Once there was an old man called the Green eyed. The people of Baghdad called him the green eyed because no one could ever pass by him without something bad happening to him afterward.
One day a little girl was walking in the street with a little white cat sleeping on her shoulder. The girl was wearing an expensive golden bracelet that sparkled under the sun light. The green-eyed man walked from under the tree where he was laying down, and smiled thinly at the girl.
“What a beautiful bracelet you have,” he said, stroking the bracelet with his black fingers. “Did your mother buy it for you?”
The girl frowned at the green-eyed man and pushed his filth nails away from her wrist. “Leave me. You are the green-eyed man that Mom told me about. You envy anyone. I hate you, I hate you….” The girl repeated all the way back home.
“I hate you, I hate you…” All the way back home.
At home, she told her mother about the green-eyed man.
“I was brave.” The girl said, sitting at the sofa with a pop corn bowl at her hands. “I told him I hate you, I hate you.”
“Did he place a hand at your body?” The mother asked.
“He ran a finger at my bracelet, but I pushed it away. It was filthy.”
“Oh no,” the mother shivered and placed her hands at her chest. “He must have cursed you.”
“No he didn’t,” the girl said, but her mother got to her feet and after sometime she returned with her red, outdoors, shawl around her shoulders.
“We must go to Sheikh Ishmael.” The mother said, pulling the girl from her hand so vigorously that the pop corn bowl fell over the sofa.
All the way to Sheikh Ishmael, the girl tried to convince her mother that the green-eyed man did not curse her. But her mother did not reply. She was busy wrapping her arms around her daughter as if to protect her from an unseen evil.
Sheikh Ishmael was the magician of Baghdad. He was an old man with a flowing, orange beard that fell to his knees. He wore golden earrings on the shape of a smiling face and intricate writings spread all over his body, except his face.
The girl and her mother reached the tower where Sheikh Ishmael lived. Thunder banged across the sky, followed with an incessant shower of rain. The mother knocked and a tall woman, with disheveled, wet hair opened the door.
“He is waiting for you.” She said, letting them in.
They walked through a dark hallway, with green candles spreading on both sides of the wall. The girl shivered and screamed when she was passing by one of the candles.
“What’s wrong?” Her mother whispered at her.
“I saw the face of the green eyed man in the fire.” The girl said.
The tall woman who led them turned her face and smiled meekly at the girl. Finally, they reached a small room filled the beach smelling instance. Sheikh Ishmael sat at the middle of the room He placed a silver bowl, where thin fumes twirled up, at his feet.
“Hello,” he said gesturing for them to sit.
They sat down at two, red cushions.
“Thank you sir,” the mother said, drooping her head in reverence. “I need your help.”
“Why do you need my help?”
“The green eyed man touched the bracelet of my girl.” The mother said, taking out the golden bracelet from her leather purse. “I want you your blessings so that nothing bad can happen to her.”
Sheikh Ishmael took the bracelet and tuned it in his hands then he sniffed at it twice. “Oh, it’s cursed.”
The mother shivered and wrapped the girl in her shoulders. “My god,”
“But don’t worry,” Ishmael said, confidence encircling his voice. “I’ll protect her,”
Her mother bowed forward and kissed Ishmael’s bony hand where some grey hairs grew. “Oh, Thanks my lord.”
“ But first,” he said, “ I need a hair from the green eyed man,”
“ a what?” the girl finally spoke. “ how can we bring a hair from this man,”
The girl thought it was disgusting to hold a hair from the old man’s head. It seemed that he never showered.
The old man got to his feet and smiled. “You’d better do it fast or else you’ll die.”
It’s a tale for all ages.
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