Operation: Dard and Devotion

7 | Prayers & Persistence

A rough hand violently shook my shoulder, rudely disrupting me from my oblivious slumber.

"Nat, go away," I grumbled, turning over to lay on my back. "I'll get up in five minutes, I promise this time."

"I'm not even giving you five seconds," came a deep voice that was very much unlike that of Nat's.

My eyes flew open in panic at the foreign tone, and then in depressed recognition as it was Ahsan, and not Nat, who had woken me up. He sat at the edge of the cot and eyed me strangely.

"What do you want," I muttered and stubbornly rolled over so I wasn't facing him. He grabbed my shoulder yet again, forcing eye contact.

"I want you to get up," he ordered as he dragged my arm until I sat upright. There was hardly any light in the room and the gas lamps weren't even on. I squinted in the dark; it seemed to be nearing dawn. Ahsan handed me a thick folded cloth.

"What's this?" I asked him groggily, stifling a yawn with my hand.

"A prayer rug."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"It's time to pray. It's Fajr." Ahsan reminded me of the Islamic prayer that is done before dawn. He took out his own prayer rug from under the cot and outstretched it on the ground in front of him.

"You...pray?" I blurted in shock. How anyone inAl-Tho'baan could ferociously murder children, and cook them, but still keep up with the five daily prayers was beyond me.

"Did you think I didn't?" He snapped as he stood over the bottom edge of his rug.

"Well, I didn't know cannibalistic savages kept up with their prayers," I retorted, finally finding my own voice. Although it was difficult to see, I'm sure he clenched his jaw as he narrowed his eyes at me.

"My name's Ahsan, not Faizan."

I stood up and scoffed. "Oh, there's a difference now?"

Ahsan stepped off his prayer rug and hovered over me, knocking me off balance and I plopped back down on the cot. "Considering you're still in one piece, yes, there is a difference," he hissed.

Technically, he had a point. Nevertheless, I rolled my eyes, knowing very well he would not notice that I did so in the dark.

"What about wudu?" I asked him about the cleansing rituals that were necessary to be done before prayers.

"Oh," Ahsan began. "Go all the way down the hall and on the door to your left, in Faizan's room, there is a steaming, bubbling jacuzzi waiting just for you to perform wudu," he informed me, making his dangerously sarcastic tone very obvious.

It was my turn to narrow my eyes at him.

I did not even bother suggesting tayammum, the act of performing ablution with thick dust, so I performed the deed while he had left the room for a while. 

"Quit glaring at me and hurry up," he said as soon as he had reentered, nodded towards the folded prayer rug in my hands. "We need to leave soon."

Unwillingly, I set my prayer rug a few feet away from him and stood on the lower edge of it.

He ignored me and didn't say anything further. I took a peek through my lashes at Ahsan from some distance away. Despite being fully covered apart from his eyes and mouth, he seemed so peaceful and at ease during sujood. At any rate, he definitely did not have the aggressiveness and demeanor of a terrorist at this time. I allowed the darkness I felt from the gruesome events from last night swallow me whole for a little while, and then suddenly a rich voice echoed in the room, vibrating with power and command.