she peruse. It seemed rather complex to her, but her father, now achieving considerable renown as a quantum physicist, touted it as germinal thinking and yet another peg in the coffin of reductionistic scientism. Mariah absolutely adored Mazen and stood in total awe of his remarkable grasp of the emerging and very exciting field of quantum physics. In fact, just this afternoon he had left for San Diego to deliver a paper on some esoteric subject even more confusing to her than her current struggle with Sheldrake’s “morphic resonance.”
Mariah was always a bit uncomfortable when her father was not at home, especially in the evenings. Even at nineteen and a freshman in college, she still felt uneasy and somewhat vulnerable in his absence, especially now with the US-Iraq hostilities going on and the overall anti-Muslim sentiment that was escalating throughout the US. Mazen assured her that their neighborhood was perfectly safe and that she had nothing to fear, but he did suggest, just for her peace of mind, that she be certain to lock all the doors and windows before going to bed. He always said that when he had to be out of town, but even so, she was still a little edgy, especially the first night he was gone.
It was times like this that caused her to miss her mother, Anya, more than ever. Even though she had been gone almost eight years now, both Mariah and her father still longed for Anya’s company. She had been a gentle, kind woman with a strong spiritual sense about her. She loved her family and was a very devoted wife to Mazen. Fortunately for them both, she was a great cook, so there were always delicious meals for family and friends, of which there were many. Life had been good for them in Iraq, right up until the day of her mother’s tragic death while attending a religious service at their neighborhood mosque. Some sort of dissenting rebel group detonated a bomb just as the congregation had assembled for prayers, and over forty people died, including Ayna. It was a complete and senseless shock to Mazen and young Mariah, only eleven years old at the time. Even to this day, they both still pondered what it is that reduces humans to killing and maiming others. Her father’s view as a quantum physicist was that people fail to realize their own connectedness to all of creation. Falsely, they perceive others with different cultures, beliefs, and religions as somehow inferior and misguided, thus creating a sort of adversarial relationship often resulting in disdain, hatred, and even killing.
Not long after losing his wife, and no doubt to get away from all that reminded him of her brutal demise, Mazen sold their home, left Iraq, moved to America, and took a teaching position at Portland State University. His PhD in physics and germinal research in quantum physics had brought him some international recognition, making it relatively easy for him to find a position in the United States. He purchased their present home in Beaverton several years later, and Mariah had spent her high school years, and now her first year at PSU, living there.
She was a pretty girl, rather petite in stature, with long black hair and soft brown eyes. It had been hard for her to adapt to the American culture, and she had remained rather quiet and somewhat introverted. She was extremely close to her father, as he seemed the only secure presence in her life. When she graduated from high school, it only made sense for her to continue her education at Portland State, where her father was and where it was easy for her to continue to live at home. Her father’s zeal for the “new physics,” as he called it, excited her and heralded a new era where the antagonism between science and religion might now begin to heal. The primacy of “consciousness” as a unifying creative force inspired her, and the connectedness of all life in the “zero-point field” brought further encouragement.
It had been extremely difficult for her to come to terms with the events of 9/11 and the current escalating tension with her homeland. The talk of possible weapons of mass destruction that dominated the news made her physically sick, as she somehow intuited that the United States might soon choose to invade Iraq in hopes of locating and destroying such weapons. “God Bless America” had a very hollow ring to it these days, as the country she had now grown to love seemed intent on invading the land of her birth. Mariah knew in her heart that more bloodshed was not the answer, but she felt utterly helpless as an upcoming war seemed to loom on the horizon. Her Muslim faith had always been a source of comfort and stability to her, as it had been for her mother, and its hijacking by religious extremists intent on jihad was just as wrong in her mind as the American retaliation in the name of their god. She worried a lot about the present anti-Muslim hysteria that seemed to be sweeping the country and felt insecure being labeled some sort of subversive extremist simply because she was a Muslim when, in reality, she was the complete opposite.
Tonight, as she lay on the couch, reading and watching the fire dancing in the fireplace beyond, these thoughts returned to her mind, causing her to feel an oppressive heaviness in her soul. Her optimism, stemming from the newly discovered sea of energy uniting all of life, was now being overshadowed by a painful divisiveness that seemed to cloud these new scientific discoveries. Religious extremism, no matter what form, was really no different from the arrogant and godless mechanistic world of science that was now in the early stages of being uprooted for good. She only wished that the same would occur in the present sectarian religious community, which she hoped would likewise crumble and give way to a new, inclusive faith in the oneness of all life and the God essence in all of creation. Heavy thoughts for a young girl, she realized, sitting up and dog-earing the page where she had left Dr. Sheldrake’s musings concerning the ‘nonlocal morphic field.’ That will have to do for tonight, she mused to herself, getting up from the couch and going over to turn off the gas logs in the fireplace. She knew it wasn’t that cold, but there was just something about the dancing flames confined within the brick perimeter of the hearth yet free to release their inherent energy that brought some peace and resolution to her intellectual struggles.
*****
Buzz, Blood, and Big Bear were out of the car now and stealthily approaching their target. Fortunately for them, the house was quite private, set back in the woods about 150 feet from the curb, with the only streetlight being several houses down on the opposite side, offering no illumination at all to the Quitan home. Buzz was still quite nervous. He had been ok with some of their petty escapades in the past, but this was major league, go-to-prison-type stuff. Perhaps he was the only one of the three with even a shred of conscience remaining, as both Blood and Big Bear seemed fairly oblivious to any feelings of fear or guilt.
There was a long curving driveway leading to the front entry garage on the left of the home, and the three were now passing by the side of the garage, making their way through the trees toward the rear of the house. It was a two-story home, but there appeared to be some sort of vaulted den at the back, with a large brick chimney. There was a flagstone walkway around the den leading to a huge stone terrace, beyond which the ground quickly dropped off to a creek below. Landscape lighting around the periphery of the terrace and in the trees illuminated wooden steps down to the creek. Two sets of French doors, one on either side of the large brick hearth now visible through the windows, opened out to the terrace. From their position in the woods to the left of the den, the three men had a good view through the windows into the large vaulted room.
A young girl was just getting up from the couch in front of the fireplace and walking toward it, as if to turn off what appeared to be gas logs, which had been providing a glowing ambience to the softly lit room. A rather-bright reading lamp was still on near the couch, where she perhaps had been reading. Buzz looked over to his two companions and whispered, “That must be the daughter. Pretty cute. Wonder how she’d look without those pajamas!” A somewhat-sadistic smile had begun to spread across his face as that thought began to supplant his earlier anxieties. “This could be better than I thought,” he added with a slightly forced chuckle. “How do you guys think we should get in?”
Before anyone could answer, however, Mariah headed to the left set of French doors, opened one side, and walked out onto the terrace. It was supposed to have been a full moon that night, but unfortunately the overcast skies left only a faint white glow where she had guessed it would be. The lights in the trees beyond the terrace illuminated the gurgling creek below, and she always enjoyed watching it flow by, then cascade down a three-or-so-foot drop as it meandered its way on through the forest. The stones in
