A Court's Maim

کب | When

Chapter 8.

"Do you have time?"

Aliyaar's gaze flickered from the top of his paperwork towards his mother who stared at him, hopefully. In the dim yellows lights of his bedroom, primrose tones painting his face, his eyes frozen in her direction with a glassy warmth. He stilled, his fingers twitched and the gold pen in between his hands rested in the middle of the manilla paper as he nodded. Craning his neck over the matte top of his laptop he pointed to the space beside himself on his bed, closing the top down as she served him a glass of warm milk.

"Aliyaar?" She spoke in a pointed tone.

Two weeks had passed with a stalemate between him and her. Time was frozen and it made no sense to him as he tried, giving her space but in moments of sheet weakness giving up. As the country neared mid of June and the pressure from his company raised a few notches to present with a budget and a report of profits Aliyaar had begun to loose himself. His limbs were entangled in affairs, each one more different than the previous. On one side his heart twitched and continued to shatter, the longer she took to reply the more he broke. And the other? That part could not help but let out his frustrations on the incompetence of his employees.

Everyone had chosen this year to torture him.
To test him.
To try him — and he had no idea of how long he could on in this manner.

"Aliyaar?" Lyana tried once more, shaking his arm until the glossiness of his eyes dissolved and his attention fell on her.

"Phir sai?" She spoke disappointed.
[Again?]

"Sorry." He grinned sheepishly.

"Kab tak khud ko takleef denay ka irada hai? Kab apnay baray mein socho gai?"
[Till when do you plan to hurt yourself? When will you think about yourself?]

"I—"

"No! None of your philosophy about love will have me sold today. You're in your thirties not sixties! Your grandparents have more of a social life than you Aliyaar. Eik dost hai usko bhi nahi miltay. Shaadi tou waisay hi dur ki baat hai. Kaam, kaam, aur sirf kaam. Kabhi kuch aur bhi kar liya karo!"
[You have one friend and you don't even meet him. Marriage is off the charts. Work, work and only work. Sometimes do something else as well!]

Aliyaar snorted at the cross look on her face. With her hands placed delicately on top of her lap and crossed, the wedding band still as full of mirth as ever. His hands placidly toyed with the band, pushing his lips into a thin line he thought of her words. He mulled over them in silence, understanding his mother's pain and wondering where he could add them in his long list of troubles. Everything about him was a lonesome question mark and he had to wonder with full force — where had he gone wrong? What was he expected to change in his life to make it better?

"What do you want me to do mama? I'm trying. I really am but anytime I think I'm out of the whirlpool I get dragged back in with full force." Running a hand through his overgrown hair he smiled shortly, "I feel like I'll die. Between an one-sided love and an extremely one man effort to ensure we don't get hit by the change in production, I feel like I can't even breathe. It's as if I'm submerged in water and all of a sudden I've forgotten how to swim."

"Kisi cheez par khud ko itna hawi na honay do keh uskay bagheir jeena bhul jao." She whispered, an inkling of how her son felt — her soul shivered.
[Don't let anything possess you so much that you forget how to live without it.]