“Did you check everything, Ahmed?” inquired Ali anxiously. “These tanks look half full.” Ali shook one of the two oxygen tanks with both hands before holding it to his back.
“They will be sufficient,” responded the young boy confidently.
“Uncle Saleh the diver assured me that they would do the trick. The place is not very far, dad, and we won’t be staying long in the depth,” the boy continued, tightening the ropes around his waist. “I told you I went there and found the easy way to the wreckage in the shortest time.”
“Thank Allah, today looks like a good day for diving,” stated Ali as he looked up at the clear sky above him. “We’ll have it all done in less than an hour, son, and then we’ll be back. Just follow me and always check the rope that binds us. And if you get in trouble, pull it tight. Got it?”
“Okay, boss,” responded the young boy with a laugh. “Don’t worry, boss. I don’t want to fight the strong rushing waters alone.”
“Fine, then follow me now, my boy,” said Ali firmly before jumping into the water, leaving his small boat behind.
About half an hour had passed since the two men made their way through the depths of the water toward the wreck of the sunken ship.
Ali was swimming ahead of his son, browsing the surrounding rocks as he searched for gaps to pass through toward the scattered broken, old boxes on the seafloor when, unexpectedly, he found a tiny passage between two large, sharp rocks.
After Ali motioned for his son to follow, both men squeezed carefully through the narrow passage and reached the back of the rocks.
To their surprise, they spotted countless old gold coins and pieces of jewellery dispersed throughout the seabed.
“Tens of these coins would be enough to save Baraka’s life and change our miserable lives,” pondered Ahmed as he rapidly began filling his small bag with old, rusty coins.
As he looked among the smashed boxes, his mother’s piercing screams still echoed in his mind, as if tearing the silence of the nearby water’s depths.
When he and his father had rushed into the hut the previous day, he stood still before his brother’s empty cradle, staring at his mother who had been shaking his brother’s body violently and screaming in a desperate attempt to revive him.
The baby’s face had turned blue as his weak breathing gradually slowed. Promptly, his father had taken him from his mother’s arms, lightly patting his back and blowing into his mouth with intermittent rescue breaths.
For a while, the miserable father had been struggling to save his baby’s life while his wife and son had remained stunned, waiting for any signs of life from Baraka. At last, the poor baby had suddenly cried out, lightening a new hope in the anxious souls of his parents and brother.
As the young boy continued filling his bag, a wide smile spread across his face, remembering his father’s words from earlier that day, a few hours after his brother’s accident. “I know your brother’s body can’t handle much more,” Ali had said, looking deeply into his son’s eyes then he had added with a cracking voice.
“There’s no need for you to go alone, son. We’ll leave together tomorrow. We need two oxygen tanks and long ropes. We will save your brother’s life, I promise. We should keep this secret from your mum. We will be back home in a few hours, trust me.”
There, in the depths of the sea, the two men were still busy grabbing coins from here and there while the water swirled around them, quietly lapping the silent remains of the sunken ship, empty of life.
“We should hurry,” signalled Ali to his son, raising his hand upward while checking his oxygen tank, almost reaching its alarming level.
Nevertheless, the young boy was already swimming deeper beneath the shipwrecks, searching for more valuable jewellery.
As the water around him grew heavier, the fisherman began to feel anxious. A strange feeling choked his breath as he remembered how many fishermen had been swept away by the sudden, violent current of the nearby water vortex.
He swiftly turned back, pulling the rope hard to alert his son to follow him toward the tiny gap.
While passing through the small passage, on his way back to his boat, the fisherman pulled the rope strongly once more to signal to his son before watching him swim towards him, when suddenly, an unexpected powerful current of water struck the young boy, lifting him high and spinning him violently.
Ali’s heart grew heavy with fright and grief as he watched helplessly his son being tossed about by the madly turbulent water as if he were a piece of the planks of the sinking vessel.
He desperately held the rope tightly, his hands trembling as he fought the rushing water to keep his son’s body from being swept away in the vast sea.
The few seconds felt quick, but they seemed like an eternity under Ali’s intense, vacant gaze. He kept following his son with his eyes, his breaths quickening as he saw his son’s tiny body jerked uncontrollably by the intense current as if death were enveloping him in darkness and terror.
The miserable father remained still for a short while clinging to the rocks and holding the end of the rope, tossed about by the water as it tossed his son’s unconscious body, like a storm playing with dry, fallen leaves.
But, to his distress, the turbulent water was not playing with the young boy’s body. Instead, it rolled him rapidly, lifting him high to the surface of the sea, then smashing him against the sharp rocks before finally leaving him behind, his motionless, bloody body laying among the wreckage.
Immediately, Ali sped toward his son’s body, still lying lifeless amidst the coins while the water now calmed and swirled smoothly again around them as if gently cleaning the remains of a raging battle within its folds.
