The Year of Famine
Short story by Arafat Musleh
Translated by Hatem Al-Shamea
It was a serene morning with a cloudless sky, but suddenly, the heavens darkened as if something had soured its mood. These unexpected clouds were an unwelcome guest to the villagers whose crops were still drying on the flat, rocky threshing floors, known locally as “jirn al-huboob.” These floors were used to dry the harvest before storing it at the end of each season. In a hurry, the villagers gathered their crops, fearing an unusual downpour might ruin them. The following morning, the village was languid; the people were exhausted but still had the final task of storing animal feed in preparation for the dry months. The stalks of sorghum and grasses were stored in dark, airless rooms, while the thinner stalks of corn were stacked on tall acacia or jujube trees. These trees, with their multiple branches, resembled giant wooden fingers holding up the feed until needed. Yet, no one could have imagined that these rituals would be postponed, for everyone was summoned to the cemetery.
Hajj Naji would often step out into the square of the mosque, perched on the eastern edge of the village overlooking the sloping valley. There, he would stand in the very spot where he called the people to prayer and to the cemetery when someone had passed. Yet, this time, it was Hajj Naji himself who was being called. The villagers rushed, reciting the testimonies of faith and supplications, expressing their sorrow and condolences for the departed.
With a mournful tone, an old man in a gray robe with a green-woven sash around his waist spoke up. He held the tip of his staff as he reminisced about praying Fajr with Hajj Naji that very morning. He claimed that there had been no signs of illness or any indication of his impending death. Another man who had also been at the prayer confirmed the old man’s words but added that Hajj Naji’s face had been strangely luminous. It was a common exaggeration people made about the dead, as if it would somehow soften the pain of loss for their loved ones.
The men of the village moved, each bearing a hoe or shovel to assist in digging the grave. The earth was parched and hard, as there had been no rain for months. They took turns digging, while the children raced to carry additional jugs of cold drinking water, wrapped in damp sacks made of cloth grain bags, to quench the thirst of the sweating men laboring under the scorching sun.
Once the grave was dug and prepared for the deceased, the men brushed the dust from their bodies in preparation for the funeral prayer. As they carried the coffin into the mosque, a chilling realization struck them: another call had gone out for yet another grave to be dug, this time for someone else who had also passed away.
This was a dire omen for the villagers. They prayed fervently, pleading with God to spare them from further misfortune. After burying the first deceased, they began to dig the second grave, but exhaustion and fear had gripped them. People began to whisper about it being the first time two people had died on the same day with no apparent connection. Yet, in the end, they returned to the comforting thought that death is closer to a frail human than a jugular vein.
So, they finished preparing the second grave just before sunset. The villagers decided to pray the Maghrib prayer, wait for the Isha prayer, and then bury the deceased, as burying someone at sunset was considered inauspicious. This was disappointing for the children, as they would not be able to attend the funeral procession. They had always enjoyed the chants that people would recite while carrying the coffin:
- “There is no god but Allah, the One and Only…”
- “There is no god but Allah, the Truth, the Absolute…”
For some inexplicable reason, these chants left a deep spiritual imprint on their souls. After the Maghrib prayer, some people, especially the elderly, took Qur’ans from the niche on the right-hand side of the mosque’s front wall to recite what they could for the soul of the deceased. Meanwhile, the second funeral was laid out at the end of the rows. Near the small door on the left, a wooden coffin draped in a large green cloth embroidered with golden Quranic verses rested. Those who had taken Qur’ans found a spot near the oil lamp to read the verses, while the others went outside to wait in the mosque square, covered in a thick layer of white, gold-flecked dust.
Immediately, during those moments of waiting, people began to analyze what had happened that day. Some believed the cause was a hole in the wall of the first grave. According to village beliefs, if a hole or cave was found in the walls of a grave while digging, it meant that another death would occur unless the hole was filled. Some even claimed to have seen the hole with their own eyes, taking speculation to a new level.
Others had a different explanation. They believed that the cause was an error made while carrying the coffin to the mosque. Perhaps it had been carried unevenly. If a coffin was carried at an angle, with one end higher than the other, it was said to cause another death. Some men were even ready to point fingers at specific individuals, not because they knew they had not carried the coffin properly, but because they had personal issues with them. This could have been an opportunity to settle old scores, but the overwhelming sadness in the village that day prevented such accusations.
After the Isha prayer, the men carried the coffin by the dim light of oil lamps. Even so, the lamps did little to help them avoid the thorns of the shrubs lining the narrow path between the mosque and the cemetery. The women, shrouded in black, and the children watched as the funeral procession slowly made its way to the burial ground.
The burial was not completed until deep into the night. The villagers returned to their homes, each carrying the tools they had brought to prepare one grave, but had ended up preparing two. They placed their trust in God for great reward for their efforts. That night, the village slept to the sound of women’s and old women’s wails, the children’s cries, and the men’s vacant stares.
As soon as the first light of dawn broke, plumes of smoke rose from several houses in the village. It was customary for neighbors to prepare food for the family of the deceased and those who came to offer condolences, which were many. As the sun rose, the women of the deceased stood by the graves, their mourning and black attire uniting them. They had brought grains to scatter over the graves for the birds to eat, as a reward for the deceased. At the same time, the village decided to hold a combined condolence gathering for both families, as was customary. While condolences usually lasted for three days, their brief respite was nearing its end after only the first day, especially as the worshippers in the mosque were performing the Witr prayer, signaling the end of a day filled with devotion.
People were leaving the unusually crowded mosque, reminding themselves of the nearness of death and the necessity of repenting to God for their sins. Suddenly, they were startled by screams of fear and the call to the cemetery again—a third person had died!
The people rushed out in panic and fear at what was happening. Everyone was terrified, reciting supplications and what they could remember of the Quran, pleading with God with trembling hands. The people gathered, overwhelmed by confusion and astonishment. What was most frightening was that the three deceased had not shown any signs of impending death. On the contrary, the newly deceased was one of those who had participated in digging the graves the previous day and was still in his mid-thirties.
The people gathered near the deceased’s house and agreed to bury him the following morning, meaning the grave would be dug after dawn. They left with their heads bowed, each expecting to be the next victim in this terrifying game. However, things took a more horrific turn. At dawn, the village was faced not with one corpse, but two, from the same house!
The old women began to whisper tales of having seen the Grim Reaper in the village lanes. One woman claimed to have seen him on her way to light the oven, while the young boys insisted they had seen him fleeting past them, racing down the village slope towards so-and-so’s house, as they were going to fetch water on their donkeys.
The people were terrified. Some collapsed under the weight of what was happening, while others retreated to the mosque for endless prayers and supplications. The old women rushed to the house of “the Sayyid,” the village scholar, begging him to make amulets for their children to protect them from the raging specter of death. Hajj Saad then decided to hire a “mutasafila,” an old woman who could communicate with the dead within the first three days after their demise. He brought her from a mountain village, hoping she could communicate with his only son who had passed away the night before.
After a strange ritual, the old woman emerged from the room she had locked herself in, sweating profusely with her breasts stretched almost to her navel. Exhausted, she told the people that all the dead were asking them to go to the mountains surrounding the village. Then she fainted. The people rushed to the mountains the “mutasafila” had mentioned but found nothing. However, there were tales of people hearing the mountains groaning and making strange noises. Despite this, they did not know what to do. The people became wary and vigilant, no longer as concerned with understanding the cause of the events as they were with knowing who would be next.
The village continued in this state for nearly a year. Funerals, with unknown causes of death, followed one after the other. The victims ranged from the elderly to young people and even children. Sometimes, several people from the same household would perish, and entire families in the village became extinct. Initially, the people’s fear made life an endless, terrifying nightmare. However, as time passed and they were unable to explain what was happening, people—as is human nature—accepted their fate, as if they had made peace with their enemy. The large rock on the edge of the cliff became a gathering place for the village women to watch the funerals that consumed the cemetery every day.
By the middle of the tenth month since the first funeral, the deadly feasts suddenly stopped. People could hardly believe it, to the point where they were reluctant to talk about those days, as if they were afraid of waking a mythical monster from its sleep. Despite their differences, they all agreed on one thing: they called that year “The Year of Annihilation.”
The howling winds of ‘Allan’ created a deafening roar outside, signaling the end of a harvest season in which not only crops but also many lives had been reaped. A season that people would not pray to repeat, as they usually did after every abundant harvest.
———————- Note: Historically, the Year of Annihilation refers to the year of Famine in Yemen, It occurred in areas of central & northern Yemen, with varying names, and it was most likely between the years 1935 and 1945 due to the rule of Imamate that plagued Yemen with poverty, Illness, & Ignorance.
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