AGADEZ, NIGER.
SUNDAY, 10TH OCTOBER 2000.

Walking down the red sands of Agadez is Maisara, leisurely ambling around with a smile that has always been present in her face since younger age.

She has always been a happy person but that escalated after her marriage with the love of her life, her husband and the father to the baby inside her womb, Yusuf.

The man that sacrificed multitudes just to be with her in her birth home. Which is something that is frowned upon in their culture but he didn't care.

Many men wouldn't have done what he did to be with her and for that, she's always grateful for having him in her life. Her best friend and soulmate.

"Ah, why are you walking all alone today, Maisara? Where's your husband?" Jabeen stopped her on her way.

Janeen is an old woman known all around Agadez as the most nosy woman in the whole city. She stopped Maisara from her journey back home. Everyone can't stand her but she didn't care because she is in a good mood.

Her smile widened instead, almost startling the older woman. She should know though. Maisara is a happy lady right from when she was born.

"Yusuf is busy in the farm today, rainy season and all. Why are you here around our side, Jabeen? Heard you were in Cameroon a few days ago. When did you come back?" Maisara questioned with a tilt of her head.

Jabeen, excited that the news of her leaving the country reached every crevice of the Agadez –she made sure of that– beamed admonishing all she's told her about her busy husband like she wasn't the one that just asked.

You hardly find anyone leaving the country because they all have nothing and no one to go to anywhere else. They enjoy staying in the confines of Niger not bothering to look for an aperture.

"I came back yesterday. I brought souvenirs for Dujanah. You know how she likes begging, I had to buy it and take it to her. I'm just on my way back home." Jabeen sighed, her wrinkly hands moving to cup her face in that exaggerated manner everyone knows about. You should never ask Jabeen of something, she'd tell the whole society before it reaches you.

"Well, be safe then. I should get home before it gets late now." With that, Maisara yawed around and stalk down the long path that leads to her home where she lives with her parents, siblings and husband.

While walking, she bounced in sheer felicity that her twenty-three-year-old self cannot contain. There is no one there with her in the streets so she did all she wanted -excited bounce- as though she wasn't nine months pregnant. She does not feel the heaviness of her body and only feels discomfort when she is trying to lie down in the bed. It is not the same as when you have nothing inside you.

She sighted her husband waving ferociously at her, holding his bicycle with one hand while waiting for her to reach him. Another blinding and gleaming beam took over her face as she fastened her pace a little too enthusiastically only to look at Yusuf's horrified expression as he continues to stare at something behind her.

But it was too late for her to find out what got him so frightened because she felt herself flying in the air then to the side of the road where mud and grass manage to befriend one another.

Her eyes slowly opened, fear gnawing at her visceral, leaving her catatonic. Her heartbeat raced to the point of pain, limbs shook like leaf.

Yusuf threw away his bicycle at the sidewalk and ran all the way to where she is on the ground. She tried leaving her eyes  open but couldn't. She felt so weak and tired as if she's been working all day when she did nothing but roam around the neighborhood to keep herself sane. Being at home was tedious, she had to leave to walk around and see how the society is moving but she regretted the mere idea now.

"We are so sorry." An elderly man apologized looking chastised. "Let's take you two home please."

"Why were you driving so roughly? Can't you see there are no cars here and we are used to going everywhere and anywhere without being too cautious? Didn't you see her there?" Yusuf screamed while breathing harshly through his mouth. The fear is palpable all around him.

Carrying Maisara in his arms, he got into the car with the rest of the family. The car is an SUV with so many kids inside that he didn't bother looking at. His attention is fully on his wife who's now unconscious.

The people inside the car were quiet the whole time listening to him direct them to their home while ranting about how irresponsible they were. The geriatrics knew they were at fault there so none of them dared to speak back though they got tired of the villager's rants at some point, they just shut him out of their heads and focus on matters at hand. Praying and hoping the woman will survive and her baby too.

Or they are in for one hell of a trip.

Arriving at a mud-brick house, they all filed inside to find a huge veranda and many doors by the end of the building indicating rooms for each person in the house. There are many of them, almost twenty adults and ten children present at the moment. That is not where they focused on though, their attention is on the woman wheeled inside one of the rooms and hysterics coming in cacophony to their ears. It is hard to focus on one person when they are that raucous.

"What happened to her?"

"Why is she unconscious now? Got into an accident?"

"She is limp and looks dilated. Get a midwife right now, Harisu!"

"Clear the room and get hand fans!"

They are all talking in rapid Niger-French, making it hard for them to know what they are talking about. They are Nigerians. They understand English, Arabic and Hausa not some language they never bothered learning. They all stood nonplussed in the middle of the wide veranda, staring at all the people in the house going into hysterics. None of them bother paying attention to them though they stood out amidst the traditional outfits they are wearing -white clothes embroidered with red and blue.

One of the boys amongst the foreigners tugged at his elder sister's skirt to get her attention, she looked down at his with questioning eyes. "What is going on?" His eyes wide with innocence, he whispered and bit his lips guiltily when all the adults yaw their attention to him. He thought he was quiet!

"Nothing, don't worry." The sister reassured, caressing his head before standing back to her full height to keep watching.

Few minutes later, a woman walked in flouncing her blue bag beside her as they guide her to the room the pregnant woman was taken to. Excruciating moans and groans reverberated in their ears few minutes later. The people working in autopilot around the house all seized their movements and stood dormant where they are to pray for her safe delivery.

How could they be so interested in a woman's moan of pain? The Nigerians wondered in their heads.

"She is in pain." One of the boys from the car cried, tugging the other sister's skirt to get her attention. Down below at just eight years old, he looks frightened and out of his wits and about to run the other direction.

The other sister sighed before folding her length to him with a smile filled with comfort and balm. "She is bringing out the baby inside of her, it will be over very soon. Don't worry. Close your ears."

But, he was worried. His eyes stayed on the door the woman is in, trying to find a way to get in there and see what is going on. There are three people outside the room waiting but the aperture to the door is blank. Mind made as a stark, he terminated the lethargy weighing him down and ran to the room, bursting through the doors before anyone could react. Everyone just stared, mouth agape at the direction the little kid just bursted through.

That was when the attention got manuevered to the people from the car, the Nigerians. That kid had to be with them because none of their own is inside the house, they sent them all away not to listen to such painful grunts. Their brows scrunched, face distorted to a look of confusion as if waiting for them to start ranting why and what they were doing there with them. None of them did, they were quiet as statuses.

They don't want to admit to their mistake without the woman's husband talking, they won't know what will happen to them after. They might just burn them down or do something close to that. The woman's husband looks to be normal and does not wear the type of traditional clothes they do. So, chances of them leaving because of him are greater. Hence, they sealed their lips with tight seal tape and waited with bated breath.

More groans came from the room, taking the attention off of them back to the room and they suspire. But why did that kid rush inside like that? They could just run away had he not entered inside, they must wait for him now! The father censured the kid sourly.

The kid that went into the room stood at the door watching, trying to gauge out where he could go to help them. The wen were to busy to notice him inside with them.

He slipped to the mattress behind where the woman's face is. Another woman is wiping away hidrosis from her forehead but stopped to watch how she is giving birth behind a clothing they use as curtain. He snatched the peacock clothe from her, dip it into the frigid water and press it on the woman's face to wipe her sweat. She smiled unconsciously at him which he returned with a wider and happier one, more encouraged and happy to help.

She stopped groaning when he continued doing that. The eight-year-old will dip the water, clean her forehead, cheeks and neck off perspiration. He enjoyed doing the work for an hour more while kissing her forehead once in awhile before the sound of a baby's loud wail fill the room and chorus of congratulations took over. He cleaned her face one more time, patted her forehead in a good job before getting off the mattress to go see who their new visitor is.

In fit of merriment, he was allowed to hold the baby in his arms and even went ahead to show the mother of the baby, Maisara, her child. She sat up albeit slothful, took the daughter from his arms and smiled down at her while looking at him. It widened when she found him touching her forehead, down to the curve of her lips where a beauty mark is.

He looks intrigued by it, the small dot there is making him question why he doesn't have one. She looks cute with it. He'd love to have one too.

"Noor." He whispered, grinning widely because it made absolute sense to him.

She is so fair in complexion, smooth skin tinged with red and radiates so much light that the only word that came to his head was Noor. That was the word they were thought few days ago in Islamic school and now he got where he should place it. She is Noor, she is light, she is divine, she is beauty.

"Mahnoor." Maisara answered as if he questioned her. She had to name her that because he is right about the Noor part but she had to add the Mah since she promised Yusuf to name her with something that starts with M just like her name.

*_*

Inside the house stood a man with shocking gray hair and beard watching everything happen in front of him. Maisara just gave birth and the baby is now outside for everyone to see before they return her inside to her mother but that is not what had him intrigued. It was the little boy following anyone that holds the baby that he wants to identify. Clearly, they were the ones that hit Maisara with their car.

And he gasped when a picture clicked in his head, it was just a flash but enough for him to grasp it. He blinked, playing with his white beard and looking deeper into what he just saw.

He hates why he always gets a glimpse of future sometimes; it rocks his life in the grumpiest way. He is old, he just wants to die in peace but people say it is a blessing in disguise. He's stopped telling people about the flashes he sees about them. He doesn't want them to think of him as some wizard or sorcerer and then shirk will bloom in their society. He cannot afford that happening at all, he keeps quiet.

The flash he's seen right now is of Mahnoor's future that will be more tangled than anything he had ever seen. He won't be alive then to see her going through that, which is fortunate for him. He can't afford to see such pain in anyone's life, especially not his great great granddaughter. It is entailed in so many red flags raising the pains she will have to go through to get to where she is supposed to be.

He didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel though, it was all red and blank. He's never seen anyone's future like that, they always have frosts here and there to identify the times they will be happy.

What he detested more is the fact the most of the things he's seen is really happening in reality. He knew Maisara will be hit by a car that will push her into giving birth when her time hasn't reached but after she got pass through all those months and landed in the ninth one, he thought it was not going to happen but look at them now.

That is why few years later, he called Maisara and told her what she should do that might help Mahnoor in future but not leaving much ambiguity as to how that is going to aid.