It was the way she said it though. The complete release of breath, like she was being slowly squeezed, mildly crushed with no fight, like a helpless submarine sinking down into the black deep. End of an era.

Some of the others put in their two-bits also. About how sure I wouldn’t understand. The post office had been a landmark. It had outlasted the Celtic Tiger and the Recession, and just as things were looking up, off it goes.

Everyone tried to be diplomatic, but we Irish sometimes rush our words and then look for a way to defend them. It wasn’t always that I was too young to understand, sometimes it was obvious, a hand gesture, a nod of the head, that I couldn’t understand since I was not Irish. I couldn’t be with my tan skin and dark eyes. Most people think I’m Brazilian. I have lived in Dublin all my life.

In the mid 1970’s, under the Eleventh Caliphate of Radzhakstan, the low-rolling green hills of the pamir were populated by anguished nomads, who torn at their hair and beards and wailed in public, and petrified horses, masked by the blood running from their black sockets. My family was numbered among those nomads. Our small brown horses, known in the west as Prewalski’s Horses, are at the center of our culture, our livelihood and our belief system. The tie-dye airbrushed horse T-shirt I occasionally wear is without irony.

Back then the Calif of that forgotten region, lost in the world’s high places between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the western edge of Tibet, was having an issue with emigration. To stymie the dwindling of an already sparse population, the agents of the Calif would ride out at night and blind the nation’s horses. The rationale for this was, equipped with blind horses the people could not ride the steep mountain passes which lead away from the central pamir. All four clans of the Radzhak horse-people were trapped by the jagged ice-capped ranges surrounding them. My great uncle, knowing the state would not tolerate a third miracle, was later forced to flee.

Each night the clouds of mist which veil that high steppe would rise from the seeming stillness of mountain rivers as they mirrored the stars. In these clouds lurked the danger of blindness and the black hooded agents of the Calif. From their yurts, my family could hear the wailing of their horses, but because the Radzhak belief system does not uphold fences or pens, it was impossible to keep the herds close or safe.

The clans called another council of elders. The Radzhak elders had previously, with the aid of some of the people in permanent settlements along the rivers, contacted the UN in hopes that the persecution of the Radzhak people could be stopped by the global community. To this point they had received no positive response. The people came together on low fertile lands of the central pamir and erected the great flagged yurt of meeting. There were no UN delegates present. My Great Uncle Husan Nurmukhammed was the chief holy man of the Radzhak clans, and they called upon his wisdom to guide them in this time of crisis.

He sat in the great yurt for an entire day in silence, then stroking his beard, he said this:

“Our people, our land, our way of life is in great peril. From the west we have those who would force their god upon us, from the east we have those who leave burnt temples in their path. Great Calif’s of nations afar battle over dominion of our pamir, knowing and caring nothing for the Radzhak people, paying no heed to the great mother of stallions. There are those of you who would flee. There are those who cannot imagine the lands beyond, or how our clans will survive in the lower parts of the world. My wisdom is this. You can ride a blind horse in circles only.”

Pronouncing this he summoned the elders to bring the blinded herds to the edge of the river. He stripped off his clothes and waded into the icy melt-water. Walking to the center of the river where the channel is deep and the current strong he seemed to hover, as though walking a track, water rising no higher than his waist. Then he disappeared. The river swallowed him in one gulp and the horses began to drink.

As the herd swilled the river water, his head was seen walking back toward the bank under the clear running water. He rose up, waded out of the current, and dried himself in the sun, then replaced his clothes. All the elders had their eyes fixed on him as he dressed. When they turned to inspect their horses, the heard was also watching my uncle Husan Nurmukhammed dress. They had been given back their eyes.

In the days that followed the first miracle, many of my people rode down and away from the central pamir, never to graze that rich high plane again. Nearly half of the Radzhak people fled in a week. Needless to say, the Calif was displeased. He sent his agents in their black uniforms to escort my uncle to his capitol in one of the small cities on the border of Kyrgyzstan.

There was no trial. In a closed court with three officials and no defense they pronounced his death sentence as a formality. My Great uncle was held in a cinder block cell of the old police station. In this bare-walled cell he awaited his execution. His only view was of the brick wall he would soon stand before, peppered by bullet-holes.

Knowing he was to be killed, he began his life’s most important letter. It was his personal letter to the United Nations. A last testament of a man abandoned by the powers of global justice. He chose his words carefully. He was a man of slow deliberation. Expectedly the Calif’s patience wore thin before his letter was completed, and the guards, with an air of apology, instructed him to lower his pen. Leaving his epistle unfinished he followed them to the yellow-dusted courtyard of death.

He requested that he not be blindfolded. His request was denied. He requested once more to be allowed to finish his letter. This request was also denied. The lieutenant commanding the firing squad laughed.

“And who is to deliver this letter of yours holy man?”

Then the lieutenant gave the order for the firing line to assemble. As they did so a sudden gust of wind characteristic of the open pamir, which seemed to have gotten lost on its way across the Himalayas, rushed across the courtyard raising a great cloud of yellow dust.

“Fire!” shouted the lieutenant against the wind.

The rifles of the six men in the firing line flashed their fiery tongues, and my great uncle Husan Nurmukhammed was riddled with holes like the wall he stood before. The dust continued to blow, growing stronger after he fell, and at its height the firing line could not see past the end of their barrels.

Shortly after, when the dust settled, my great uncle Husan Nurmukhammed’s body was nowhere to be found. His blood spray still hung like a sconce behind where he had stood. There was no way out of the courtyard, one door was its only access and the high bare walls afforded none the opportunity to climb, particularly not the dead. The laughing Lieutenant and his firing line rushed through the station and out onto the empty street baffled. All save the last one, who looked into my Uncle’s cell while wiping the sand from his eyes, and found my uncle in his rent and bloodied shirt, unharmed sitting at his desk completing his letter.

He turned and looked at this young soldier who had just killed him and stroking his beard said:

“Your Lieutenant raised an important issue just before my execution.”

The young soldier stared bewildered.

“Who indeed shall deliver my letter to the appropriate authority? Since the Calif and his agents cannot be trusted to do so I have taken the task upon myself.”

The rest of the young soldier’s company entered loudly into the hall. This soldier, still aghast, turned and gestured to his compatriots to join him, and when he looked back my great uncle had again vanished.

I am nineteen and have never met Husan Nurmukhammed. He died a decade or so before my birth. His grave is in a small cemetery in Santry. After preforming his second miracle he and his brother fled Radzhakstan, and after many years of wandering found themselves married and childed in Dublin. I tell almost no one about my family history, because sure almost no one would believe me. What most people know about Husan Nurmukhammed outside of Radzhakstan is that he was a diligent and quiet man who worked hard for many years as a letter carrier for An Post. He retired on his pension and died at home not too long after.

I have not thought of him in many years. The daily drag of women’s fashion retail, and the meager amount of Euro it brings in each week keeps most of my attention on survival. But it is good to know that even here, on this low island, bereft of Prewalski’s Horses, far from the Radzhak pamir, he was able to perform his final miracle.

He carried letters from the post office beside the shop where I work. And small though it was, and completely swollen over with the mail of Dublin 2, not one letter was late or mislaid on his watch.

And walking home, past the closed office that he once carried letters from, I stop once more and consider the scene. Nothing out of place, except the notice of closing has been replaced by another sign.

Arthur Seefahrt is the author of Decay Studies, from Six Gallery Press. His work has appeared in God’s Cruel Joke Magazine, The Honest Ulsterman, floorplan journal, Bodega Magazine, Strangeways Magazine, and College Green, as well as in translation in the Leipzig based Fettliebe, and Word for Word/Wort für Wort journal. He currently resides in Dublin, Ireland. More of his works and contact details can be found at the following links:

Forbes Magazine

arthurseefahrt.net.