Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Darius

January 15th, 2026. United States

The house sounded different at night when Noura wasn’t in it.

Not quieter. Just uneven, like a song missing a familiar instrument.

Darius stood in the kitchen doorway with Yusuf tucked against his chest, the baby’s weight warm and familiar, his breathing a small, steady engine that rose and fell against Darius’s ribs. He had learned the exact pressure needed to keep Yusuf asleep, the subtle rock that fooled the body into thinking it was still held by the world itself.

The dishwasher hummed too loud, a mechanical insistence that grated against the otherwise soft chaos of the house. The hallway light flickered the way it always did when you forgot to replace the bulb, brightening and dimming like it was undecided about being useful. Somewhere in the living room, Malik and Samir were negotiating a conflict that involved a blanket, a couch cushion, and an accusation of cheating serious enough to sound like it might require intervention.

“Daddy,” Layla called from the dining table, pencil in hand, homework spread in uneven piles. Her voice already carried the weight of someone who had been tired since lunchtime. “Malik says the rule doesn’t count if it’s pretend.”

Darius closed his eyes for half a second, just long enough to feel the day catch up to him.

“It counts,” he said. “Pretend rules still count. Especially pretend rules.”

“That’s not fair,” Malik shouted from behind the couch.

“That’s life,” Darius said automatically, then winced and corrected himself. “Okay. That’s… how things work sometimes. Come here. Both of you.”

They shuffled over. Samir dragged the blanket behind him like a defeated flag, his lip already trembling in preparation for disappointment. Darius crouched carefully, knees popping in a way they hadn’t used to, making sure Yusuf stayed asleep.

“Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low and steady. “Rules are how we keep things from turning into yelling. When you don’t like the rule, you talk. You don’t grab.”

Malik crossed his arms, defiant but listening. Samir stared at the floor like it had personally betrayed him.

“Say it,” Darius prompted.

Samir mumbled, “We talk.”

“Louder.”

“We talk,” Samir repeated, voice cracking just a little.

Malik sighed, dramatic, shoulders slumping like a man wronged by history. “We talk.”

“Good,” Darius said. “Now go fix it.”

They did, sort of. Which was close enough for tonight.

Layla watched the whole exchange the way Noura watched meetings on the news, attentive and quietly judgmental. “Daddy,” she said, “you sound like Mama when you do that.”

Darius smiled despite himself. “High praise.”

He shifted Yusuf, who made a small protesting sound, a kittenish complaint, and then settled again. The baby smelled like milk and clean laundry and something sweet he couldn’t name, a scent that felt more permanent than anything else in his life.

Noura had left an hour earlier, kissed his cheek, reminded him where the extra diapers were, and warned him not to forget Malik’s inhaler.

“Text me if anything,” she’d said, already halfway out the door.

“I always do,” he’d replied.

Now, between referee duties and bottle schedules, Darius leaned against the counter and pulled out his phone. He did it the way people did things they didn’t want to think too hard about.

The banking app loaded slower than it used to.

He waited. Watched the little circle spin.

He scrolled.

Rent. Utilities. Credit card. Insurance.

He frowned.

The car payment had gone up again. Not by much. Enough to notice. Enough to make the number feel heavier than it had yesterday. Noura’s insurance premium had quietly adjusted itself upward, the way numbers did when they assumed you wouldn’t argue or wouldn’t have the time.

He tapped into the details, then out again. Did the math in his head automatically. What could move. What couldn’t. What would have to wait until next month, or the month after that.

Groceries were more expensive too. Gas, even with his commute mostly behaving lately. Everything nudged just enough to make planning feel like guesswork.

From the living room came a sudden thud, followed by silence.

“Everyone alive?” he called.

“Yes,” Layla said. “But Samir is sad.”

“Why is Samir sad?”

“Because Malik won.”

“That’s not a reason,” Darius said.

“It feels like one,” Malik replied, unapologetic.

Darius laughed under his breath, tired and fond, the kind of laugh that only showed up when exhaustion and love occupied the same space.

He locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. The numbers would still be there later. The increases. The quiet warnings dressed up as normal life.

He walked back into the living room and sat on the floor, Yusuf still asleep against his chest, letting the kids climb over him like gravity didn’t apply. Malik used him as a backrest. Samir leaned in close, thumb brushing the baby’s sock with reverence. Layla corrected Malik’s word choice without looking up from her work.

Outside, somewhere far beyond Plainfield, systems were tightening. Prices were shifting. Decisions were being delayed and framed as prudence.

Inside, a four-year-old was explaining why fairness was subjective, a six-year-old was correcting grammar with alarming confidence, and a newborn slept through all of it.

Darius leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes for a moment, holding the weight of both worlds at once.

By midmorning, the United Nations felt like a building holding its breath.

Darius noticed it before anyone said anything out loud. Not panic. Not urgency. Just a faint stiffness in how people moved through the corridors, like the air itself had thickened a degree. Shoes sounded sharper on the floors. Laughter ended a second earlier than usual, cut short by instinct rather than intention. Doors closed more carefully, hands lingering on handles as if weighing whether they might need to open them again soon.

He was at his desk, headset on, translating a packet of prepared remarks that had already been revised three times since dawn. The language was clean. Optimistic. Designed to soothe.

It was full of verbs that implied motion without direction.

“Framework.”
“Pathway.”
“Commitment to continued dialogue.”

Words that promised activity while avoiding consequence.

Darius rendered it faithfully anyway, tone neutral, pacing steady. That was the job. He did not editorialize. He did not flinch. He translated optimism the same way he translated warnings.

Marianne appeared at his door without knocking.

She didn’t look rushed. Her coat was still neat. Her hair was still perfect. That was how Darius knew something was off. Panic announced itself. This was something else.

“Come with me,” she said.

He slid the headset down around his neck. “Now?”

Marianne nodded once. “Now is the only time anyone has.”

They moved quickly down the hallway, passing clusters of aides and junior staff who were pretending not to notice how often their supervisors were checking their phones. The walls were lined with photographs of treaties signed and hands shaken, frozen moments of agreement that felt heavier today than usual.

They stopped outside one of the larger conference suites, the kind reserved for days when everyone pretended history was cooperative. Staff were setting out glasses and small plates with the precision of people who had done this too many times to believe the ritual itself mattered.

“This isn’t the meeting,” Marianne said quietly, leaning in just enough to make it private. “It’s the warm-up.”

Darius raised an eyebrow.

“Cocktail diplomacy,” she continued. “People say things when they think nothing important is happening.”

She studied his face for a beat, then softened. “You’ve been doing good work. I want faces to match the voice.”

He felt a brief, unwelcome flicker of pride, followed immediately by caution. Visibility was never neutral in this building.

Inside, the room buzzed with low conversation. Not loud enough to carry. Not quiet enough to ignore. Flags lined the walls like polite witnesses, their colors bright against the muted tones of suits and dresses. Darius took a glass he had no intention of drinking from and followed Marianne through small clusters of smiles and introductions.

Names blurred together, then reappeared, then blurred again.

Darius made a point of repeating each one back as it was offered. Ambassador. Deputy Minister. Attaché. He caught the rhythm of syllables, the weight of vowels, filed them away alongside flags and accents. Ten minutes later, half of them were already gone, replaced by impressions instead: a laugh that came too late, a grip that lingered, a smile that never reached the eyes.

A European delegate complimented his pronunciation, switching languages mid-sentence like it was a parlor trick. “How long did you live abroad?”

“Never,” Darius said. “Just studied.”

The man’s eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s impressive,” the delegate said, clearly meaning something else now. He introduced Darius to someone new without asking.

A representative from Southeast Asia asked about New Jersey, about schools, about commute times, as if triangulating a life. When Darius mentioned the kids, the man nodded slowly.

“Stability,” he said, tasting the word.

“Yes,” Darius replied, thinking of bedtime routines and auto-payments. “It helps.”

Someone else joined them, then another. Compliments came sideways. Your work ethic. Your ear. You’re very reliable. Each one landed gently and stuck, even as the names slid away again.

The conversations stayed safely aloft. Weather patterns discussed like shared inconveniences. Delayed flights framed as character tests. Renovations to buildings no one in the room had ever visited but all pretended to care about. Someone joked about how many acronyms the UN could generate before lunch, and the laughter was loud enough to sound convincing.

No one mentioned politics 

No one mentioned their jobs.

But above all, no one mentioned the fact that several phones kept lighting up, briefly, then disappearing back into pockets like misbehaving children.

When the conference convened, the room shifted into seriousness the way a stage did when the lights came up. Seats were taken. Microphones tested. Translation booths hummed to life, glass walls glowing softly.

The agenda was modest by design. A discussion on humanitarian corridors. Updates on negotiations related to Ukraine. Carefully balanced language that suggested progress without committing to outcomes.

Darius translated in real time, voice steady, hands relaxed on the console. He had done this often enough that the cadence carried him. Listen. Render. Release. Sentence by sentence, he turned intention into sound.

Halfway through, he noticed the first change.

A delegate stopped taking notes.

Then another glanced down, thumb moving in a way that had nothing to do with translation devices.

A ripple passed through the room, subtle but unmistakable. Screens glowed beneath tables. Brows furrowed. Someone whispered something that did not go through a microphone.

Darius kept translating.

At the front of the room, a chair scraped softly against the floor as someone stood, then sat again, uncertain, as if waiting for permission from reality itself.

The speaker faltered. Cleared their throat. Repeated a sentence that no longer seemed to apply.

A phone buzzed against the desk near Darius’s elbow. He didn’t look at it.

Then another.

The chairperson paused, hand lifted in a gesture that asked for patience while offering none. “We’ll take a brief recess,” she said, voice composed but tight.

The room exhaled into noise.

Darius finally checked his phone.

The headline was short.

"US Stock Market Hitting Records Lows."

Below it, numbers moved in red that made his stomach drop. Not a correction. Not a wobble. A fall. Percentages updating faster than he could track them, like the ground giving way in increments.

Around him, the room dissolved into motion. Delegates stood. Calls were answered mid-sentence. Smiles vanished without apology. Conversations fractured into urgency.

Marianne appeared beside him, face pale but composed, eyes already calculating three steps ahead. “Get ready,” she said.

“For what?” Darius asked.

“For anything,” she replied.

Darius looked at the screen again, then locked his phone and slid it into his pocket.

Outside the conference room, the building had lost its careful calm. Voices overlapped. Elevators chimed too often. Staff moved with purpose that no longer pretended to be routine.

Darius adjusted his headset, hands steady despite the sudden awareness of how many lives were balanced on numbers he could not see.

Somewhere across the city, money was vanishing.

The only thought Darius could wonder was,

"Please Allah not another depression..."