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07|Feef and Dan

It has been a month and a half since Dan left for America. She herself had gone to Venice with her family to enjoy the holidays and had just returned a week ago. Despite talking to each other roughly every day of two, she felt lonely and bored. Her brother had gone on a trip to Northern areas with his friends upon returning to Pakistan while she was left alone in the house on most occasions since her parents would barely be home. Most of her friends were out of town enjoying time with their family or relatives.

She envied them for she was left at her home alone. In order to kill time, she left for her farmhouse in the afternoon where she was welcomed with Toffee pouncing on her and licking her face. Toffee was a gorgeous golden retriever that was gifted to her by her father on her 13th birthday.  He was an absolutely adorable pup, who would snoop around wagging his tail in every corner of her farmhouse. She was immensely overjoyed when her father had gifted it to her on her incessant pleas despite Mom's disapproval. Since her Mom was asthmatic, Toffee was not allowed in her house and so he was kept on their zameen where a separate area was allocated for him. It saddened her to leave Toffee on the farmhouse but she had no other option since her mother's asthma attacks would be triggered with him around. The entire day they played and even swam together. Toffee was her companion though thick and thin. Whenever there would be a fight between her and Dan or any other friend of hers, she would find solace in Toffee, who would lighten her mood with snuggles and licks. The entire day went by in a blur venting, playing and taking pictures with him.

"Hello Feef where are you?" Her mom asked on the phone.

"Hello Mom! I am at the farmhouse."

"Feef, aunty Tehmina just had a heart attack and so I am going to the hospital. It would be better if you come too," she said

"Ohh shit! Mom, I was thinking of staying at the farmhouse tonight since it's already too late. It'll take me a good hour or more to reach the city, I'll go meet her at the hospital tomorrow," she said.

"OK. But it would have been better had you met her today, this is her third heart attack and she is in a critical condition."

"I'll....," the call disconnected before Feef could reply. She tried to call her Mom again but the phone was turned off probably her mom phone's battery had died.

Even though, Feef wanted to stay for a couple more days on her farmhouse, hearing her neighbour and Mom's best friend: Aunty Tehmina, get a third heart attack in a span of 3 months was frightening. She decided to head back home now instead of in the morning.

She left her farmhouse which was situated in the outskirts of Karachi and was heading towards her house with her driver and two security guards. It was around 11:00 pm in the night and so she asked her driver to hurry up. She wanted to reach her home safely because late in the night the highway gets chaotic and she didn't want to be hit by an overspeeding drunk truck driver. It would take an hour or more depending on the traffic to reach her house and she was weirdly very anxious. Even though she left her farmhouse for home later in the night after midnight even, today there was this dread that was filling her up. Her farmhouse was situated on a 200 acre zameen and was adjacent to Mustafa's 500 acre zameen that currently her car was passing by. 

Mustafa's zameen was gorgeous. The haveli was surrounded by a huge expanse of greenery and a river flowed at its backside. There were multiple lodges on his zameen, a tree house, a cave, a shooting range, a small cinema, a mini zoo and a hospital too. It was a small city in itself as it had everything in it. There were fields of roses, sunflowers and numerous fruits that they would export and whose machinery was powered by multiple windmills and solar panels. She had always admired his zameen and even now despite the lack of lighting which gave it an eerie look she couldn't help but admire its beauty.