The beautiful Nothing

THE BEAUTIFUL NOTHING

THE BEGINNING

Banaya, twenty-seven, and Ameen, twenty-five, were two young men who had married into the same family.

The Kasha family, to be specific.

Banaya was married to Sheerah, while Ameen was married to Razala. Sheerah and Razala were twin sisters, and as you can imagine, this made it relatively easy for the two men to become friends.

The sisters were inseparable. They shared every detail of their lives with one another. They were to each other what ink is to a pen and what a pen is to ink. Where one was found, the other was never far away.

Banaya was an exceptional contractor. He won tenders so effortlessly that some people jokingly suspected corruption. Ameen was a highly respected tax lawyer whose clients often introduced him to influential businessmen and prominent public figures. In their respective professions, both men were forces of nature.

The twin sisters had married remarkably well.

There was, however, one problem.

The Kasha family never fully embraced Banaya and Ameen. It was not because they lacked character, intelligence, or success. It was because they were foreigners.

They had not been born in Egypt like the rest of the family.

The Kasha family was fiercely proud of its Egyptian heritage and traditions. Although nobody openly mistreated the two men, there was always a subtle distance between them and the fathers, uncles, and older men of the family. They were welcomed, but never completely accepted.

The women of the family were different.

The mother, aunts, and sisters adored the two sons-in-law. They greeted them with long embraces, invited them over without warning, and often arrived carrying thoughtful gifts. Around the women, Banaya and Ameen felt loved.

Around the men, they felt tolerated.

Banaya and Ameen were both Armenian. The fact that two Armenian men had married twin Egyptian sisters felt almost too unlikely to be coincidence. It felt like fate.

The moment they discovered their shared heritage, a friendship was born. What began as a simple family connection quickly grew into a genuine brotherhood.

There was another issue that weighed heavily on the family.

For years, the ancestral Kasha home had been deteriorating.

It was a magnificent house built by their forefathers, designed to accommodate the entire family under one roof. It contained enough rooms for relatives, guests, celebrations, weddings, and gatherings. For generations it had stood as a symbol of the family’s unity and history.

But times had changed.

Modern inflation, rising costs of living, and the enormous expense of maintaining such a large property had slowly pushed the house into decline. Everyone agreed that it needed saving, yet nobody seemed capable of finding the money required to restore it.

The house remained standing.

But each passing year made its future less certain.

2030

Banaya and Ameen sat inside the black Audi waiting for Sheerah and Razala’s mother, who had gone inside the hospital to visit an old friend.

The afternoon sun hung heavily above the city. The air conditioning hummed softly inside the vehicle.For a while neither man spoke.

They watched people enter and leave the hospital.Eventually Banaya broke the silence.

“You know what bothered me most about Omar’s birthday?”

Ameen laughed.

“There are too many things to choose from.”

“The tables.”

“The tables?”

“They had us carrying tables, setting up chairs, collecting food and running errands while everybody else sat and enjoyed themselves.”

Ameen smiled.

“At one point I thought they were about to ask me to wash dishes.”

The two men laughed. Then the laughter faded.

“We’ll never be one of them,” Banaya said quietly.

Ameen looked out the window. The painful thing was that he knew Banaya was right.

The women loved them.

The mothers hugged them.

The sisters adored them.

The children ran toward them whenever they visited.

But the fathers.

The uncles.

The men.

Those were the people whose approval remained just out of reach. After a long silence Banaya spoke again.

“The house.”

Ameen nodded.The old family house.The pride of the Kasha family.A building large enough to hold generations under one roof. A building nobody seemed capable of saving.

“If that house falls apart,” Banaya said, “a piece of the family dies.”

Ameen sat forward.

“What would you do if money wasn’t a problem?”

Banaya smiled.

Now they were speaking his language. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a notebook.

Within moments he was sketching.

“You see this section?”

He drew a large rectangle.

“The current dining room is too small.”

He expanded the drawing.

“Family gatherings should have space for a hundred people.”

“A hundred?”

“A hundred minimum.”

Ameen laughed.

“You’re building a palace.”

“No.”

Banaya smiled.

“I’m building a family home.”

He continued drawing.

“There would be a central courtyard here.”

His pen moved quickly.

“Children could play there.”

Another line.

“A large kitchen here.”

Another.

“Guest rooms.”

Another.

“Storage rooms.”

Another.

“A prayer room.”

Another.

“A basement.”

Ameen raised an eyebrow.

“A basement?”

Banaya nodded.

“The family has generations worth of belongings. Photographs. Documents. Furniture. History.”

His eyes lit up.

“We build a place where none of that gets lost.”

The more he spoke the more alive he became.

“There’ll be enough rooms for weddings.”

“Enough rooms for funerals.”

“Enough rooms for reunions.”

“Enough rooms for grandchildren who aren’t even born yet.”

For a moment Ameen simply watched his friend. The contractor was no longer sitting in a parked Audi. He was standing inside the house he imagined.

“And what about ownership?” Banaya asked.

“What happens after we’re gone?”

Ameen smiled.

Now it was his turn.

The lawyer sat upright.

“The house should never belong to one person.”

“Why?”

“Because one person can sell it.”

Banaya nodded.

Ameen took the notebook.

“We create a trust.”

He began drawing boxes and arrows.

“The property belongs to the trust.”

Another arrow.

“The trust belongs to the family.”

Another.

“No single individual can dispose of it.”

Banaya leaned closer.

Ameen continued.

“Future generations can use it.”

“They can live there.”

“They can celebrate there.”

“But nobody can destroy it because of a bad decision.”

The lawyer’s mind was moving quickly now.

“We create governance structures.”

“Rules.”

“Responsibilities.”

“Maintenance funds.”

“Succession procedures.”

Banaya laughed.

“You’re turning a house into a nation.”

Ameen grinned.

“Exactly.”

The two men sat there imagining a future neither owned. A future that would outlive them.

A future where children they would never meet would walk through hallways they had helped create.

The conversation drifted.

Soon they were discussing weddings in the courtyard. Family photographs on the walls. Future grandchildren running through corridors.

The fathers finally shaking their hands. The uncles speaking about them with respect.

The family finally saying: 

“These two men saved us.”

Neither realized that they had stopped talking about the house. What they were really discussing was acceptance.

Belonging.

Love.

A place inside the family.

Ameen suddenly laughed.

“I have an idea.”

Banaya looked at him.

“The money.”

“What about it?”

“Why leave it in a bank?”

The contractor stared at him. The lawyer stared back. Slowly. Very slowly. A ridiculous idea was born.

An idea that would occupy their minds for the next five years. An idea that would become beautiful.

The ideas was to bury some money for 5 years and dig it up in 2035. It thrilled the two gentlemen. They agreed to not tell a single soul, it would be their beautiful investment which will suprise the family

They both established they had a large amount of savings in their respective accounts which they will commit to this idea. They believed withdrawing this amount which they had and having it in cash is a good foundation to begin building the home. Additionally by the time the year comes for building the home - they would have accumulated additional funds. 

They agreed on this and decided on a location to bury the money and got it done by the end of the week

The buried money was only the vehicle carrying those dreams.

2035

Ameen and Banaya drove thirty minutes through the summer heat.

Today was the day.

Five years earlier they had planned this moment inside a black Audi parked outside a hospital.

Now they were finally here.

The sun blazed overhead. Not a single cloud could be seen.

Dressed in overalls and carrying shovels, they walked toward the place where they had buried their treasure.

Neither spoke.

Both were overwhelmed by the significance of the moment.

Excitement.

Nervousness.

Hope.

All of it lived inside them at once.

When they reached the spot, they stood silently for a moment.

Banaya smiled.

“Five years.”

Ameen laughed.

“Five years.”

They shook hands.

Then they began to dig.

The first shovel.

The second.

The third.

As the earth piled around them, their excitement grew.

“First thing we do is repair the west wing,” Banaya said.

Ameen nodded.

“And the courtyard.”

“The courtyard has to stay.”

They laughed.

“We’ll finally get those old men to respect us.”

Ameen grinned.

“They’ll have no choice.”

The hole grew deeper.

The conversation continued.

Family gatherings.

Future weddings.

Children.

Grandchildren.

The restored house.

The respect they had always wanted.

An hour passed.

Then another.

The laughter slowly disappeared.

Something was wrong.

The money wasn’t there.

They dug deeper.

Nothing.

Wider.

Nothing.

The hole became deeper than either of them had imagined.

Banaya stood chest-deep in earth.

Ameen sat on the edge of the pit.

Neither spoke.

Above them, the sky was perfectly clear.

The dream they had carried for five years had vanished.

Maybe a mining operation had disturbed the land.

Maybe somebody had found it.

Maybe the rain had washed it away.

Who knows?

Neither man would ever find out.

The hole remained.

The sky remained.

The silence remained.

And somewhere between that Audi in 2030 and this empty hole in 2035, the beautiful thing had never been the money at all.

It had been the dream.