The Orginal Return

The night he finally spoke to God began like all the others, with a broken meter and a half tank of gas.

Sajjad drove a battered yellow taxi through the city’s veins, past wedding halls and hospitals, neon signs and slums. The rich had started calling rides through apps; what reached him were the leftovers: late-night workers, drunks, and men who still carried cash. His back ached. His fingers smelled of sweat and cheap steering-wheel covers.

On the passenger seat lay a crumpled school fee notice for his younger daughter. In the glove compartment, under torn registration papers, there was a folded prescription for his father’s heart medicine. Both were due. Neither was paid.

He had finished high school once, long ago, when he thought education automatically meant a different kind of life. Now, at thirty-eight, his degree was just another document aging in a plastic file in a tin trunk under the bed.

“Baba, when will we get a house with our own gate?” his daughter had asked that morning.

“When you sleep early,” he had joked. She had laughed. He had not.

By midnight, the city had thinned to black windows and sodium lamps. The last passenger got off near the edge of town. Sajjad took a turn he usually didn’t take, toward the open land where the streetlights ended. He kept driving until even the uneven road gave up, fading into desert sand.

He stopped the taxi.

Silence fell the way dust does, softly, but everywhere. Above him, the sky lay open, huge and indifferent. The city’s light died behind him like a memory that never wanted him.

He sat there, hands on the wheel, feeling a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his lungs.

He spoke aloud, but to no one in particular.

“Enough.”

The word surprised him. It was small, but it sounded like it came from somewhere very old inside him.

He turned off the engine, stepped out, and walked a little way into the sand. The taxi’s weak headlights threw a tired cone of light that ended a few meters ahead. Beyond that, only darkness.

Somewhere between the car and that darkness, something inside him broke and overflowed. Words rose like a storm.

He lifted his face to the sky.

“God!”

The desert swallowed the sound, then returned it, thinner.

“God! You made me, but you didn’t give me what I needed. Why?”

He waited. The only reply was a small desert wind and the ticking of the cooling engine behind him.

He spoke again, louder.

“You made me, but you did not give me proper nourishment! I am poor. Most people around me are richer. Why did You arrange it like this? You did it.”

His throat burned. He felt foolish yelling at a sky that didn’t even shimmer.

He was about to turn back to the car when he saw a figure walking toward him from the darkness.

No sound of footsteps. No car. No lantern.

Just a man.

He wore simple clothes, the kind the poorest villagers wore, but there was nothing poor about the way he walked. Calm, unhurried, like someone who had all the time in the world. In the faint light from the taxi, his face was clear, plain, almost ordinary, yet there was a depth in his eyes that made Sajjad’s chest tighten.

It was like looking into something that was looking back from the center of everything.

The man stopped a few paces away.

“Why do you say I did not give you proper nourishment?” he asked.

The voice was soft, but it carried in the open air with strange sharpness. There was no accent Sajjad could place. No age he could guess.

“You…” Sajjad’s tongue stumbled. “Who are you?”

The man smiled, not in amusement, but as if at a small child recognizing a parent too late.

“You called,” he said simply, “and I came. That is enough for now.”

Something in Sajjad’s bones understood before his mind did. His knees trembled. Half of him wanted to fall in sujood. The other half wanted to run.

He did neither.

Instead, all the anger he had swallowed for years rushed up again.

“I say You didn’t nourish me,” he said, his voice shaking, “because I am poor. I work all day, yet I cannot give my daughters a proper home. Rich people sit in air-conditioned offices, they press buttons, and money comes. Why did You build a world like that? Why am I like this while others are not? You made this arrangement. You did it.”

The man looked at him with an expression that was neither offended nor defensive. Only attentive, as if every word mattered.

“I understand what you are saying,” he replied. “But listen to Me now.”

He took a few steps to the side and gestured gently toward the darkness beyond the taxi, as if pointing not to sand, but to a larger map.

“When I began planning the project ‘Human’,” He said, “I planned it very well. I provided everything with the original package, for everyone. Food, building material, nourishment, privilege, honor, respect, positions, everything. I did not reduce a single grain from the package. I did not bring anything back to Myself. It is all still there, spread out across the earth.”

He turned back to Sajjad.

“So, tell Me: how is it possible that you cannot get your fair share?”

Sajjad barked a raw, humorless laugh.

“You’re joking… right?”

The man said nothing.

“How can I get my fair share,” Sajjad continued, “when the world is like this? Rich people are powerful. We are weak. I cannot fight the system. I’m not that kind of person. I am a peaceful human being. I don’t want violence. I don’t want to revolt. So, my question stays the same: How did You leave me alone in this world without helping me get my fair share?”

The man tilted his head, considering. The desert wind lifted his hair slightly, but his eyes never left Sajjad’s.

“Good,” he said quietly. “At least your question is clear.”

He took one small step closer.

“If I asked you now,” He continued, “to ask Me for anything you want, anything, what would you demand from Me?”

Sajjad felt a quick stab of hope. His mouth answered before his mind could shape the words.

“A home,” he blurted. “Food. Respect. A position. Enough money to make my daughters safe. Enough to give my parents medicine and a warm room.”

The man nodded.

“So, you are saying,” He said gently, “that I should send these things to you from the sky. Like a delivery.”

Sajjad hesitated.

“I… I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Can You?”

A faint smile returned to the man’s lips.

“Why not?” He replied. “I am Who I am. I can do that. I have done it before. I gave a community in the desert food from the sky, long ago. But understand this: if I give it to you this way, it will be extra, outside the original package. A privilege. A special favor for a man who managed to approach Me directly.”

He paused.

“Whatever you are asking now, I can give you. But you must remember, for the rest of your life, that you took something extra when your own share was already present on the earth, waiting.”

The words settled over Sajjad like cold air.

He stared at the sand, then at the man.

“Like the Jews?” he asked quietly. “The people you fed in the desert?”

“Yes,” the man replied. “Like them.”

Sajjad’s throat felt dry.

“Did they accept it?” he asked. “What You offered from the sky?”

“They did not,” the man said. “They asked instead for their own share from the earth. They rejected what I offered, and I sent them back to their lands to work, to struggle, to plant and harvest, to build and break and build again.”

Sajjad felt something twist inside him, admiration, shame, fear.

“So…” he said slowly, “would it make You angry if I took what You are offering me now?”

“Not at all,” the man replied. “I do not become smaller if you choose ease.”

“Then what is the difference?” Sajjad pressed, anger and confusion mixing in his voice. “What is the difference if I take it from the earth or from You, if You are not angry either way?”

The man’s eyes softened.

“It would not anger Me,” He said, “but it would not please Me either. Because I wanted from you what I told you before, the courage to take your own fair share from the earth.”

A heavy silence dropped between them.

Sajjad let out a breath that sounded like a sigh and a curse at the same time.

“You are making me more confused,” he muttered. “Should I take it or not? It is not an easy choice. Help me decide.”

“Yes,” the man said. “You should ask for all the options first.”

“All the options?” Sajjad repeated, startled. “What options?”

The man raised three fingers.

“Option one,” he said. “Fight those who hold what belongs to you. Fight until you get it. Organize, resist, stand up, even when you are afraid.

“Option two: leave this place. The planet is vast. Your fair share is available in many other corners if you are willing to move, to start again.

“Option three: take what I offer now from the sky, and live with the quiet knowledge that when you met your Lord and I invited you to courage and the straight path, you chose not to take it.”

The wind brushed past them like a soft hand. Somewhere far off, a dog barked and then fell silent.

Sajjad rubbed his face, fingers digging into his tired eyes.

“Easy for You to say,” he whispered.

The man said nothing.

“For all three,” Sajjad continued, louder, “I need courage I don’t have. If I think of fighting the powerful, I see my daughters thrown out of school, my mother without medicine, my father dying slowly in a cold room. If I leave the city, who will protect my girls on the road? What if someone harms them? Where will we sleep the first night? What if I fail somewhere else and have nothing at all?”

He swallowed hard.

“And the third option… I thought it would be easy. But now even that feels heavy. You yourself have tied a thought to it.”

He finally looked up again.

“I think… I should take the third one,” he said, voice low. “Take from Your hand and stop thinking so much.”

The man watched him, silent.

“So now,” He said eventually, “you suddenly have the courage to carry a lifetime of knowing you refused a higher road.”

Sajjad blinked.

“You said yourself,” the man continued, “that even this choice needs courage. How did you find that courage so quickly?”

Sajjad’s shoulders slumped. His head tilted down. His hands hid half his face, his voice muffled.

“I think… You gave it to me,” he muttered. “You are the Boss here. You are God. You gave me the courage for this third option. So, tell me, why didn’t You give me the courage for the other two?”

“Yes,” the man said softly. “You are right. I did give you this courage, because you wanted it. Look into your heart now. Tell me, did you not secretly wish for this way from the beginning?”

Sajjad closed his eyes.

Inside, behind all the arguments and fears, he saw it: a small, stubborn wish to receive without walking, to arrive without journeying, to be safe without risk.

He opened his eyes again.

“You are right,” he whispered. “I did wish for it. It felt like the easiest thing to do.” He lifted his head a little. “So… if I ask You now for the courage for the other two options, will You give me that also?”

“Of course,” the man replied. “I always give what My creation truly wants from Me.”

Sajjad frowned.

“Now this is ambiguous,” he said. “First You said everything was given in the package. Now you say you always give what we ask. Which one is true?”

The man smiled again, a small, patient smile.

“Do not mix what was in the package with what was not,” he said. “I told you, your food, your place, your position, your respect, the structures where your fair share waits, these were given in the package. Spread across the earth. For all of you.”

He touched His own chest lightly.

“What I did not say,” He continued, “is that courage was also included in that package. It was not. Courage is different. Courage is the only thing I kept outside the automatic distribution. It is not thrown into the world the way sunlight and stones and seeds are. Courage must be asked for directly.”

Sajjad stared.

“What?” he said, almost laughing. “That’s absurd. If courage was not given with the package, how is a poor, weak man supposed to get it in the first place? To ask You to fight powerful people? How?”

“As I said,” the man replied calmly, “you ask.”

He took another step toward Sajjad. He was near enough now that Sajjad could see the lines on His face, lines that looked somehow both ancient and young.

“If you ask Me for courage,” He said, “I will give it to you. Immediately. Of any kind you truly want. To fight. To leave. To endure. To speak. To be silent. Whatever form it takes. I give courage as I give breath.”

Sajjad chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“So,” he said slowly, “if I ask You right now to give me the courage to fight this system, to confront those who crush me, will You give it now? Or will it come later… slowly?”

The man’s eyes brightened, as if something finally interesting had been said.

“This,” He said, “is a good question.”

He let a small silence stand between them, like a doorway.

“Yes,” He continued, “I will give it immediately. But you may be late to feel it. I do not wait. You do.”

“I don’t understand,” Sajjad said.

The man pointed gently to his head.

“When you ask Me for courage sincerely,” He said, “I cross all the chains of your normal cause-and-effect and I begin working where only I can work. I touch your brain. I begin forming new connections, new pathways, new possibilities. The work you call”, He searched for the right human word, “neuroplasticity.”

Sajjad blinked.

“You know this word?” he asked, stupidly.

The man almost laughed.

“I know every word you know,” he said. “And the ones you do not know. When you ask Me for courage, I immediately start this deep work inside your nervous system. I thicken some paths. I weaken others. I change the way fear moves through you. I make room for new decisions.”

He lowered His hand.

“But listen carefully,” he said. “It is a job we do together. I will not move your head like a puppet. I create the possibility; you walk in it. Your only part is to stay awake in the present. Whenever you return to the present moment, you are in My workshop. Whenever you sleepwalk through your days, I slow the rebuilding until you return.”

The desert was utterly still now. The stars seemed closer.

Sajjad felt something tight in his chest start to loosen, not joy, not yet, but a kind of terrible clarity.

“So,” he said, “if I keep asking for courage… and I keep coming back to the present… You keep working?”

“Yes,” the man said. “And when you stop asking and go back to wishing for easy gifts, I do not force you. I withhold nothing of your package. I only respect your desire.”

Sajjad looked down at his hands. Taxi driver’s hands, scarred, cracked, bearing the memory of a thousand steering-wheel grips and gear shifts.

“Say I ask now,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “For courage. Real courage. Not just to talk. To do. To change. To move. To face what I fear. Will You start… that work?”

The man did not answer immediately. Instead, He took one final step and stood directly in front of Sajjad. Up close, His face was simple and unadorned, but the eyes were, there was no other word, bottomless.

He raised His right hand and rested it lightly on Sajjad’s head.

“I have already started,” he said.

Something like a shiver, not on the skin, but under it, ran through Sajjad’s body. Not a vision, not a miracle of light. Just a sudden, undeniable sense that something inside his skull had been noticed.

He exhaled shakily.

“And if,” he said, still shaking, “after all this, I still choose the easier way? If I still say, ‘Give me from the sky’… will You?”

The man dropped His hand.

“Yes,” He replied. “If that is truly what you want, I will give it. I do not imprison you in greatness. I only invite you.”

“And if I don’t know what I want?” Sajjad asked.

The man’s gaze softened in a way that hurt to look at.

“Then your whole life will be the answer,” he said.

The wind shifted. The taxi’s headlights flickered slightly, then steadied.

Far away, the first faint hint of dawn paled the edge of the sky.

The man stepped back.

“I have told you the system,” he said. “The package on earth. The courage outside the package. The three paths. The work I do in your neurons when you ask.”

He began to turn away, back into the darkness from which He had come.

“Wait,” Sajjad said, panic flaring. “Don’t go. I haven’t decided yet. Should I, should I ask now? For courage? Or for the sky-gift? Or…”

He took a desperate step forward.

“Tell me what to choose,” he pleaded.

The man paused and looked back over His shoulder, the hint of a smile again at the corner of His mouth.

“I cannot choose for you,” he said. “If I choose, it will be My story, not yours.”

He nodded toward the taxi.

“For now,” He said, “drive your passengers. Feed your children. Warm your parents. But remember what you have heard tonight. Remember that courage is always one sincere request away from you. Whenever you truly want it… speak. I will hear.”

“And if I never speak?” Sajjad asked, his voice breaking.

The man’s eyes held his for a long, quiet moment.

“Then you will still be loved,” He said softly, “but you will never know how much.”

He turned, and with a few unhurried steps, He disappeared into the desert darkness as if it had opened like a door and then closed again.

Sajjad stood there, alone with the sky and the cooling car and the beating of his own frightened heart.

After a long time, he went back to the taxi, sat behind the wheel, and started the engine. The headlights cut through the night, pointing back toward the city.

He drove in silence.

At one red light on the edge of town, he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror, tired eyes, unshaven jaw, a man who drove others where they wanted to go but never knew his own destination.

His lips moved, forming a word that did not quite become sound.

“Cou,”

The light turned green. A horn blared behind him. He shifted into gear, the old habit returning, the city pulling him back into its noise and needs.

He drove on.

In some hidden part of his brain, unnoticed, a tiny bundle of neurons began to thicken its connections, as if preparing for a word that might be fully spoken tomorrow, or next month, or in ten years.

The desert waited, patient.

The One who had walked beside him waited too.

Anytime.