Chapter 9

There was a time once, when my father used to volunteer at the mosque. My family members were regulars at the dome shaped building located just a short drive away, near a corner store that sold halal meat and marshmallows. Sometimes we would walk back home, chewing soft candy and sipping sodas, and my dad would tell me about his duties at the mosque.

When we would arrive home, the fading sunlight painted our walls with eerie orange colours, as the sun sunk under the clouds. The neighbourhood was silent and still, and the sunset would wave us goodbye as we entered the house, the inside darkening by the minute. My mom would switch on all the lights, while Salma and I threw marshmallows at each other.

It was good. Life used to be good.

This is what I was thinking about, leaning my head back on my couch as I stared at the T.V all day. There is some reality show flickering on the flat screen, but I saw through it, my mind elsewhere. I remember back to the days before my education became such a huge concern to my father, before he would become upset and violent if I didn't bring home good grades, before my mother's forehead had not been creased with stress and worry over unpaid bills.

What happened to those days? The sun still rose and sunk, just as it did then. The light that flitted across the living room, washing the wall bright red and orange was still the same light that shone back then. It felt like yesterday; when we'd come home with marshmallows, filling the empty house with our laughter. Tears escaped my eyes.

I didn't want to go to school and face my peers. I didn't want to visit my father in the hospital. I didn't want to see my mother come home tired and exhausted from work. I didn't want to see my sister throw away a life that we'd always believed in. What was the point of living, if I didn't want to?

My father would have told me to pray, if he were here. And the thought occurred to me, as my thoughts build up and tower over my head. I wanted to desperately shake off the worry and hopelessness, so I got up and before I knew it I was heading towards the door. I found myself walking down the driveway, towards a familiar corner store. I turn and the light blue mosque appeared before me.

The truth was that I had not prayed ever since my father had fallen into a coma. My mother had become busy with work, my father's absence meant no more reminders to pray or read the Quran. Slowly, religion began escaping my thoughts and then, my life. I stood before the blue mosque, bathed in the evening light. A small cluster of people caught my attention, at the entrance of the mosque. My eyes followed them as they carried a coffin into an ink black funeral car. I stood there, entranced by the scene before me.

"Papa said they are going to the graveyard." A small voice made me jump.

I turned to see a small girl, with dark brown hair and large hazel eyes. She was dressed in a white, frilly dress and looked about six years old. Her small hand reached up to push her stray hair out of her face as her eyes followed the funeral car which had begun to back out of the mosque's parking lot. I finally registered her words.

"Oh, I see." Is all I had to say.

She turned her hazel eyes to me. "She is not coming back, papa said."

"Oh." My heart lurched.

"She's up there." The girl pointed at the sky.

I looked up at the darkening sky.

"But, it's okay, papa said." The girl's voice cracked. "One day I'll visit her."

Fat tears rolled down her face and I was too stunned to move. I watch a tiny, pained smile creep on her face, like she is trying to be strong. I felt defeated by this small child who had lost her mother and smiled through her tears because her papa had told her that she too, would have to die one day to visit her.

On the walk back home, my eyes trailed up to the sky where surely Allah was looking down at his creations. He had taken a little girl's mother today and now only death separated her from her parent. It reminded me that here we were, tiny little ants compared to God, waiting to die one day as everyone around us vanished off the face of the earth. There were still some clouds left in the sky, and I saw the outline of a small face. A curve of a cheek. A protruding nose. It is faced away from me, towards the red, pink, orange sunset. I blinked and the clouds shifted. The mouth has opened as if the small child in the sky was laughing.

- - -

When my mother arrived home, I was back on the couch, staring at the TV again. The door opened and my head snapped towards the sound, feeling groggy as if I had been awoken from a deep slumber. I should probably have been doing my homework or something but I am too unmotivated to move. Salma had been in her room all day and I had been listening to her talking to her friends or play music after I'd come back from the mosque. It was silent now, and I realised that she had probably fallen asleep. My mom took one look at me as she glanced into the living room and raised a brow.

"Salaam, habibi." She greeted. "What's wrong?"

She looked tired and I thought about her job, about her standing at a till all day and stocking shelves and putting up with ungrateful, rude customers. I wondered how she could stand it, how she was able to get up each day and spend ten hours and sometimes more, doing the same thing over and over and over again just so her children had a roof to sleep under.

"How do you know something is wrong?" I asked, my voice cracking in disuse. 

"Because you never watch T.V this late, Abdullah." She said simply.

I pondered over this and of course she was right; I was picky about sleep and never went to bed past 11 pm because I wanted to be up early the next day. I hated feeling sleep deprived. I hated a messy sleep schedule and always tried to fix my routine so that'd it would get me through the day without feeling like I had to pump myself up with three cups of coffee just to stay awake. I glanced at the clock and saw that it is well past one and I sat up, blinking in shock.

"Oh." I said, dumbly and turned to my mom who was looking at me expectantly. "I guess I had a bad day, that's why."

"What happened?"

So I told her. About Ian and Cody and the non existent bomb in my locker. She listened to me, eyebrows drawing closer together as each word rushed out of my mouth and I realised too late, that this was all going to be piled up on the tower of Things I Have No Say Over and the only thing I had accomplished was making my mother even more stressed out.

She doesn't say anything when I finished and her shoulders were slumped into a familiar posture that I saw more and more frequently everyday. She doesn't know what to do about my problems and she could see an outcome; could recognise that my reputation would be affected and then word would spread to the other parents and people would come up to her to tell her to get her terrorist of a son under control and I could see these scenes playing themselves out in her eyes.

"Oh, habibi." She sighed. "Trust in Allah. He will get you through this. He will get us through this."

I nodded but inside I felt as if I was sinking. Her words were like a last minute effort to hold on and I wondered: is that what we were doing? Holding on? When had it turned out like this, when had everything slipped out of our grasp, when had we started being satisfied with only getting by, with only holding on? When had we stopped trying to thrive, and settled with just survival?

She patted my knee and I refrained from pushing her hand off and telling her that Allah wasn't going to help me because half of me didn't want my father to wake up ever again. Allah wouldn't help someone like that. I was a horrible person for even thinking it so the words never left my lips because they were terrible and wrong and I felt ashamed for feeling that way.

"Keep praying." My mother whispered. "Don't give up praying."

I didn't tell her that I already had. I didn't tell her that the last time I payed, my dad was still up and walking and ever since we saw his comatose body on a hospital bed, I haven't stepped on a prayer mat. I didn't tell her that I felt like Allah was punishing me with feeling torn between wanting my father alive so everything would be better than it was now and wanting him to just pass away so he would never touch me again, never impose his perfectionist ideals on me and force me to spend countless hours a day on education because education was my future and if my future wasn't perfect than he would be disappointed in me.

I thought of the gleaming coffin today as people carried it to the funeral vehicle. My mother gave me a hopeful smile that doesn't reach me and left and I stared at the place she was standing. I thought of the small girl with large eyes full of tears and I wondered what it would be like to die, to be deep under the ground, six feet under all the stress, the worry, the disappointment.  

________________________________________

Well that was depressing and short and mostly a filler because the next two or three chapters are just a boatload of depression and angst and I'm very sorry. I realise that this book has really heavy themes and it is not designed to depress you at all, so if you agree with Abdullah or find yourself thinking "hey, I would rather die than live" than please know that you are so loved and we would miss you so much and please! talk to someone because we are so willing to help you!

Death is not a solution. 

On a lighter note, the child in the clouds was laughing because she got to see her mother again and I think that's a great way to remind ourselves that Allah looks after us, He really does and He never takes anything away without replacing it with something better and what is better than looking forward to meeting all our loved ones in Jannah? :D