A story about selling one’s soul for power and borrowed glory.

By: Brahim Laaraibi

Najla heard the keys at the door. The metallic jingling snapped through her — hope bitten by dread. She wiped her hands on her apron, tossed it onto the counter, and hurried to the hallway.

When Salem entered, dust still on his shoes, she blurted the words she had held back all day. “I visited the fortune-teller this morning.” Her lips curved in a tentative smile, almost playful, though her eyes held the seriousness beneath.

Salem’s groan hit the room before his jacket did. He threw it onto the bed. “Again? Najla, are you out of your mind? I told you a thousand times not to see those charlatans. How is that supposed to help me?”

“It always helps,” she replied, following him. “All the candidates go. How else do you think they win every election?”

He spun towards her. “That’s ridiculous. Even if it were true — which it isn’t — it has no impact on the ballots.”

Najla’s voice softened. “Just listen once, darling. I can’t bear watching you lose again. Every defeat makes us smaller. Do you want our son growing up thinking we’ll never matter? The fortune-teller can tell us which rival uses powers against you, then give us protection.”

He sneered, a sound half-laugh, half-growl. “There’s no witchcraft, Najla. Everyone knows how these elections are won. It’s not spirits — it’s cash. Buying votes, that’s all.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her face lined with worry. “And what if cash isn’t enough?”

Salem had no answer. The question held him, stirring the bitter taste of memory. He had tried before. Twice he had stood as a candidate for the community board, and twice he had watched rivals step into sudden prosperity. Winners acquired plots of land, received funds for houses, and even built apartment blocks. Their families rose with them, basking in new wealth.

Salem’s own story was less gilded. He had stumbled through school, hardly passing, and dropped out before finishing. A technical degree, fixing machines, tailoring cloth, felt like prison to him. He worked briefly in his father’s clothing shop, but the walls closed in, the daily haggling scraping at his pride.

Then he turned to smuggling contraband across the desert. The profits came fast and easy, until one night he was caught. The court sentenced him to a year, but bribes smoothed the process, reducing the term to a suspended sentence. Salem walked free, but the shame remained. People gossiped, neighbours raised eyebrows, Najla bore the weight in silence.

Since then, he had tried business after business, each collapsing before it began. The only reliable income came from the state grant, which was deposited monthly into his account. It covered diapers and rent, but never enough for dignity. After twelve years of marriage, Najla carried the household on her back through small trade and informal sales, while Salem nursed the dream of a position that might finally make him matter.

Every election season, that dream rekindled.

That evening, Najla wouldn’t let it rest, her brow creased. “We can’t afford another failure. I won’t spend my life scraping coins from a trade that shrinks each year. Even the state grant doesn’t cover the basics anymore.”

Salem sighed and draped his jacket over the chair. “In two days, I’ll receive my share of my father’s inheritance. The party’s local representative promised to help with expenses. I’ll have enough this time, real backing.”

Najla fell silent, her face easing. But she could not let go. “Then at least get a talisman,” she murmured. “Something to chase away the bad luck.”

He looked at her. “Najla, enough.”

She withdrew, lips tight. She knew him too well, knew when to push and when to wait.

Now Salem’s mind was consumed by the election. Every waking thought turned into a calculation: which cousin to visit first, which elder to flatter, how many promises could be spun into favours before the ballots were cast. He felt better equipped this time: money in hand, the party’s blessing at his back, and the bitter taste of past defeats still fresh enough to guide him. In his head, the map was clear: begin with kin and tribe, binding them with pledges, then move outward, courting the few thousand names on the rolls with promises, gifts, and whatever persuasion he could summon. Every card had to be played. There would be no room for another loss. To him, this was all that mattered now — Najla’s talk of fortune-tellers and amulets had no place in his plans.

The campaign soon began to spill into their daily lives, turning even small moments into signs of looming change.

One afternoon, a horn blared beneath the window. Najla leaned out to see Salem waving from behind the wheel of a four-wheel drive. She hurried down, his grin pulling her along.

“It’s almost new.” He said as she climbed in. “The party gave it for my campaign. I’ll need to reach the suburbs and the desert tribes.”

Najla’s eyes glowed as she touched the smooth leather seats. Her hands moved slowly across the dashboard as if caressing a treasure. “If only it were ours. We could drive the whole country. Imagine pulling up to the coastal beaches with this!”

She tilted her head back against the headrest and shut her eyes for a moment, inhaling the cold breeze from the air conditioner. She could almost see herself as one of the wealthy wives she envied — gold bangles jingling, sunglasses perched on her forehead, the city bending aside as she passed.

“We’re one step away.” Salem said.

They roared out of the city, dust swirling behind them. Salem laughed, testing the car’s strength against the dunes. Najla clutched the seat, then relaxed, letting herself feel, for the first time in years, that maybe life could change.

The desert opened around them, vast and golden. For a moment, Najla imagined freedom: long trips, wide roads, not counting coins. Salem pressed a button, and her seat reclined. She squealed, then laughed, pretending she belonged in such luxury.

Back in town, she leaned her head against the window, still smiling. Then her eyes widened.

“Wait. Pull over!”

“What is it?”

“That’s Isaac, your rival.” She pointed to the house he had left. “And that house belongs to the fortune-teller.”

Salem’s jaw clenched. He turned the car. Down the alley, Isaac stood by his vehicle, eyes darting.

Najla smirked. “See? Didn’t I tell you? They all go.”

She left it there. She knew better than to push.

That night, Salem lay stiff beside her, his eyes open to the dark. Najla watched him for a while, sensing the weight of his thoughts, but she dared not ask. Instead, she turned away and pulled the sheet to her chin, feigning sleep. Still, her ears strained for the words she longed to hear — Tomorrow I’ll go to the fortune-teller — but none came. Only silence.

By morning, the silence had shattered. Najla woke to an empty bed — the street below had already swallowed the morning in drums and engines. She hurried to the window and saw cars crawling in a solid line of traffic, banners snapping overhead, loudspeakers hurling slogans, chants echoing off walls, coloured leaflets spinning through the air. The election campaign had surged into the city. Every party was out, each trying to outshout the other.

And Najla intended to outshine them all. She dressed for it, then claimed the front car, its roof bursting with balloons, its speakers shrieking Salem’s name. Her face was painted with heavy makeup, her lips crimson, her eyes lined in kohl. She wore her malehfa, so it whipped around her like wings, drawing every gaze. She waved like royalty, tossing leaflets with a flourish. Children scrambled for them, adults stared, some nodding, others smirking.

She basked in it. The cheering, the horns, the colours — this was what she had craved. She leaned further out of the window, feeling the eyes of the crowd on her bracelets, on her painted smile. For a few blocks, she forgot the years of scraping coins at the market stalls — she was not Najla the trinket seller, but Najla the wife of someone who mattered.

The city blazed with colour, yet beneath the carnival of sound ran a certainty: votes would be bought, as always.

The parades marked the final day of campaigning. By law, the next would be silent: no horns, no banners, only silence before the ballots.

Remember me for faster sign in

After the colour and noise, the city held its breath, waiting for the decision each voter would make alone in the booth.

That night, Salem gripped the decision like a lifeline in deep water. Like every candidate, he needed to reach voters directly, where banknotes outshouted slogans. Amounts promised to each neighbourhood turned into the city’s freshest gossip, traded like market prices.

Najla spread the voters’ list across the table, steering his efforts towards the names that mattered most. Her finger trailed down the names until one stopped her hand. She knew that name too well.

“Darling, recognise this name?” she held the list towards him.

Salem glanced, then shook his head. “No.”

“I do. She’s the fortune-teller.”

Salem’s shoulders tightened. “Are you sure?”

“Always.”

He stared at the name, then shoved the paper aside. “Enough of this.”

Later that night, he lay awake beside Najla. He told himself it meant nothing. He trusted money, not magic. Promises, favours, cash: that defined politics for him.

Yet Isaac’s shifty glance in the alley would not leave him.

Isaac counted as no fool. If he had gone to her, maybe it meant insurance, like a lock on a door. Visiting does not mean believing — only taking care. What harm in listening?

By dawn, his mind had settled, though he refused to say it aloud. Najla’s words lodged in him, Isaac’s furtive glance cut deep, and the silence of his own failures rested on his chest like stone. Visiting her no longer felt like superstition — it promised strategy, another weapon in a fight he could not afford to lose.

Isaac’s glance, Najla’s voice, the fortune-teller’s name: each beat struck the same answer.

Go.

He grabbed the keys. Najla was already at his heels. Tyres spat gravel as the car shot into the night, headlights cutting through the thinning dark. Najla clutched the armrest. “Slow down, Salem! She won’t vanish.”

He stamped down on the accelerator. The thought of another defeat closed over his throat.

The fortune-teller’s house smelled of incense. Tapestries crowded the walls, woven with strange signs, but the table in the centre pulled Salem’s gaze.

A crimson cloth covered it. In the middle lay a polished slab carved with a triangle around a single eye. The eye seemed to follow him as he stepped closer.

The fortune-teller’s lips curved faintly. “I know who you are.” She said before Najla could speak. “And I know why you have come. Tonight is not hers — it is yours.”

Salem shifted in his seat, his gaze dragging back to the unblinking eye.

“Tomorrow decides your future,” the woman went on, her fingers gliding over the triangle. “But something binds you. A shadow worked against you. Unless it breaks, you will fall again.”

His voice scraped out. “You can break it?”

Her smile widened. “Of course. But nothing comes free. To rise, you must surrender what cannot be taken back.”

He frowned. “Money?”

She shook her head. “Money belongs to markets. For us, it means nothing. What I ask for is rarer. You must give up the only thing that makes a man his own: your will, your voice, your soul. From this night on, it will not belong to you. It will belong to us.”

The words sent a chill through him.

Her eyes gleamed. “You will be elected, yes. But you will never again speak as yourself. Every word will be ours.”

Salem wanted to turn away, to laugh at the madness. Yet the thought of defeat, another season of shame, years ahead watching rivals rise, crushed him.

Slowly, heavily, he lowered his head.

The fortune-teller set her palm over the triangle, the all-seeing eye catching the candlelight. “It is done.”

Cold air slid through the room. Salem shivered, as if something had been pulled from him, leaving only an empty echo behind.

When the polling stations opened, he no longer questioned what the ballots might hold. Something in him had already shifted the moment he laid his fate on the fortune-teller’s table. At times, he felt lighter, as though the burden of defeat had lifted from his shoulders. At other times, he felt hollow, as if some essential part of him had been bartered away. Beneath it all, he carried the settled dread of someone who already knew his destiny.

As the ballot boxes closed, the election crowned him. Salem’s name rose above his rivals, carried by a tide of votes that seemed less counted than conjured. The city erupted — drums pounding, convoys honking, neighbours shouting until their throats broke.

That night, their house overflowed. Trays of lamb and couscous circled endlessly, kettles of mint tea steaming in every corner. Guests clapped his back, praised his triumph, lifted him with their words. Najla floated among them, her bracelets chiming, her cheeks glowing with pride. She imagined the four-wheel drive parked permanently outside, imagined herself as the wife of a man whose name could open doors.

She clapped her hands for silence. “Our winner will speak!”

The crowd cheered. Salem rose, lifted his glass, and opened his mouth — nothing.

Only a dry rasp, like sand pouring down his throat. Faces shifted. Someone whispered, “What’s wrong with him?”

Najla’s painted smile faltered. She touched his arm, but his panic spread.

By the window, half-veiled in the curtain’s folds, the fortune-teller stood. She smiled faintly, then slipped into the night.

Salem gripped the glass, trembling. His victory stood certain, but no longer his. His silence sealed the bargain, proof that he now belonged elsewhere.

Source: http://t.ly/X0P8J