The Power Of Calmness

Chapter 41

My Safe Haven
In between thousands of thorns,
She stood out as the only lily.
Like a spectrum,
She radiates so much comeliness.
Her heart so pure and clean,
Like that of the artic.
Never to be seen,
Where filth lies.
An angel she is,
That spreads peace.
Mine she is,
Forever and a day after.
Both of us till the end of time ~Dauda Maryam.

We kill time. We save time. We rob and get robbed of time, we lose time, and we have all the time in the world. But none of us powerful enough to stop the march of time or slow it down.

Is it something far beyond our control? In fact, no. While we cannot influence the flow of time, we still can get the most out of it. Becoming a wise time manager is sometimes similar to sorcery, but the results are worth the effort.

In relation to the latter, Bukar has done nothing. And perhaps, we should say he isn’t much of a good sorcerer? It has been a whole month since all that ensued did and, the only achievement he has made in the past month, was going to work which too, he does halfheartedly and also taking the grace to look alive but in total fact, he was more of a lame ball than a wrecking one. 

No efforts or struggles made by the boys and Kabir for him to worry less and at least live a bit, proved not to be a fatal attempt. Instead, he picked the habit of leaving before the sun had the will to rise. He’d drive around town, switching and drifting through different lanes without a conscious mind, for an hour or two. Not that he cared to check for how long he did so, before taking the road that led to the firm.

On arrival there too, he’d grunt and grumble incoherent responses to the greetings made by the staff members. The only person we could say he doesn’t grunt at and share more than a word with, was the personal secretary, Aarif. Aarif has been working with him for more than a decade and if he was to be honest, he wouldn’t say he didn’t notice Bukar’s sudden change in comportment because the man has never been so disintegrated. Although he was a man of few words yet, one could feel the coldness and void wafting of him like different cologne.

Nana. The joyful woman had returned back to the palace to continue overseeing her duties. Her time with the boys was up, as she had to return to her husband whom she missed as each day passes. Before she left them though, she made sure of it that all was well with them. At the time, Bukar was still sane and hanging on to the last string of hope, that Habeebah would have a change of mind but, how did it go? 

After their last encounter, he gave her a few days before placing a call her way. But each time he did, it was sent straight to voicemail. At first, he felt and thought that it might be a network issue or that she was still annoyed at him, convincing himself each time it didn’t go through that, he wasn’t blocked.

Yet as time passed with nothing to show for it, he stopped calling. He couldn’t seem to think of any other number he could reach her through because at that moment, he kept thinking ‘would she really block me?’ It was hard to believe because he knows her kind of person, she wouldn’t do that just because of what he said right? On another thought, Habeebah was the woman in question. She spits fire just by her looks, make heads turn by the grace she walked with and with words, she could make one crumble.

'She declined food the last time you guys had the argument, how precious is your call number that she wouldn’t deem fit to delete or even, block?' His conscience had mocked him then. It was right, she could decide to do so.

He felt at peace with himself the day he asked Ilham about her. The lady had come to fill him on an information they had on a case and as she turned to leave, he blurted out the question. “How is Habeebah doing? I hope you do hear from her, yeah?” He asked, feigning interest on his computer but, his ears where at attention to her response