you show them where I am at the moment? Hello there, report writer!

Holding the rope, he smiled as he tethered it to a tree. He then took a rusted, filthy bowl from the spring’s edge, rinsed it as thoroughly as he could, lit a fire, and started milking it.

“Don’t be angry, my dear, I know you’re just a cow, but I can’t understand how they could hear us!” Or maybe they want me for something else, either way, you’re innocent of the charge.

But how did you come? Did you miss me, I also miss you and your milk.

As my mother doesn’t have any experience with cows other than milking them, he reasoned that it was likely that she had neglected to tighten her chains! The house may be watched, although there are no traces of any security agents!

On the way back, he picked as many fruits as he could carry.

Most people would prefer to live in peace and security, free from problems, but this does not mean that they do not want to create them. They may do so for no other reason than their vision to make them, or they may do so under the guise of exacting revenge for an injustice that has occurred. Fear is a natural emotion in human beings, just as evil, goodness, and retaliation are natural emotions. They can’t, though, due to their dedication and concern over the repercussions.

They will race against time to carry out everything they had previously wanted to do, so who cares about the branch in the land of the old man and me who conspired to secure The Homeland, its sovereignty, and its master, with that cow? All that is necessary is for them to believe that the consequences of their retaliation will be nothing to mention, in comparison to the consequences of an act they have just committed.

Even the collective mind of people operates in the same manner; all it takes is for them to believe they have gotten themselves into serious trouble for which the punishment is harsh, for you to see their shock, and for them to act in a way you did not anticipate!

For instance, if you intimidate the populace into refraining from any action or utterance that would diminish the President, and make this a disaster and a major catastrophe, a person may be imprisoned for the rest of his life as a punishment for it, and he may lose his life because of it. What will happen if one of them insults him in a spur-of-the-moment outburst and flees?

What would happen if, in a fit of collective rage, a large number of people assaulted him?

They then did something for which they should be punished severely, and they won’t think twice about doing anything else without it after that. In an attempt to defend themselves, they will take up arms, kill soldiers, and attack state buildings and police stations. Given that they committed the worst crime, they are already dead. Why should he still be afraid of them after insulting his sovereignty?

All it takes is a small spark to make a large number of people commit the least crime and deserve the greatest punishment.

It might be acceptable if it involved one of them planning to bomb and kill numerous civilians in exchange for life in prison, torture, and execution because it takes deliberate intent, preparation, planning, equipment, and enough time to do something like that. It is also not something that people can easily do in their daily lives or in the heat of the moment.

Syria, however, faces a unique set of challenges. Everyone is capable of committing some of the offenses that will result in this penalty spontaneously, unknowingly, or in the heat of the moment. It’s possible to leave your home in the morning and never come back. You just vanish after changing your name and are then placed in one of the state prisons. No one will recognize you in the arrest records, and if someone looks for you, they won’t find anything. This is due to a brief, unplanned fit of rage during which you lost control of your mouth.

This is a flaw in every dictatorial system because it imposes the harshest punishment on a crime that someone might commit and will unavoidably commit at some point, even in a spur-of-the-moment outburst of rage! As he will undoubtedly die, the barrier of fear of punishment will then be removed, and he will engage in every other prohibited behavior.

Notwithstanding this flaw, this approach can manage its effects as long as the state is closed to itself, only the party’s media exist there, and international media are not allowed to operate freely.

In the event that a situation spirals out of control in a city like Hama, the ruling regime will have no problem shutting it down completely, killing 30, 70, or even 100,000 people, as well as anyone involved in insulting its sovereignty, because, from the outside, people will only hear rumors and gossip without any videos or recordings. Furthermore, the evidence has not been established, and even if it had, it would have come extremely late and in very small quantities.

Imagine the Hama massacre, which resulted in 30.000 deaths, for this is only the tip of the iceberg; the true toll is much higher.

Despite its best efforts to keep Syria adequately isolated, the authoritarian regime in Syria is starting to lose some of its most crucial advantages today, without its will, as technological advancement and human progress, particularly in the sphere of communications, go around it everywhere. Despite all of his efforts to keep Syria adequately cut off from the outside world by blocking certain gadgets and technologies from entering the country and making sure they are kept out of people’s hands, the age of technology would eventually overtake it without his will.

And who knows, maybe in a few years every citizen will have a phone, a camera, and a way to broadcast his voice to the globe! even live, moment-by-moment videotaping of what is occurring!

Then, if the dictatorship believes that the best course of action is to isolate the cities and carry out mass killings in secret, as it did in Hama, it will have made the worst mistake possible given the passage of time.

Yet as is customary in authoritarian regimes, the first thing they do when presented with a situation they have previously encountered and successfully solved is repeated that solution, even if it means killing 100,000 civilians, in the hopes of achieving the same outcome simultaneously.

The major kept watch over the boy for an entire hour before getting up and heading down the hill to find him.

Walid watched him from a distance, expressing signs of anxiety and perplexity.

Basel: Hello, may I get some water?

Walid: It is a spring in the wilderness. Water belongs to everyone.

He went to the spring and drank the water. When he turned to look at the boy, he saw that his distrust, worry, and concern had grown. This look in his eyes, which he is familiar with, is not one of terror from a stranger he unexpectedly encountered in the woods, but rather one of fear of a Syrian citizen from an Alawite.

The dialect of the people of the Alawite sect is completely different from any other dialect in the entire Arab world, distinctive, and it is impossible for a young man like Walid, from the countryside of Latakia, not to have known that Basel is an Alawi as soon as he greeted him.

-Why are you acting so strangely, boy? Why are you afraid?

Walid doesn’t say anything, every once in a while turning to face him and then back to the weapon.

-Do not be afraid, have you not been accustomed to an Alawite presence in this wilderness before?

Walid: No, this is the first time. It is far from your villages

-I know, but it is one country, and everyone can go wherever they want

-He turned to the cow: is it your cow?

-Yes, I take care of it here all the time.

He started to believe that their conversations were frequently at a standstill because the boy was wary of him and on high alert. This was also the first time in his life that he had attempted to woo a person. What should he do?

He remembered the tamarind vendor and the pod. People trade trust for kindness, and Walid’s eyes only focus on a pistol, indicating that he is fearful and needs to be given a sense of trust.

He removed the gun from his back, put it by the rocks, turned away, lowered his bag, and began to bring out the pot, and the cutlery: “Will you share my lunch with me?”

-Yes why not

He said it and seemed somewhat relaxed. He began to collect wood and light a fire, while Basel was about to empty the contents of his bag, and among the items, he took out two mate cups and two reeds.

Walid watched them and asked him: What is the need of a hunter who hunts alone in the wilderness for the second cup?

Damn, what a sudden question, while preparing the plan, of course, mate was an essential part of it, so what could break the ice between two people in Latakia like a traditional mate session?!

He bought two cups and two reeds, one for him and one for Walid, but it appears that the smart man’s mind is still a newborn in his head and requires further training.

He replied without hesitation: What if one of them breaks? The second is a precaution.

He just realized that perhaps Walid is not necessarily a keen observer.

However, he, who still needed more training and acumen, had to pay attention to this.

He prayed to God that he would not have made mistakes in other things, and he started to think rapidly. He realized he had brought enough food for two people to last for days, but the boy may not have realized this since the quantity of food may have been intended for longer stays.

While Walid noticed the amount of food and did not ask, this stranger can find a thousand excuses.

However, his mind was preoccupied all the time with another sign

It cannot be ignored, nor can it be justified.