Glimpses of the Afterlife
By Ellie Dauber © 2006

The true and final fate of Saddam Hussein.

* * * * *

Glimpses of the Afterlife
By Ellie Dauber © 2006

Saddam Hussein closed his eyes for a moment as the noose was lowered
down over his head. He felt the rope, coarse fiber against his throat
under his beard. "Go to hell," someone yelled.

"You first," he answered back. He saw the executioner reach for the
lever that would drop the floor beneath him, and he began to recite the
Koranic verse of acceptance. "There is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is
his prophet.

The floor fell away. He dropped. The roped grew tight. He gasped once
for breath, and the world went black.

* * * * *

"Welcome, my son."

Saddam opened his eyes. He was in a large room illuminated by glowing
torches. An old, but robust man in the flowing golden robes of a sheik
stood before him. Next to the man was a woman, elegantly dressed. Her
body was ripe with womanly curves. Her face gave no signs of age, but
her hair was white as purest silver.

"Who are you?" Saddam insisted. "Where am I?"

The man smiled, a warm smile that hinted of gentleness but great power.
"I am Ibrahim abu Ishmail, the father of the Arab people. This woman is
Sarai, my wife. You are --"

"Truly dead," Saddam uttered, as if wakened from a dream. I am in
Paradise, and you..." He knelt before the man the Western infidels
called Abraham, father of the Jews, and whom he honored as the first of
the prophets in the line that ended in Mohammed, may he be blessed
forever.

Ibrahim nodded. "Rise, son of my son's son. Yes, you have passed on to
the Garden that men call Paradise."

Saddam rose. He realized as he did that his suit of Western clothes were
gone. He was dressed in the simple, black robes of a member of his own
tribe. "And you, Father Ibrahim, have come to greet me. I am honored and
blessed."

"You are a very special case," the woman, Mother Sarai, told him. "We
have come to see you to the place Allah the True Judge, has set for you
in the World to Come, the place you shall dwell until the Day of
Resurrection."

Ibrahim made a broad gesture with his right hand.

The room changed. The three of them stood in a large, well-lit chamber.
In its center, a small fountain shot a spray of water, as if in welcome.
Colorful pillows were scattered here and there, inviting one to sit and
be comforted. In one corner, a mass of them formed a sort of bed. A few
were next to a low table which held a pitcher and cup, a broken loaf of
dark brown bread, and large bowl filled with savory stew.

Saddam heard the music of an unseen band. The air was filled with the
scent of roses. "This is most surely the chamber of a great man."

"No," Sarai shook her head, "this is the sort of place reserved for any
pious believer. It will be the home of an honored man, however." She
waved her hand. "Come forward, Farad."

A slender man, perhaps thirty-years old, surely no older, appeared next
to her. He had curly brown hair and a small, well-trimmed beard. He wore
the same sort of golden robes as Father Ibrahim, though of a much
simpler design. He stared into the air as if in a trance.

"Who is this?" Saddam demanded.

"This," Ibrahim answered, "is Farad. He was the sole support of his aged
parents, a man who became a policeman, not for the pay, but to try to
make his neighborhood a safer place for them to live." He looked
directly at Saddam. "He was killed by a bomb while on patrol, a bomb
planted by Bathists turned insurgent and acting in your name."

"He is a fool to work for the evil ones who drove me from power. He
deserved to die. What is he to me?" Saddam was growing angry. What was
he being bothered by all of this?

"He is a pious man who did not deserve to die, and he is here to receive
his reward." Ibrahim pointed at Saddam. "And you are to serve him."

"What! I will do no such thing," Saddam said indignantly. " If this scum
deserves a reward -- which I very much doubt -- let him receive it from
some panting houri, not from the rightful ruler of Iraq."

"He shall," Sarai replied, a laugh in her voice. "He will receive it
from a panting houri who was the false ruler of Iraq."

"What!" Saddam yelled in panic. Suddenly, he felt cold. He looked down
and saw that he was naked.

He found that he could not move.

His entire body began to prickle, as if a thousand, tem thousand ants
were running across his bare body. He grew smaller. He had been almost
as tall as Father Ibrahim. Now he was looking eye to eye at Mother
Sarai.

Every hair below his neck fell from his body, vanishing before they
reached the floor. His skin lightened to the color of honey. His thick
beard seemed to be pulled back into his chin, even as his hair grew down
past his shoulders, its gray color darkening to inky black.

His muscles melted away, as did the small belly he had developed from
the inactivity of his imprisonment. He was thinner. His shoulders
narrow. It was the body of a young boy.

It became the body of a young girl. His male organs shrank back into his
groin. His testicles shrank and slid up into him to become ovaries. The
scrotal sack became the lips on either side of the opening that formed
in him. The opening that his much smaller penis slid into as it
transformed into a very sensitive clitoris.

As this happened, his hips widened, and his rear took the teardrop shape
so many men desired for a woman. His limbs became curved and supple. His
hands were so much smaller, his fingers long and slender. His nails were
longer, too, and they darkened as a red polish appeared on them.

The skin around his nipples darkened, as the nipples grew. They moved
out from his chest as breasts blossomed. They were firm, the size of
melons.

His face changed, becoming moon-shaped. His nose was smaller, his lips
full and forming into a delicate pout. His eyes were as a fawn's with
dark lashes. There was a sweetness, gloss, on his lips and shadow around
his eyes that made them seem even larger.

"What madness is this?" Saddam was so mad that he ignored the high
feminine contralto that was his voice now. "What have you..."

A warm glow ran through his body. It centered in his breasts and down
there in his groin. Saddam moaned from the pleasure, sexual pleasure,
a... a woman's pleasure. Of their own will, his hands reached up to
caress his new breasts, to bring them even more pleasure.

The man, Farad, blinked. "Where... where am I?"

"You are in Paradise, Farad, my son. You died bravely, and Sarai and I
have come to welcome you."

"And this one?" Farad looked intently at Saddam.

Saddam wanted to dismiss the unworthy little man. Instead, he felt
himself smile. "I am Sa'adia, my lord, your own houri to serve you in
every way until the Day of Resurrection."

Saddam... Sa'adia walked towards him, hips swinging seductively. He...
she tried to stop, to walk with a man's gait, but she found that she had
no control over her body. She felt her nipples tighten and felt a
moistness in her loins.

"In every way?" Farad felt himself grow hard.

Sa'adia stood before her lord. "In every possible way." She kissed him
briefly, then fell to her knees. Her hands reached beneath his robes and
found his manhood. She lifted the robes and exposed him. Then she smiled
up at him and brought her lips down around his pulsing organ.

* * * * *

"Father Ibrahim!" Farad sat up in bed. Sa'adia was next to him, naked
and asleep, a sated smile on her face.

"Sa'alam Alekim, Farad," Ibrahim said. "How do you fare this morning?"

"Alekim Salamm" Farad answered. "I am fine, as might be expected in
Paradise. To what do I owe the honor of this visit from you and Mother
Sarai?"

"The Koran, blessed be its giver and blessed be Mohammed who write it
down, promises a faithful believer a reward of houris in the Afterlife.
You have only received this one, Sa'adia."

"I have been more than rewarded with Sa'adia," Farad replied. "She is a
most willing and most... able of houris."

"Perhaps," Sarai said, "but you were promised more." She made a gesture
and Farad's eyes widened as he sank back into a trance.

Another man appeared between her and Ibrahim. An older man, a Westerner,
pudgy and balding. He wore only a pair of boxer shorts. "I demand to
know what's going on here. You can't do this to me."

"Yes, we can, Richard Chaney," Ibrahim said. "We have received
dispensation from the Heaven of your Jesus, to bring you to the Paradise
of the believers of Allah to receive your proper ahzab-e-kabr... your
punishment in the grave."

"How dare --"

The late Vice President, dead in his sleep of a massive heart attack,
froze as he began the transformation to Hannah, a limber blonde
Circassian and Farad's second houri.

The End