Grasping the edge of the low-rise table, baby Tazim quietly steps around the perimeter of it, lips vibrating and voice humming. There's a lot of different sounds he makes, some of them almost-words, but he is often repeating the ba ba ba ba that comes with learning "Papa."
For now, there is no need for his father's attention, but he continues to ba ba ba, trying out the word in his young mouth while also continuing his way around the table, bouncing with his knees and stepping with his toes, using the ledge as leverage to hold himself steady. At the corner, he stops, just tall enough to look his brown eyes over the side of the table at the man across the room, the one reclined in the pillows on elbow and palm, the one looking over a stubbornly furled scroll.
Tazim squeals, a pitch laced with the staccato of ba ba! and one which sounds both frustrated and excited. Malik swiftly lifts his head toward the place of origin, finds Tazim slapping the table and grinning. "Baba!" The boy drools from the effort of smile and word, long streams of the stuff, and there's a flash of two little, white teeth protruding from the bottom gum. "Baba!" Tazim babbles again, softer this time, and then he puts his mouth over the squared edge of the table to gnaw it.
Traces of a smile reach the corner of Malik's lips, and he beckons the boy with a low, "Come here," a curl of his fingers.
Slowly, Tazim raises his head, gives a prompt and irritated drone of disapproval, crumpling down on the floor afterward, tired and bored of what is above table level: to him, nothing of importance because he can't reach it.
It's so hard being tall, being big, Malik thinks, watching Tazim finger the woven rug curiously. So mundane. Adults just don't understand what they miss below the table, in the sand, in the grass. Being so big… it's easy to lose sight of the simple things, to lose sight of what's gathered around the feet because the sky seems like the only place to be.
While Tazim is distracted by the rug's tassels, Malik shifts away from pillows and scroll to creep under the table, back down and chest up. The fit is a bit difficult at first, for someone his age, on top of trying not to make much noise and only having one arm. In the end, he is successful, and he pokes his head out of the other side just by Tazim's leg.
"Don't pull them off," Malik says, and Tazim turns to gives a shriek of amusement. Seeing Papa in a very un-Papa-like place brings a fit of babbling nonsense to Tazim's lips, and he pats the man on the forehead sagely while speaking. (What are you doing, Papa? Malik knows he's saying. What are you doing there?) A "Down!" comes, and then some vibrated jibberish, a "Papa!" and a "Me!" included, and Tazim is bending over to carefully crawl below the table as "Watch your head," Malik says.
It's not the same under the table as it is outside: Tazim is wondering over the hollow body, touching a few of the corners were strange wooden ribs cross over legs to give support. Malik watches Tazim be inquisitive, reaching out to brush his fingers through the boy's coarse and murky hair, the ends of it curling on the tips of his fingers. For awhile, Tazim merely sits and looks, drooling and murmuring, and then the boy leans over to rest his head on his father's chest while sliding a thumb into his mouth.
"Sleepy?" asks Malik, and then he adds, "Let's get out and nap," to which Tazim immediately puts up a weak, drowsy fuss. "Look at that face," says Malik through Tazim's bunch nose and eyes, through the tears, through Tazim's twisted lips with the two white teeth peeking through. "Such a novice's face," and then Malik reaches up to pinch the boy's cheeks between his thumb and fingers. "I've only seen such an ugly face on one novice before…"
Tazim's crescendo of crying becomes a garbled weh-WEH-weh-WEH as Malik squeezes and releases the cheeks. Suddenly, Malik is laughing at the sound, and Tazim is still trying to be angry with being told what to do, but then the boy is silent in surprise, and Malik continues to laugh and laugh in a quiet roll that soaks into the stone around them. "I'm sorry," Malik says, lifting his arm to rub his sternum, and then up to rub the corners of his eyes. "Come here, and hush that crying. You're not a novice. Only novices cry."
Reluctantly, Tazim follows the pull of his father's arm, curls himself down into the notch of side and shoulder. He rests there, against Malik, small and fragile, sleepy, bathing in the scent of sandalwood, and parchment, and linen, and desert. The familiar scent calms him, and Malik bends an arm to stroke his head, to push the coal-colored hair back and forth.
After a while, both of them are asleep, and Sef steps into the room to find a pair of legs extended from beneath the table and the top of a dark head just out of the other side. It's strange to see his father's friend on the floor this way, but when he steps around and notices Tazim, he smiles regardless.
On the floor, close to the whisper of the earth, Sef wonders what they saw there, what they dream.