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Bilal stood on the edge of the roof, one step forward and he'd be separated from the rest of the world.
The thirty-two storey building was no stranger in the city, there were many — wrapped in blankets of orange streetlights and noisy vehicles. The irony however, was Bilal. 𝘏𝘦 was a stranger. The last few days were blurry, he'd given an interview and they never called him back. He'd sent his sister an email, she hadn't bothered replying. He'd even bought new potted plants for decoration and nobody seems to have noticed.
It started that fateful day two weeks ago, when he married her. It was an arranged one, he had no complaints — everything was going smoothly. That is, until the car they took from the masjid to home veered off-track, crashed into an electric pole and flipped into the grassland beside the highway. He survived, but she didn't. Sometimes Bilal wished it was the other way round, and other times he knew he wouldn't ever want her to feel the way he now does.
After that, people walked around him like he had a "fragile" sticker stuck on his forehead. They were too nice, too careful — there was nobody he could vent to. And the normality of it all, the constant ignorance was getting to him. Perhaps it was his fault he didn't display his feelings easily, but not once had anyone asked him if he wanted to talk it out. They'd tell him to move on, to have faith, to let time heal things.
But they didn't understand, Bilal didn't need a solution. He wanted someone to tell him that it's okay to not be okay, to assure him that his grief is valid enough to carry, that he needn't practice merchandise with it. He wanted to just stand and let things sink in and finally be washed away on their own.
But everyone around him, while giving him time, gave him too much space. It was like he suddenly had an extra room in his head for all sorts of thoughts, because people refused to 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯. They'd ask him to look at brighter things, and he felt ill at the thought. After a while, he began to feel guilty for taking up so much of the silence that greeted his house.
All he wanted was to separate himself from the chaos and continuity of this life and 𝘱𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦. But no matter how many times Bilal tried to take a step forward he just couldn't. He sighed and sat down on the ledge, his legs dangling on the side of the building. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘮? And then it happened — someone laughed as they came up on the roof.
"If there was one thing I could wish for, it is to figure out how this ayah works — verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (13:28)
Bilal silently slid into the shadows, his heart hammering. 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸? Bilal frowned, that seemed like an awfully small thing to wish for.
"I'd love it — imagine coming home one day, the heart full of knots, sitting down on the musallah and engaging in dhikr. Imagine the knots slowly unwinding, easing your mind. And then suddenly, it's like you've washed away the dunya from yourself — like the pains it gives you are dulled to a numbness. Like swimming in salt water for ages and finally finding a sweet river. At the end of the day, that is all I would ask for."
And just like that, he knew he would embark on the journey to unveil what that felt like. Perhaps it meant he was destined for the special feeling. He quietly slipped away, and they never noticed him.
