The Fog of Madinah

It started as if my family and I were planning to travel to Madinah. All my aunts were going except my uncles, who said they wouldn’t go. Then I saw myself in the car with my family and two of my aunts. I was sitting next to my mother, resting my head in her lap. My brother’s wife was sitting in the back and vomiting, and one of my aunts said, “It seems your pregnancy is difficult this time.” We stopped at a gas station that had bathrooms, and it was located down a slope that we had to walk down. My mother got out of the car, and I went with her along with my aunts. We saw my paternal aunt coming, and my mother asked her if the bathrooms were clean. My aunt smiled in a strange way and said, “Yes, very clean—go quickly before it gets crowded.” The atmosphere was very foggy, gray, and unclear whether it was morning or evening. There were large trees surrounding the place, and everything felt dramatic and worn down. My mother went down the slope, and I followed her, but I couldn’t control my speed and almost fell. She came to me, scolded me, and held my hand tightly, taking me with her. We reached a worn-down one-floor building with a large empty yard in front, surrounded by huge trees. There were two chairs placed in a straight line, and on each chair sat an elderly woman with strange, frightening faces—one of them dressed in black. At the entrance of the bathrooms, there was a group of people wearing clothes like pajamas, in turquoise and dark pink, fighting or clashing with each other. It looked like they were carrying someone or performing strange rituals or maybe a funeral—I wasn’t sure. My mother said, “Ignore them and don’t look at them.” We went inside. There was a corridor with bathroom doors on the right, and sinks on the left. It was extremely crowded with people who looked strange—some naked, some behaving oddly together as if it were normal. My aunt kept telling me, “Don’t look, don’t look.” We continued until the end and stopped at an empty sink. I quickly performed ablution. While doing that, I turned back and saw a person with black hair staring at me. I remembered he had also been in the yard staring at me. I couldn’t recall his face—each time it seemed different, but it gave me the same feeling. I ignored him and said in front of my mother and aunt, “In the name of Allah,” and I completed my ablution, mentioning the Prophet, Imam Ali, and Imam Al-Kadhim. When we left, the corridor was suddenly empty—as if it had never been crowded at all. We exited and went to a room where my grandmother and my uncles were, even though they had said earlier they wouldn’t come. There was a large tray of rice and meat. My mother and sister sat, but I refused because there were insects. I saw a scorpion climb onto my mother, and I screamed. She removed it forcefully without fear. Another scorpion went toward my sister, and she shook it off in fear. They told me to sit, but I refused and shouted, “No! Give me the turbah now, I want to pray first.” My uncle gave it to me, and I started praying. When I raised my head from the first prostration, I saw that my family had disappeared. Instead, there were two people in front of me: a woman with black hair and a man with long red hair and bangs, who looked ridiculous, like a movie character. He was laughing at me mockingly. I got angry, ignored the woman, and grabbed his hair strongly. Even then, he kept smiling in a provoking way. I pulled harder and looked straight into his eyes. His expression became sharp. I shouted angrily: “Enough! Enough! Don’t you understand? I told you to stop!” His eyes flashed, and suddenly I found myself outside in darkness. I started screaming, “Mom! Where are you? Why did you leave me?!” Then I stopped in the middle and saw many red eyes surrounding me in a circle, watching from a distance—but they couldn’t come closer. I calmed myself and said, “If I panic now, I’ll be the weak one.” I gathered myself and started walking forward bravely toward the road we came from. Then the dream broke, and I woke up.