Come with Me to See the Clouds

I hate airplanes... I hate take-offs... I hate landings... I hate how my ears go funny on me... the tickle and the pain all mixed together... No thank you, I'll skip the sweets and the chewing gum. It never did help anyway...

Take-off has begun and I have a window seat... This time I am going to pretend that I am bird. I will fly away and watch the world I am leaving behind... I am gliding upwards... Lego houses and cars beneath me... Skylines flattened into 3d models... you know like the ones you find in malls advertising one venture or another... No crowds... Actually, not a living being in sight... not even miniature dolls... All disappeared like magic.... Lifeless cities, lifeless countries, lifeless continents, lifeless earth... all left behind.... Where did everyone go? I continue to glide higher... It's a very geological picture from all the way up here... The 3d model has gone flat... leaving behind plain terrain... desert-like terrain... All the colors have mixed together into a very solitary brown... No greens, no blues.... just brown...

It seems like this is it. I can't fly any higher and now all I can see are blue skies and cotton clouds. I continue to glide through them... I have left my earth behind...

Good bye bird... I am Salama again... I missed you earth. I missed you home. I missed you "my things". I missed you "everybody" living on this earth... But I thought you would all come with me to see the clouds?

During take-off on the last flight I was on, I decided I was going to observe the earth as we headed for the skies... I've done this many times before but this was different. As it grew smaller, I began to think about the day when all that connects us to this overwhelming mass known as "earth" will bear no significance... Left all alone... Just us and our deeds. Subhan Allah, then why oh why am I still living like it will be mine forever?

I ask Allah that He bestows upon us all the gift of "hidaya" and that He puts us on the path of "Ebad Alsaliheen"...

Az-Zalzalah (The Earthquake)
إِذَا زُلْزِلَتِ الْأَرْضُ زِلْزَالَهَا (99:1)
99:1 (Asad) WHEN THE EARTH quakes with her [last] mighty quaking,
وَأَخْرَجَتِ الْأَرْضُ أَثْقَالَهَا (99:2)
99:2 (Asad) and [when] the earth yields up her burdens, [1]
وَقَالَ الْإِنسَانُ مَا لَهَا (99:3)
99:3 (Asad) and man cries out, "What has happened to her?" -
يَوْمَئِذٍ تُحَدِّثُ أَخْبَارَهَا (99:4)
99:4 (Asad) on that Day will she recount all her tidings,
بِأَنَّ رَبَّكَ أَوْحَى لَهَا (99:5)
99:5 (Asad) as thy Sustainer will have inspired her to do! [2]
يَوْمَئِذٍ يَصْدُرُ النَّاسُ أَشْتَاتًا لِّيُرَوْا أَعْمَالَهُمْ(99:6)
99:6 (Asad) On that Day will all men come forward, cut off from one another, [3] to be shown their [past] deeds.
فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ (99:7)
99:7 (Asad) And so, he who shall have done an atom's weight of good, shall behold it;
وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَرَهُ (99:8)
99:8 (Asad) and he who shall have done an atom's weight of evil, shall behold it.