The Ineligible

Chapter 8; Noor's Business.

Then!

Zayed

In life, friends can often be far from anything resembling that title. People of all ages can be so desperate to fit in, to be liked, they will accept the illusion of friendship when the reality seems such an impossible ideal.

They don't conform. They wear glasses.
They're heavier than the pretty, too good to the popular and the rich. Appearance, positions, cars driven, house lived in, phones used, you name it.

The efforts put by those who wish to arm themselves with insults, shame and humiliation and the audacity of those feared upon to cause mental and even physical harm to the first unlucky ones.

Unlucky why? Because you can always choose to live your life how you wish and not what others think. Simple.

I was one among the few lucky who didn't care what others had to say; I was blessed with friends, very good ones, friends I could call family. And then there was my family, a very beautiful and stable family, comfortable life; all was good.

Until all hell broke loose.

"Yallah ya banat, we are going to be late for the first taraweh of Ramadan!" Our mother yelled as she checked her wrist watch for the fifth time.

It was First Ramadan of 2017, Ramadan in our household was such a big deal. I, myself, absolutely and totally loved Ramadan, it is usually my favourite time of the year and between the food, the divine and holy atmosphere and the ambience it brought with itself it wasn't hard to see why.

It was a routine for all of the boys of our family to go to the masjid and pray as a matter of fact it was a must. But during Ramadans, every occupant of our house would go the masjid for the taraweeh prayers, so it was a routine thing that every after iftar we would rest and make stories for a few minutes and start preparing ourselves to leave the house.

To get to pray taraweeh on time, we had to go early to the masjid and pray our ishaa prayers there too.

Going to the masjid during Ramadan was just another thing, there air just seemed to be charged with iman, the ummah becomes closer and prayers are inexplicable but at the rate that my sisters were going with particularly on that first night of Ramadan, we were never going to make it on time.

"Bro we are really not going to make it on time." My younger brother, Kamar said to me, I looked at him and smiled. Of course we were going to make it on time if just maa shouted one more time- and oh.

"Radhiaaaaa!!!!!" Came the queen's thunder.

I raised my eyes and looked up the stairs where my three young sisters came running and scrambling down the stairs, Radhia being the eldest of the three securing her pin with one hand and holding her larger than life handbag in the other.

"Sorry Yumma!" she said breathlessly.

"I am just having a bad scarf day. How do I look?" Zeenat, our youngest sister said looking from mama to me and Kamar, "Does it matter  what you look like? We aren't going for a fashion contest ya bint, we are going to the masjid." Said our mother, annoyance vivid in her voice.

"Okay, we are all here, yallah, let's go." Baba said as he stood from his favorite spot in the sitting room where he was sitting quietly all that time.

As we piled in the car on our way to the masjid I couldn't help but think of how lucky I was. Allah had blessed me with another year while many didn't make it and I silently promised that I would try to make this Ramadan as beneficial as possible.