The Stagnant CloakNight in Kafr El-Sanad isn’t just time. It’s a thick, black veil that suffocates the mud-brick houses. I am Assem, 34, an irrigation engineer
accustomed to dead places. I used to laugh at the old tales of El-Naddaha, the siren of the Nile — until that night in late autumn.I got a call about a blockage in the old lock — an abandoned canal behind a dense sugarcane forest, untouched since the sixties. I arrived at eleven at night. The silence was crushingly heavy; I could hear my own pulse. Even the crickets were silent.I aimed my heavy flashlight at the stagnant, muddy water. Something was floating. It was an old, black abaya, spread flat on the surface as though someone were lying just beneath it. And it was moving against the current.”Who’s there?” I called out, my voice weak and
trembling.No answer. It began cutting through the water, gliding straight toward my bank. I stepped back, tripped over a gnarled root, and my flashlight went dark. Total pitch black. I struck the light against my palm; it flickered for a split second, and in that flash, I saw her.She stood at the water’s edge, barely two meters away. Not a single drop fell from her. She was unnaturally tall, draped in that black cloak, reeking of grave mud and decaying jasmine. Her skin was pale as corpse wax, her eyes devoid of whites — just two vast hollows of absolute blackness that
swallowed the light.She tilted her head, letting out a sound that wasn’t words, but a death rattle like a rusted blade scraping across glass: “You’re back, Assem… You took so long.”How did she know my name?I hurled the flashlight at her face and ran for the truck like a madman. Behind me, I heard footsteps — heavy, rhythmic thuds
against the mud: THUD… THUD… THUD… each one closing the distance faster than my sprinting legs.I threw myself inside,
locked the door, my hands trembling so violently I could barely fit the key into the ignition. I slammed on the gas, tearing through the dark path between the sugarcane.Suddenly, the cabin turned ice-cold. My breath fogged into steam, and the stench of decaying jasmine filled the air. In the rearview mirror, a dark shadow lay sprawled in the back seat, her wax
face pressed against the glass, staring into my eyes.I slammed into a tree. The engine died. I was forced to turn around. Her mouth was stretching open beyond human limits, revealing teeth like fish spines: “Houses don’t protect, and cars don’t save you.”I clawed at the door —
stuck. Desperate, I began reciting the Quran in a broken whisper until everything blacked out.I woke up to the morning sun. The truck was wrecked, and the back seat was empty. Relief washed over me. I
thought it was finally over. I walked back to the village, but the villagers stared at me in terror, backing away in silence. I ran home and rushed into the bathroom. I cupped cold water in my hands and looked up into the mirror.My life
stopped.My face was still mine, but my eyes had no whites — just two vast hollows of absolute blackness. Behind me, the black cloak stood, her long fingers resting on my shoulders. In the glass, my own reflection grinned back at me, its
monstrous jaw unhinged, as my own voice rasped from my throat: “We’ve finally met.”
The Floating Abaya
The Back Seat Passenger
The Mirror
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