The Falconer - Alsaqarin
Author’s name
John M. Tyson and Christopher H. Tovar
Author’s name
John M. Tyson and Christopher H. Tovar
Authors contact email: johnmtyson@gmail.com
Authors' phone number: 917-678-4205
Authors' phone number: 917-678-4205
SYNOPSIS
Seen from space, Earth is a beautiful blue orb, suspended in the silent
blackness as a kind of still life image, painted by a careful hand and left to be so
for eternity. Viewed more closely, the Eastern Hemisphere gives way to land
masses forming the Middle East, the Cradle of Civilization. The Levant, the
Euphrates, Syria and Iraq. Closer, the ruins of Assyria stand mute against a
backdrop of overcast skies.
A Winged Statue of an Assyrian king tall as a building stares out into the
void. One could believe that the edifices in view are as they were centuries ago,
that this is the past. This is the world as it was.
The still is suddenly broken by the roar of two Russian-built MIG jet fighters
passing low over the ruins. One drops a bomb that explodes, the other drops one
near the Winged Statue that buries itself in the soil and doesn’t go off. This is the
world as it is.
It’s 2011, and the world is changing. Particularly here.
Aakil, a 12-year-old Syrian boy who loves birds, sits in a tree sketching a
dove on a limb. The dove explodes in a shower of feathers, startling him. Flat on
his back, he watches a falcon fly off with his fresh kill. He is electrified by this
vision!
He runs home to his grandfather Rafiq’s café to tell him what he’s just seen,
but Rafiq and his friend Fateen, a teacher and political dissident, have their hands
full with a souk full of angry anti-government protestors. There is revolution in the
air. The Arab Spring has come to their little town.
Rafiq has to hide Fateen from the local police chief, who may be acting on a
tip from an informant at the school where Fateen teaches.
That night, Aakil and Rafiq and Fateen watch the news, both official and
from a pirate channel. Syrian President Assad vows to fight the “enemies of the
people” to the bitter end. A prince from a wealthy Arab nation is coming to bring
humanitarian aid to refugees.
This sparks an argument between the old men about the state of the country
and foreign “do-gooders.” They also spar over why Aakil’s school has ordered all
library books immediately returned. He’s just borrowed a book about falconry,
after all. The men run out of words when Aakil asks them what happened to his
parents.
On the way to school, Aakil and his grandfather get covered in bird shit as a
massive starling swarm swirls overhead. On his way to the bathrooms, Aakil sees
Fateen giving a subversive lecture about Syrian history to a small group of
students. Aakil is later harassed by the school librarian to return the book he
borrowed, The Art of Falconry by Frederick II.
Aakil’s best friend, Dani, 14, chides him for being too scared to talk to
Jameela, a girl he likes. “If you are not bold, what will the world give to you?”
They share a laugh over the image of President Assad on a billboard near the
school being defaced, painted to make him look completely bald.
A Russian MIG fighter jet buzzes the local mosque where Rafiq prays. It
buzzes the school too, sending people into a panic. Back home, kids can’t shut up
about the plane. The adults begin to express genuine fear.
The next day, Aakil walks to school with his grandfather Rafiq for the last
time. His grandfather tells him to be careful on his way home.
At school, Aakil sits behind Jameela, daydreaming about her and trying to
draw a picture of her while the teacher drones on. Just up the hall, Fateen is
arrested by plainclothesmen and escorted outside where a column of black sedans
waits to take him and other dissidents away, unbeknownst to Aakil.
The Russian MIG makes its return, destroying Aakil’s little town. It is a
harvest demon come dancing on the hot wind. Aakil’s school is blown to rubble.
The souk is almost unrecognizable.
In the confusion, Fateen is freed from the black sedan, which crashes into a
flower delivery truck. Fateen is on his knees in a broken street, surrounded by
roses that have scattered, as Russian fighter-bombers roar overhead.
Aakil finds Rafiq’s café is now a crater. He digs and claws with his bare
hands at the pile of bricks but never finds his grandfather. Nor does he see Rafiq’s
prayer beads in the dirt as he leaves.
He returns home to find a clown car of looters emptying his house of all his
family’s possessions. He recovers his drawings and tracings from The Art of
Falconry, stuffs them into his backpack, and heads out into the night. He must
force himself to leave what’s left of his home and past behind. Making it on his
own somehow is his challenge now.
Aakil finds Dani again, just before the two are snatched up by government
troops and driven to a refugee camp. Aakil is confronted with a world he has never
before imagined. Even television images of these places gave him no idea
beforehand what it would be like to be confined in such a space with so many
thousands of people. At once he gets to see the best and worst in humanity.
“Don’t let anyone see you cry,” Dani tells him.
In the melee for food and water, Aakil loses Dani, who is beaten and taken
away by the guards. He now must fend for himself.
He fights others in the line for aid and steals back a water bottle that was
stolen from him, making an enemy of a crazy old man.
At night, reruns of Looney Tunes and a clown show won’t drown out the
cries of mothers over their sick children and other sounds that frighten and sadden
Aakil. From the government troop truck that brought him here, he hears Lionel
Richie songs. All night long.
Aakil is reunited with Dani as an American cargo plane drops a crate full of
stale civil defense rations and other random crap, bewildering the refugees. Bits of
costume from past USO shows in Iraq include a baldness wig, reminding them of
the Assad vandalism and giving them their first laugh in days.
The prince from the wealthier Arab nation appears at the camp with a
column of humanitarian relief trucks, dressed in a dark kafeeyah. His bodyguard
rescues Aakil from the crazy old man who has become his nemesis. Aakil tries to
protect the crazy old man, thinking he’ll be killed.
The bodyguard is really the prince, and the prince a body double. The
prince is impressed with Aakil’s compassion toward others, even those who would
harm him.
Aakil is determined to find a way out of the camp and sees the prince’s
arrival as just such an opportunity. He tries his hardest to get a job with the relief
effort but is rebuffed.
He stows away in one of the trucks and discovers that the prince has three
falcons!
He also discovers the Assyrian ruins and sees the Winged Statue for the first
time.
Caught out, Aakil is locked away in a cargo container until the prince, going
through his possessions, sees his falcon drawings and tracings from The Art of
Falconry. The prince frees him and shows him really why he is in Syria: To
rescue the Winged Statue from insurgents who mean to destroy it. Though it is a
monument to Ashur-nasir-pal II, an Assyrian king who ruled his people cruelly, it
is an antiquity of immeasurable value.
Abdul, the prince’s personal historian, adds to the mystery of the Winged
Statue by reading aloud from inscriptions at its base. Aakil learns that it must be
turned on its side and removed from its base to be rescued. But how?
In viewing the Winged Statue and the dig site, lined with bas-reliefs of a
time long past, they just miss stepping on the unexploded bomb that the Russian
MIG dropped at the beginning of the story. Its tail fin is just visible under the soil.
Aakil is given a job tending to the prince’s birds, but in exchange for such a
privilege he must work in the refugee camp each day delivering aid. Striking the
bargain, Aakil asks that Dani be allowed to join him, lying that Dani is his cousin.
Bassma, the prince’s bodyguard – and body double – fetches Dani from the camp.
Bassma is aware of the lie, but covers for the boys, nonetheless. “Your friend must
love you to lie for you like that,” he tells Dani.
Abdul lurks about the dig site at night, looking for secret passages and doors.
He knows there is more here than just the Winged Statue.
Aakil is introduced to the prince’s three falcons, Shaelyn and Horus, two
older peregrine falcons, and Gawain, a juvenile that he will raise himself.
The prince begins the process of teaching Aakil about these majestic birds
and how they live and hunt, and what sets them apart from all other raptors,
physically and otherwise.
The peregrine has a particular breast bone and muscle structure setting it
apart from other birds in how these features help it climb faster and to heights
unknown by most other raptors, and a nose bone that acts like the air intake of a jet
fighter to allow it to keep breathing in a 240 mile-per-hour stoop as it swoops
down on its prey. We learn how its pointed wing tips help it maneuver like a
thread through a needle.
While a jet fighter can pull 9 Gs in a turn, the peregrine can pull 25. No
other bird, natural or man-made, can do such things.
The range and clarity of the peregrine’s vision is explored, and we are
treated to its own view of the world. At several critical points in the story, all is
seen from the birds’ POV.
Aakil and Dani work in the refugee camp each day, encountering worse and
worse acts and words from a growing sea of suffering humanity. Each day
becomes more dangerous for them. Aakil fears that he will run into Jameela and
worries about seeing her suffer.
His early trials working with the falcon Gawain involve many errors and he
tests the prince’s patience. He starts out learning how to train Gawain with a
swing lure, and the bird makes a fool of him. Still, Aakil keeps at it.
He learns how vigilant he must be in feeding and weighing the birds. Too
fat, and they can’t hunt. Too thin, and they will get sick. Aakil learns how to
create a shelter for these birds and how to keep them clean and happy. It is truly a
labor of love, and Aakil is as scared as a new parent with his babies. There is so
much for him to learn, and he can’t make any mistakes.
He nearly loses Gawain at one point taking him out flying, but eventually
retrieves the bird. He becomes even more determined when the prince challenges
him about the prospects of his ever becoming a falconer.
Aakil learns, as the prince instructs him, to “become invisible” in working
with the birds, and becoming one with Gawain, allowing the bird to grow and
develop as a hunter, with just the slightest bit of help. He also learns to appreciate
the spiritual strength to be found in falconry.
“Whilst the slave is on his path
toward Allah, he is like a bird
with two wings which it requires to
fly and keep its balance. These
‘wings’ are hope and fear.”
Aakil becomes adept at handling and working with Gawain and the other
peregrines. He also learns how to protect them from other predators, creating a
makeshift scarecrow of sorts to keep an owl from attacking the weathers he has
built for them.
“We’re all prey here,” the prince reminds him.
We are treated to more breathtaking flights with Gawain and the other birds
and seeing Aakil reaching his potential as a falconer, and in living his dearest
dream.
Our breath is taken away by the vistas seen through the eyes of Gawain.
The whole world looks different. And, more beautiful! We join Gawain in being a
peregrine, in flight, in the hunt, at play with his friend Aakil and with the other
birds.
We see, from start to finish, the dynamics of a blistering stoop and sudden
kill like the one that sent Aakil falling out of the tree at the beginning of the story.
After overcoming more challenges working with Gawain, the beloved
falcon, Aakil has become a falconer! And, a man too, as he has just reached his
13th birthday.
Aakil talks with the Prince about the changes that have taken place in his
world, and what likely happened to his parents, who were history teachers, and
about the dangers to come. Insurgents, violent men who now threaten the dig site,
are getting closer by the day.
As the relief supplies run out on their last day working in the refugee camp,
Aakil and Dani are confronted by Fateen, who reappears and accuses Aakil of
being a “rich man’s lackey” in serving the prince. Aakil asks him one more time
what happened to his parents but gets no answer from the teacher turned madman.
This demoralizes Aakil; Dani tries to comfort him that he is doing the right thing.
The insurgents are now within a few kilometers of the dig site. Aakil and
Gawain are followed home by drones operated by the insurgents. Most of the
drones are caught up and destroyed in a starling swarm, leaving evidence behind of
the growing threat to the east. The prince warns Aakil to stay close and not
venture out anymore. The Winged Statue is closer to being rescued. Just a few
more days.
The last preparations are made to get the Winged Statue ready for removal.
It is tipped over on its side by cranes and steel cables are fastened at its wrists and
ankles so that helicopters can lift it out of the dig site.
Abdul sneaks around the base of the dig site at night and is almost caught.
He means to sabotage the rescue.
The prince holds a party and feast (a haflah) to celebrate the hard work that
brought them to this auspicious moment. He believes they will succeed in their
mission to rescue the Winged Statue.
Aakil is caught up in the moment of reverie and dances as a band plays.
Dani and Bassma see Abdul heading for the dig site and follow him.
Abdul evades them long enough to get far down into the site. He finds little
detonators where the steel cables are joined over the Winged Statue.
As Abdul climbs back out of the pit, Bassma and Dani confront him. Abdul
is wearing a bomb belt and condemns them as “idolators.” Bassma leaps on him
and they tumble over the side, setting off the unexploded bomb buried in the soil.
Abdul and Bassma are killed and Dani is grievously wounded.
Aakil prays over his hurt friend, helpless, in fear of losing yet another loved
one.
The prince confronts an angry and terrified crowd that knows the insurgents
are almost here. After his impassioned speech, the workers keep their commitment
to getting the Winged Statue out, and out of the hands of people who would
destroy their nation’s history.
The next morning, four Sikorsky Sky Cranes come in to lift away the
Winged Statue.
The insurgents attack with shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles. The
prince gives the order for the helicopters to release their payload, saving the lives
of their crewmembers just in time, but as the Winged Statue falls into the pit,
shattering, he disappears in the clouds of dust rising from what appears to have
been a fake piece of gypsum all along, a kind of Cardiff Giant/Trojan Horse.
The dig site is in total chaos. Aakil tries to convince Dani to come with him,
but they both know Dani can’t go anywhere. Dani tells Aakil that he will be
alright, and that Aakil will have to make his journey alone. “If you are not bold,
what will the world give to you?”
Aakil takes the birds and commandeers one of the relief trucks, only to run
out of gas and find himself stranded again.
He releases Shaelyn and Horus and takes Gawain with him on foot, hidden
in his jacket.
Aakil makes the long journey west toward the ocean. He traverses many
miles of wasteland and makes his way around the walls lining the refugee camp,
“becoming invisible” as the prince taught him to avoid notice and capture by the
camp guards.
He travels through the ruins of what was once his hometown, watched by
unseen eyes the whole time. A sniper has Aakil in his crosshairs but is distracted
by a cell phone, sparing the boy.
Aakil tries to feed Gawain, but he won’t eat. He takes off the bird’s jesses
and bells, leaving them behind as he continues toward the Mediterranean shoreline.
Finally reaching the sea, Aakil is helped aboard a small rowboat by a family
that will brave the seas to find asylum in Europe.
The falcon Gawain has died in his arms.
Later, on a European beach, Aakil and the others are arrested by local police.
Images from news reports throughout Southern and Eastern Europe of
refugees being mistreated. Hungarian camerawoman Petra László, kicks and trips
refugees at the Serbian border.
Meanwhile, life goes on in Syria. Shaelyn and Horus have established a nest
and have a new clutch of eggs.
As Horus goes out looking for more food, he flies over the dig site.
A man in a dark kafeeyah who resembles the prince in his shape and gait
puts his shoulder to a wall at what was the base of the Winged Statue, pushing in a
door to what may be the path to an underground treasure room.
Horus’ call can be heard echoing in the air as the screen fades to black.
Seen from space, Earth is a beautiful blue orb, suspended in the silent
blackness as a kind of still life image, painted by a careful hand and left to be so
for eternity. Viewed more closely, the Eastern Hemisphere gives way to land
masses forming the Middle East, the Cradle of Civilization. The Levant, the
Euphrates, Syria and Iraq. Closer, the ruins of Assyria stand mute against a
backdrop of overcast skies.
A Winged Statue of an Assyrian king tall as a building stares out into the
void. One could believe that the edifices in view are as they were centuries ago,
that this is the past. This is the world as it was.
The still is suddenly broken by the roar of two Russian-built MIG jet fighters
passing low over the ruins. One drops a bomb that explodes, the other drops one
near the Winged Statue that buries itself in the soil and doesn’t go off. This is the
world as it is.
It’s 2011, and the world is changing. Particularly here.
Aakil, a 12-year-old Syrian boy who loves birds, sits in a tree sketching a
dove on a limb. The dove explodes in a shower of feathers, startling him. Flat on
his back, he watches a falcon fly off with his fresh kill. He is electrified by this
vision!
He runs home to his grandfather Rafiq’s café to tell him what he’s just seen,
but Rafiq and his friend Fateen, a teacher and political dissident, have their hands
full with a souk full of angry anti-government protestors. There is revolution in the
air. The Arab Spring has come to their little town.
Rafiq has to hide Fateen from the local police chief, who may be acting on a
tip from an informant at the school where Fateen teaches.
That night, Aakil and Rafiq and Fateen watch the news, both official and
from a pirate channel. Syrian President Assad vows to fight the “enemies of the
people” to the bitter end. A prince from a wealthy Arab nation is coming to bring
humanitarian aid to refugees.
This sparks an argument between the old men about the state of the country
and foreign “do-gooders.” They also spar over why Aakil’s school has ordered all
library books immediately returned. He’s just borrowed a book about falconry,
after all. The men run out of words when Aakil asks them what happened to his
parents.
On the way to school, Aakil and his grandfather get covered in bird shit as a
massive starling swarm swirls overhead. On his way to the bathrooms, Aakil sees
Fateen giving a subversive lecture about Syrian history to a small group of
students. Aakil is later harassed by the school librarian to return the book he
borrowed, The Art of Falconry by Frederick II.
Aakil’s best friend, Dani, 14, chides him for being too scared to talk to
Jameela, a girl he likes. “If you are not bold, what will the world give to you?”
They share a laugh over the image of President Assad on a billboard near the
school being defaced, painted to make him look completely bald.
A Russian MIG fighter jet buzzes the local mosque where Rafiq prays. It
buzzes the school too, sending people into a panic. Back home, kids can’t shut up
about the plane. The adults begin to express genuine fear.
The next day, Aakil walks to school with his grandfather Rafiq for the last
time. His grandfather tells him to be careful on his way home.
At school, Aakil sits behind Jameela, daydreaming about her and trying to
draw a picture of her while the teacher drones on. Just up the hall, Fateen is
arrested by plainclothesmen and escorted outside where a column of black sedans
waits to take him and other dissidents away, unbeknownst to Aakil.
The Russian MIG makes its return, destroying Aakil’s little town. It is a
harvest demon come dancing on the hot wind. Aakil’s school is blown to rubble.
The souk is almost unrecognizable.
In the confusion, Fateen is freed from the black sedan, which crashes into a
flower delivery truck. Fateen is on his knees in a broken street, surrounded by
roses that have scattered, as Russian fighter-bombers roar overhead.
Aakil finds Rafiq’s café is now a crater. He digs and claws with his bare
hands at the pile of bricks but never finds his grandfather. Nor does he see Rafiq’s
prayer beads in the dirt as he leaves.
He returns home to find a clown car of looters emptying his house of all his
family’s possessions. He recovers his drawings and tracings from The Art of
Falconry, stuffs them into his backpack, and heads out into the night. He must
force himself to leave what’s left of his home and past behind. Making it on his
own somehow is his challenge now.
Aakil finds Dani again, just before the two are snatched up by government
troops and driven to a refugee camp. Aakil is confronted with a world he has never
before imagined. Even television images of these places gave him no idea
beforehand what it would be like to be confined in such a space with so many
thousands of people. At once he gets to see the best and worst in humanity.
“Don’t let anyone see you cry,” Dani tells him.
In the melee for food and water, Aakil loses Dani, who is beaten and taken
away by the guards. He now must fend for himself.
He fights others in the line for aid and steals back a water bottle that was
stolen from him, making an enemy of a crazy old man.
At night, reruns of Looney Tunes and a clown show won’t drown out the
cries of mothers over their sick children and other sounds that frighten and sadden
Aakil. From the government troop truck that brought him here, he hears Lionel
Richie songs. All night long.
Aakil is reunited with Dani as an American cargo plane drops a crate full of
stale civil defense rations and other random crap, bewildering the refugees. Bits of
costume from past USO shows in Iraq include a baldness wig, reminding them of
the Assad vandalism and giving them their first laugh in days.
The prince from the wealthier Arab nation appears at the camp with a
column of humanitarian relief trucks, dressed in a dark kafeeyah. His bodyguard
rescues Aakil from the crazy old man who has become his nemesis. Aakil tries to
protect the crazy old man, thinking he’ll be killed.
The bodyguard is really the prince, and the prince a body double. The
prince is impressed with Aakil’s compassion toward others, even those who would
harm him.
Aakil is determined to find a way out of the camp and sees the prince’s
arrival as just such an opportunity. He tries his hardest to get a job with the relief
effort but is rebuffed.
He stows away in one of the trucks and discovers that the prince has three
falcons!
He also discovers the Assyrian ruins and sees the Winged Statue for the first
time.
Caught out, Aakil is locked away in a cargo container until the prince, going
through his possessions, sees his falcon drawings and tracings from The Art of
Falconry. The prince frees him and shows him really why he is in Syria: To
rescue the Winged Statue from insurgents who mean to destroy it. Though it is a
monument to Ashur-nasir-pal II, an Assyrian king who ruled his people cruelly, it
is an antiquity of immeasurable value.
Abdul, the prince’s personal historian, adds to the mystery of the Winged
Statue by reading aloud from inscriptions at its base. Aakil learns that it must be
turned on its side and removed from its base to be rescued. But how?
In viewing the Winged Statue and the dig site, lined with bas-reliefs of a
time long past, they just miss stepping on the unexploded bomb that the Russian
MIG dropped at the beginning of the story. Its tail fin is just visible under the soil.
Aakil is given a job tending to the prince’s birds, but in exchange for such a
privilege he must work in the refugee camp each day delivering aid. Striking the
bargain, Aakil asks that Dani be allowed to join him, lying that Dani is his cousin.
Bassma, the prince’s bodyguard – and body double – fetches Dani from the camp.
Bassma is aware of the lie, but covers for the boys, nonetheless. “Your friend must
love you to lie for you like that,” he tells Dani.
Abdul lurks about the dig site at night, looking for secret passages and doors.
He knows there is more here than just the Winged Statue.
Aakil is introduced to the prince’s three falcons, Shaelyn and Horus, two
older peregrine falcons, and Gawain, a juvenile that he will raise himself.
The prince begins the process of teaching Aakil about these majestic birds
and how they live and hunt, and what sets them apart from all other raptors,
physically and otherwise.
The peregrine has a particular breast bone and muscle structure setting it
apart from other birds in how these features help it climb faster and to heights
unknown by most other raptors, and a nose bone that acts like the air intake of a jet
fighter to allow it to keep breathing in a 240 mile-per-hour stoop as it swoops
down on its prey. We learn how its pointed wing tips help it maneuver like a
thread through a needle.
While a jet fighter can pull 9 Gs in a turn, the peregrine can pull 25. No
other bird, natural or man-made, can do such things.
The range and clarity of the peregrine’s vision is explored, and we are
treated to its own view of the world. At several critical points in the story, all is
seen from the birds’ POV.
Aakil and Dani work in the refugee camp each day, encountering worse and
worse acts and words from a growing sea of suffering humanity. Each day
becomes more dangerous for them. Aakil fears that he will run into Jameela and
worries about seeing her suffer.
His early trials working with the falcon Gawain involve many errors and he
tests the prince’s patience. He starts out learning how to train Gawain with a
swing lure, and the bird makes a fool of him. Still, Aakil keeps at it.
He learns how vigilant he must be in feeding and weighing the birds. Too
fat, and they can’t hunt. Too thin, and they will get sick. Aakil learns how to
create a shelter for these birds and how to keep them clean and happy. It is truly a
labor of love, and Aakil is as scared as a new parent with his babies. There is so
much for him to learn, and he can’t make any mistakes.
He nearly loses Gawain at one point taking him out flying, but eventually
retrieves the bird. He becomes even more determined when the prince challenges
him about the prospects of his ever becoming a falconer.
Aakil learns, as the prince instructs him, to “become invisible” in working
with the birds, and becoming one with Gawain, allowing the bird to grow and
develop as a hunter, with just the slightest bit of help. He also learns to appreciate
the spiritual strength to be found in falconry.
“Whilst the slave is on his path
toward Allah, he is like a bird
with two wings which it requires to
fly and keep its balance. These
‘wings’ are hope and fear.”
Aakil becomes adept at handling and working with Gawain and the other
peregrines. He also learns how to protect them from other predators, creating a
makeshift scarecrow of sorts to keep an owl from attacking the weathers he has
built for them.
“We’re all prey here,” the prince reminds him.
We are treated to more breathtaking flights with Gawain and the other birds
and seeing Aakil reaching his potential as a falconer, and in living his dearest
dream.
Our breath is taken away by the vistas seen through the eyes of Gawain.
The whole world looks different. And, more beautiful! We join Gawain in being a
peregrine, in flight, in the hunt, at play with his friend Aakil and with the other
birds.
We see, from start to finish, the dynamics of a blistering stoop and sudden
kill like the one that sent Aakil falling out of the tree at the beginning of the story.
After overcoming more challenges working with Gawain, the beloved
falcon, Aakil has become a falconer! And, a man too, as he has just reached his
13th birthday.
Aakil talks with the Prince about the changes that have taken place in his
world, and what likely happened to his parents, who were history teachers, and
about the dangers to come. Insurgents, violent men who now threaten the dig site,
are getting closer by the day.
As the relief supplies run out on their last day working in the refugee camp,
Aakil and Dani are confronted by Fateen, who reappears and accuses Aakil of
being a “rich man’s lackey” in serving the prince. Aakil asks him one more time
what happened to his parents but gets no answer from the teacher turned madman.
This demoralizes Aakil; Dani tries to comfort him that he is doing the right thing.
The insurgents are now within a few kilometers of the dig site. Aakil and
Gawain are followed home by drones operated by the insurgents. Most of the
drones are caught up and destroyed in a starling swarm, leaving evidence behind of
the growing threat to the east. The prince warns Aakil to stay close and not
venture out anymore. The Winged Statue is closer to being rescued. Just a few
more days.
The last preparations are made to get the Winged Statue ready for removal.
It is tipped over on its side by cranes and steel cables are fastened at its wrists and
ankles so that helicopters can lift it out of the dig site.
Abdul sneaks around the base of the dig site at night and is almost caught.
He means to sabotage the rescue.
The prince holds a party and feast (a haflah) to celebrate the hard work that
brought them to this auspicious moment. He believes they will succeed in their
mission to rescue the Winged Statue.
Aakil is caught up in the moment of reverie and dances as a band plays.
Dani and Bassma see Abdul heading for the dig site and follow him.
Abdul evades them long enough to get far down into the site. He finds little
detonators where the steel cables are joined over the Winged Statue.
As Abdul climbs back out of the pit, Bassma and Dani confront him. Abdul
is wearing a bomb belt and condemns them as “idolators.” Bassma leaps on him
and they tumble over the side, setting off the unexploded bomb buried in the soil.
Abdul and Bassma are killed and Dani is grievously wounded.
Aakil prays over his hurt friend, helpless, in fear of losing yet another loved
one.
The prince confronts an angry and terrified crowd that knows the insurgents
are almost here. After his impassioned speech, the workers keep their commitment
to getting the Winged Statue out, and out of the hands of people who would
destroy their nation’s history.
The next morning, four Sikorsky Sky Cranes come in to lift away the
Winged Statue.
The insurgents attack with shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles. The
prince gives the order for the helicopters to release their payload, saving the lives
of their crewmembers just in time, but as the Winged Statue falls into the pit,
shattering, he disappears in the clouds of dust rising from what appears to have
been a fake piece of gypsum all along, a kind of Cardiff Giant/Trojan Horse.
The dig site is in total chaos. Aakil tries to convince Dani to come with him,
but they both know Dani can’t go anywhere. Dani tells Aakil that he will be
alright, and that Aakil will have to make his journey alone. “If you are not bold,
what will the world give to you?”
Aakil takes the birds and commandeers one of the relief trucks, only to run
out of gas and find himself stranded again.
He releases Shaelyn and Horus and takes Gawain with him on foot, hidden
in his jacket.
Aakil makes the long journey west toward the ocean. He traverses many
miles of wasteland and makes his way around the walls lining the refugee camp,
“becoming invisible” as the prince taught him to avoid notice and capture by the
camp guards.
He travels through the ruins of what was once his hometown, watched by
unseen eyes the whole time. A sniper has Aakil in his crosshairs but is distracted
by a cell phone, sparing the boy.
Aakil tries to feed Gawain, but he won’t eat. He takes off the bird’s jesses
and bells, leaving them behind as he continues toward the Mediterranean shoreline.
Finally reaching the sea, Aakil is helped aboard a small rowboat by a family
that will brave the seas to find asylum in Europe.
The falcon Gawain has died in his arms.
Later, on a European beach, Aakil and the others are arrested by local police.
Images from news reports throughout Southern and Eastern Europe of
refugees being mistreated. Hungarian camerawoman Petra László, kicks and trips
refugees at the Serbian border.
Meanwhile, life goes on in Syria. Shaelyn and Horus have established a nest
and have a new clutch of eggs.
As Horus goes out looking for more food, he flies over the dig site.
A man in a dark kafeeyah who resembles the prince in his shape and gait
puts his shoulder to a wall at what was the base of the Winged Statue, pushing in a
door to what may be the path to an underground treasure room.
Horus’ call can be heard echoing in the air as the screen fades to black.
Awards Won
Platinum Screenplay Award Depth of Field Festival
Gold Screenplay Award Nature Without Borders Festival