Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem.

A warm hand caressed her baby hair to fall back behind her ear, the tender fingers soothing her skin, unintentionally causing a tinkling sensation to kiss her spine. The chilly breeze of the midnight air stroked her hair as she inhaled the scent of the only man who had all rights over her, his presence igniting sparks, giving life to the sleeping desire in her.

She opened her eyes to see him wide awake as if he wasn't sleepy or even a speck tired. His greenish-grey jewels were shining, a star-ish glow sparkling inside them as they were cast on her. Dimples adorned both his cheeks as she smiled with him, her hands flying to touch them. His beard prickled her palm most beautifully and she was lost in his beauty.

"You didn't sleep?"

He shook his head ever so slightly. 

"Why?"

"I don't feel like sleeping, not after what happened."

A glorious blush colored her cheeks, his fingers had moved down to her bare shoulders, drawing circles on the back of her shoulder-line. She moved to hug him close, burying her chest-deep into his chest, his heartbeats laughed at her shy creed making him chuckle for real, planting kisses on her hair. 

"Someone's shy. Shy even after being a doctor, a gynecologist at that one."

She cackled, not looking up. Aashiq's fingers searched for her hand and caught ahold of it, he took them ahead and planted yet another kiss on the back of her hand, making her lips twitch even more.

The night seemed young like the time had frozen with the mighty love of these two lovers. 

"What is the time now?" Jesima pulled the blanket and held it over her chest as she searched for Aashiq's watch and she found it lying beside their temporary mattress.  She was surprised to see the clock showing the time as half-past three.

"You should sleep, there is still time for fajr."

"I don't want to."

"What do you want then?"

Aashiq pursed his lips, going into a small thinking session in his head. "Let's play a game."

Jesima furrowed her eyebrows as he sat, leaning on him. "What game?"

"Asking questions like those mentioned in slam books."

"Okay!" She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, "You start."

Aashiq nodded, holding her hand. "Your happiest moment?"

It didn't take her long, not even a second. "This." She smiled wide, locking her gaze with him. "My turn." She held his hand, "Yours?"

"Every second that I spent with you."

She pressed his palm with glee. "Who do you love the most?"

"You."

"Who do you love the most?"

"Do you have any doubts? Of course, Aashiq ko uski Aashiqui par hi zyaada muhabbat hogi, aur woh ho tum."

Contentment was what they both felt, feeling it as their mutual feeling. The game started to continue until she felt Aashiq's legs grow cold. "Aashiq, it's getting foggy out here, it's better to go inside before you catch a cold."

Soon enough, they both retrieved themselves back to the comfort of their room. Took a ghusl to not miss fajr, and prayed the prayer with each other's company. Jesima was doing her tasbih when Aashiq stood up, went to his drawer, and came with a small envelope.

She was surprised when he pushed it towards her. Gripping the fabric of thick paper, she asked, "What is it?"

"A small gift for you." He quickly added when he saw her trying to open it, "You should not read now. Later, Okay?"

She wanted to ask what the later was but didn't feel like it. A small tremor nestled her heart. His face was too radiant to be true. 

Jesima then helped Aashiq to sit on the bed, she pulled the comforter over him, and excused herself from him saying she needed to dry her hair. She went upstairs to her room where most of her belongings were still available. When she returned after blow-drying her hair, she found Aashiq leaning on their headboard, reclining with headphones on his ears. 

"What are you listening to?" She asked, getting inside the bed and leaning her head on his shoulder.

"An old song."

She hummed in reply, going reluctantly quiet, an uncomfortable silence wrapped the air that made Aashiq place his phone on the nightstand. "Is something bothering you?"

"Yeah. I don't like you listening to songs, just because they contain good lyrics and end up committing huge sins. Music is haraam, Aashiq."

Aashiq grasped her fingers under the blanket and pulled out. " I know. Sometimes, the lyrics are quite intriguing. Fitting with our life, our feelings and they are soothing to hear."

Jesima nodded in understanding. "Give me your phone". Aashiq obliged, handing the device from the nightstand. She opened the the app which has the Quran and went to a particular verse,

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said:

"Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah? Then will you not be reminded?"

(QS. Al-Jaathiya 45: Verse 23)

"No matter how tempting the wine looks, it still is haraam.  No matter how heart warming the song is, it still is haraam. Beware, when anything is haraam, Aashiq, because no matter how soothing it makes you feel, it will only push you to the hellfire

"These lines though how relatable they appear, at the end, they are all deceiving. Like we never can heal from a heartbreak, as if we can love a person more than God, it's so wrong. With Allah, with His words, you can attain peace. Even if you feel these lyrics calming your soul, they would do no other healing than to addict you more. You would not feel the pain vanish but only the craving to listen more. They are tempting us to dig our own graves. It is better to stay away."

Aashiq listened to her in silence. Jesima looked up, meeting his gaze, she pleaded, "Promise me, promise me that you will leave this habit of yours. It is not doing you any good, Jaan."

" I promise." He pressed her fingers. "Ya Allah, please forgive me for crossing haraam territories, for seeking my solace in something other than you. Ya Ghafoor, the One who likes to forgive, please forgive this ardent act of mine. Bless me and my family with your Rahma and aid," he spoke to his Rabb, aloud and clear.

Jesima kissed his cheeks with adoration. They then laid there in peaceful silence. Calm and soothing. 

The morning started to unfold, sun rays peeled through the gaps between the curtains, birds chirped Allah's blessings, and a whole new day was about to unfold.

All of a sudden, in her frenzy state of peace, Jesima felt wetness in Aashiq's palm that held her hand, she glanced up to look at his face, his lips were dry and parched, and crimson fluid was gushing out of his nose. His eyes blinking in and out of consciousness.

At once, she was tensed. "Aashiq, do you want some water?" He nodded slowly, while Jesima wiped the blood with the end of her sleeve. "I will be quick," she assured him when she didn't find water in the container that stood on the table nearby their bed.

Jesima's steps were fast and quick as she made her way to the kitchen. There was a sense of urgency in her actions as she gripped the jug, poured water into it from the Brita filter container and dashed back to the bedroom holding the jug containing the water tightly so as to not  spill it's contents. 

Taking long strides, she marched towards the bedroom. Her footsteps grew heavy the nearer she approached the bedroom. There was an unsettling feeling bubbling in her stomach, making her feel like something was wrong. It was a mix of nausea and anxiety, as if she was missing or forgetting something. Was it the after effects of what she and Aashiq engaged in? Molding their bodies into one?

No of course. She was a doctor, she would know if such a phenomena existed. 

Dismissing the growing unease, she increased her pace, thinking how the usually quick journey from the bedroom to kitchen felt thousands of kilometers. 

She felt the unease skyrocket when she entered their massive bedroom. Despite the wide window at one corner, despite the sky high ceilings, the room was thick with tension and unease. Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong.

She looked towards Aashiq, the one who always calmed her down, extinguishing even the biggest flames inside her. But as her eyes laid on Aashiq, she felt the unease increase. He was laying his head, resting on the headboard, his long legs laid straight on the soft mattress. His eyes fixed on the side, the empty space beside their bed. Jesima slowly looked towards the side, the rich rug that laid on the white marble floor, their nightstand, a small table containing decorative flowers and that's all she could view from the sight but one look at Aashiq told her gut that he was seeing something beyond them.

"Aashiq?" She called him, pouring the water into a tumbler and handing towards him.

He met her eyes, the grey clouds clouding his green hope covered golden jewels seemed to scream a sorry. What was he sorry for?

He didn't drink much, only a small sip and she saw his adam's apple gulp down the few drops of water. He seemed like he wanted to say something but he didn't know how to word it. He again looked to his right, as if to convey to Jesima incoherently who has come and what was going to happen.

Her heart stopped, her body frozen with shock for a second. Jesima for the first time in her life was quick to understand, understand his incoherent, non-existent words.

"No"," she choked, her eyes blurred the view of his face.

She rapidly grabbed his left arm to herself, holding it tight, sobs were timely to erupt and she bit her bottom lip to quench them down. She laid her head on top of his chest, putting her leg on top of his. She held onto him like the anchor he was. In their relationship he had always been her beginning and end, where she started with her joy and where she returned once the world scorned her. She held onto him, hoping, praying that their heartbeats would align just once more. 

She then started pleading without even understanding what she was saying, "Malakul (Angel of death), please don't take him away, please don't. Please leave him, please, please, please."

Large, hot tears escaped her frenzied eyes and landed on Aashiq, raining on him with clouds of sorrow and despair. Aashiq caressed her hair with his other hand, soothingly for one last time, kissing the ocean waves, twice. His chest soon started to feel the wetness as he uttered the kalima. Jesima heard it all, her heart-breaking into immeasurable shards. It was like she was being torn apart bit by bit, like the discarded pages she would rip and throw in the trash at work. She felt each rip, each molecule tearing apart as he felt a strangeness crawl through his lower limbs. 

Ya Allah! It was happening. His legs started to feel light like they were slowly freezing out of life, going numb. Her hold on his arm grew tighter.

Her heart longed for one more second, one more moment with her beloved. But she knew it was impossible.

"I love you," she hurriedly whispered, her words muffled in between the quivering of her lips. Her heart was full and ready to burst, yet her body seemed to be draining of life. Her Aashiq, her heart was slipping out of her reach, starting a journey to a destination where she couldn’t along with him -- for now at least.

She didn't expect his reply, heck, she didn't think he could hear them in their muffled sobs, but he did. He replied, breaking her heart to die a death before him. "I love you more."

Then it happened, so fast as lightning, his arms grew rigid, and she heard. She heard his heart stop. She heard the thudding of his heart stop. She freaking heard it. The silence deafened her in a way she couldn't phrase in words. It muted her. Tears had no control over her eyes, they flowed like rivers, carrying the blood of her bleeding heart. 

Everything came to a standstill. Everything froze just like her beloved did. She slowly let go of his lifeless arm, sat straight, staring into nothing in particular. Her tired and drained body was in the bedroom that would now be hers and not their, her gaze staring into a void that had no end. 

How many nights had they spent in that bedroom, filling it with chuckles, layering it with a joy and love that made the room something much more, like a haven, like a special place for the both of them. But it had never been just the room, had it? It had been Aashiq and her, a combo, a pair that added the special ingredient. Without him, the bedroom wasn’t special anymore, it was just a room.

 She didn't have an ounce of strength to move, to cry, to bellow with pain. Poison seeped through her veins lethally. She closed her eyelids to extinguish the downpour of the saltwater. She wiped them begrudgingly. 

She sighed with grief as she straightened his limbs. She didn't know how but her own hands were working in autopilot, in a robotic way. Looking up to see his face was a mistake, for it shook her entire being to tremble. The face, the face that once belonged to the complexion of her most loved person in the face of this entire world, lacked the soul of his. His eyes cast up, dead in the direction of the path where his soul flew away. 

The gold was sprinkled on the green alleyway, outlining the iris with a grey border. The most precious jewel this earth had once held looked frozen. Her fragile fingers trembled as she moved them to touch his skin for one last time, to close his eyes for an eternity to come. She did that. Her reflection was horror-stricken, otherworldly, and she couldn't believe what she had done.

He is gone.

How could she possibly live now?

Her chest started to rise and fall, a sharp pain started to sting her heart, her brain fogged with numbness, she wanted to scream so loud that the noise should shake the earth, the pain was tremendous, overwhelming.

After a second, it grew so harsh that she wiped her non-stop tears, dared to look one more time at his face and she gasped, he was smiling, his last words that confessed how much he loved her, how much more that was from her love and that smile, that he adorned himself with when he confessed, marveled with luxurious dimples to forever etch on his cheeks, froze for the rest of his journey. 

She gasped for air, she shook her head in disbelief, her brain suddenly threw visions of the past her way; the accident in which a lady lost her son and her husband, the grief-stricken eyes clashed with hers. 

She couldn't take it, she looked at Aashiq again, who was immersed in a peaceful sleep that no one could wake him from ever again. She moved back in her bed without thinking and slipped in its softness. She fell to the ground, her elbows got blows from the sudden hit, she bellowed with immense pain.

Standing up, she vehemently opened their bedroom door, wiping her eyes off of the water. 

She silently screamed in her head that she couldn't take this in. No. She can never have the strength to take this in.

Her Aashiq.

Her Aashiq.

He was her Aashiq.

He was hers.

He was her Aashiq. No one else's.

Is no more.

She ran, ran to the kitchen, opened drawers after drawers, confusion, pain, loss, tragedy, heartache, she felt all the sad emotions at once seeping through her veins. She threw the small containers down, not caring that she was making noise. She was in a frenzy until she opened the cabinet containing essential medicines.

How will this pain reduce? Perhaps, by taking all the medicines in.

She opened a box, she didn't bother to read its name, she spilled the tiny white-colored, circle-shaped tablets to fall on the counter, she picked up without hesitance, grabbing them in one palm, she searched for a glass of water. Filling a clean glass with water, she was about to gulp down the contents when one small fragment of her recent memory hit her.

He gave her an envelope, claiming to read it later. Maybe, this was that later. 

She could die after reading it, right?

She rushed back to their room, her gaze lowered to the ground, she reached the sprawled prayer mat in which they both had prayed together, how can he leave her just after that?

She tore the envelope that bound the letter and she closed her eyelids to empty her tear ducts, biting her lips to quench her sobs which had no control over her. She bit her lips until she felt the skin puncture and the coppery taste of blood stain her tongue.

To the person my heart, my body, and my soul claims to be in love with, 

         I for one know that when you open to read this subject is when you have lost me, I may be laying beside you, with no life, whatsoever. I wish I could wipe your tears, melt this pain that burns you, I really wish I could.

          Do you have any idea how much I love you? Because even I cannot measure the love I have for you. Immense as an ocean. Vast as this sky. Uncountable as the stars that twinkle in the night. To be precise, to conjure it in one word. We can easily say it infinite.

             You can slap me to talk about real stuff, you can Jaani, as this pain is something no one can ever get over with. I know what you are thinking, ending your life would be the easy choice, isn't it? You can easily trespass your temporary admonition of your body and reach me. Trust me, it doesn't work like that. It never does.

               I will like to quote a small Hadith to relate with your pain.

Sahih al-Bukhari 3667, 3668

Narrated 'Aisha:(the wife of the Prophet) Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) died while Abu Bakr was at a place called As-Sunah (Al-'Aliya) 'Umar stood up and said, "By Allah! Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) is not dead!" 'Umar (later on) said, "By Allah! Nothing occurred to my mind except that." He said, "Verily! Allah will resurrect him and he will cut the hands and legs of some men." Then Abu Bakr came and uncovered the face of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), kissed him and said, "Let my mother and father be sacrificed for you, (O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)), you are good in life and in death. By Allah in Whose Hands my life is, Allah will never make you taste death twice." Then he went out and said, "O oath-taker! Don't be hasty." When Abu Bakr spoke, 'Umar sat down. Abu Bakr praised and glorified Allah and said, No doubt! Whoever worshipped Muhammad, then Muhammad is dead, but whoever worshipped Allah, then Allah is Alive and shall never die." Then he recited Allah's Statement.:-- "(O Muhammad) Verily you will die, and they also will die." (39.30) He also recited:--

"Muhammad is no more than an Apostle; and indeed many Apostles have passed away, before him, If he dies Or is killed, will you then Turn back on your heels? And he who turns back On his heels, not the least Harm will he do to Allah And Allah will give reward to those Who are grateful." (3.144)

               I know, I am no great person to attach myself with the Prophet ﷺ set as an example, but we have something we share here, familiar and true, our love. The love Umar held was too pure, unconditional and everlasting. We hold the same feelings too. You stand in the identical emotions too. Habibti, humans were created to die. Creation can get lost but the Creator wouldn't. 

                 He, the Exalted has not gone, never will, He will always be there for you even if I have gone. This life is too transient to sit idle. You were born to create revolution. Your hands hold magic. Magic to cure grief. Allow your sadness to become your wand, raise it and shine the lives of thousands of others. Become an example, illustration that even though we lose someone so close to us, we can live, we can obey Allah, because He never vanishes. 

                This land that has faced drought will see, one day, sky trudging the territories of black clouds and it would eventually rain, making the land to turn green all over again. This tree, that has faced autumn, fall of the last of it leaves, would get sweeped with the breeze of spring, one day, it would cheerfully welcome new leaves, new horizons of flowers and that day, surely all the birds would come to sit on the meadow filled branches to sing the songs of delight. This night, that has crestfallen on you with all its debris, will eventually pass away, surely enough, the sun would rise in your kingdom of sorrow, making you smile. The hole, the space where I breathed would forever remain unfilled until the day you would breathe your last but trust me, we will both meet, under the lush green meadows, where rivers of milk, wine, and water would flow. A permanent gathering abode of happiness would outgrow. 

                  I trust you, you can and you will.

                  Believe me, even when I would be shrouded with white clothing of Kafan by the angels, my eyes would only be fixed on you.

The ring of the bell reached her ears and she looked up, too lost and dazed. Like she woke up from a dream, a nightmare at that one, and when she looked at her bed, she saw him, living in a dream of his own.

Rubbing her cheeks to wipe off the bleeding of her eyes, she stood up, her steps were robotic until she reached her in-law's room, she folded her knuckles and knocked on their door. Once, twice and thrice until her mother in law opened the door in a hurry. One look at Jesima was enough, the red-rimmed arena of her pupils was enough to scream the storm that had passed over them, uprooting every sanity they ever contained in themselves. Her father in law followed behind. They both stood staring at Jesima with disbelief.

Anjum walked up to them from the other side, "Bhabhi, your friend has come to visit you."

Jesima was in no state to look at who had come. Aashiq

"Assalamu alaikum, Jesima. I prayed my Fajr in this neighborhood. Thought of dropping by to check up on  and yo-" Maahi paused mid-sentence, lowered his eyes the next instance for she was not wearing a hijab to cover her hair. Maahi ran a hand through his hair, the air around him seemed so tense that for a moment, he felt hard to breathe it in.

Anjum took a step back, blinking her eyes in doubt, "Bhabhi?" She asked Jesima, just by calling her name, because she lacked the strength in herself to word them out. Those words weighed more than anything in this world.

Jesima bit her bottom lip and nodded her head to let them know that it had happened. 

Aashiq's mother stumbled back like a bomb had been dropped on her and his father caught her shoulders to make her stand straight, just in time. 

With trembling lips, breaking hearts, crumbling pain, they all tried to muffle up a few coherent words that their Lord said them to utter when they heard someone pass away. 

"إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّ إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ                                        

Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un

Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Him, we shall return."

Someone so dearly that even the sky couldn't withstand its pain. Pitter-patter raindrops kissed their window, a gesture to let them know that this tragedy has finally occurred.

Time is what she thought she had

To conquer all the shores

Making him wait

For her to return

With shining colors

And a few tears of love in her eyes

But when she reached

The destination

She always has been traveling to

Did she found out

It was nothing but

An oasis in the middle of a desert.

It was only a mirage.

Left her stranded

Deprived of every happiness

She once believed, she possessed.

Except with a treasure in

Her eyes,

Brewing with

Tears of his love.