Faqra Ruins Passion

غرام آثار فقرا

The temples at Faqra don't care who visits.

Roman, Adonis, forgotten gods—they've watched everyone worship something. I photograph what remains.

Then the rockstar hides among them.

I'm Yara.

Forty-nine, photographer obsessed with ruins, body built by too much sitting and too much thinking. The temples know me.

Sami Hamza was famous twenty years ago.

"You're trespassing."

"So are you."

"I have permits." I raise my camera. "You have—"

"A need for silence." He sits on a fallen column. "Please don't photograph me."

His voice I recognize—those ballads my generation cried to. His face is older, worn, still magnetic.

"Why Faqra?"

"Because no one comes here."

"I come here."

"Then I found the right hiding place."

He's fifty-four.

Fame that peaked, addiction that followed, survival that followed that. Now he's here, seeking something beyond stages.

"What are you running from?"

"Myself. The version everyone expects."

"And who are you really?"

"I don't know anymore."

I show him the temples.

Not as tourist sites—as what they are. Places where people sought meaning, found it, lost it.

"Same as concert halls," he observes.

"Except these lasted."

"Thanks for that."

We meet at dawn for weeks.

He talks, I listen. He sings sometimes—quietly, for the stones. I photograph—discreetly, for myself.

"Why did you stop performing?"

"Because I forgot why I started."

"And have you remembered?"

"Here? Maybe. With you? Definitely."

The kiss happens at the Adonis shrine.

Where ancient Lebanese worshipped beauty and death. His mouth on mine is surprising, inevitable.

"Yara—"

"Don't sing about this."

"Some things aren't for lyrics."

We make love among temples.

On cloth I use for equipment, surrounded by gods who've seen everything. He undresses me like unveiling art.

"Mashallah." His voice catches—that famous voice. "Inti ilahti el jdidi."

"Your new goddess?"

"The only one worth worshipping."

He worships me thoroughly.

Mouth on my neck, my breasts, the softness fame would have judged. But here there's no fame—just us.

"Sami—"

"Tell me what you need."

"You. Not the star. You."

His tongue between my thighs.

I gasp at Roman columns, at Adonis's altar. Pleasure building like ancient hymns.

"Ya Allah—"

"Sing for me," he murmurs. "Your song."

When he enters me, I understand worship.

We move together among forgotten gods, creating our own ritual.

"Aktar—"

"Aiwa—"

The climax is a concert.

We cry out together—audience of empty temples, applause of wind through ruins.

Two years later

Sami returns to music.

Smaller venues, acoustic, honest. I photograph every show, every ruin he plays.

"Worth hiding?" I ask.

"I found something real." He pulls me close. "Everything else is just noise now."

Alhamdulillah.

For ruins that shelter.

For musicians who rediscover.

For photographers who see past fame.

The End.