My Schizophrenic Husband

Chapter Seven (1)

Farooq had almost gotten addicted to the Rubik's cube, it seemed like it was the only thing to temporarily take him away from the reality of his life.

After spending most of his time at work, he would sit at the balcony of his house every evening and solve the cube, he was so used to solving it that it was easy for him to beat Faiza many times during their therapy sessions.

Even though not much progress was made, Faiza took notice of the changes she could see with him, he had gotten more comfortable to share what he saw and heard during the sessions, and she equally made sure she made him comfortable.

And his newfound concentration could not be overlooked as well, even Farooq's boss had contacted Faiza to inform her of Farooq's concentration when he did his work, sometime he would be so engrossed to even notice anyone's presence.

Farooq's might have not noticed it, but it was a huge achievement for Faiza, she smiled as she jotted down her strategies for the upcoming sessions.

She dropped her journal on her bedside table and did her night prayers and then retired to bed to sleep.

***

Farooq's brows frowned in confusion as Faiza's driver pulled up at the central masjid.

"Why did you bring me here?" He asked as they both got out of the car.

"Therapy sessions using one way method doesn't work all the time, we're here to explore," she replied with a smile.

Farooq followed behind her embarrassingly as he knew nothing about Islam or Muslims, nor their practices. He didn't know where to go nor did he know what to do, so he just decided to follow her where she was going.

She turned back to stare at him with a frown, "Where are you going? Go over there where the men are," she ushered disapprovingly.

"Well sorry I didn't know therapy sessions includes visiting the Moslem churches," he replied frustrated and Faiza just burst into laughter and slapped her knees multiple times in the process.

"What did you call it?" She asked between laughs.

He just huffed frustratingly and headed over to the male side of the mosque where he was directed to the ablution center, he did his ablution and entered the mosque, he was amazed at how clean it was and how coordinated everyone looked.

A voice was heard through the speaker and it seemed to sound like music but it wasn't, he got goosebumps only by listening to the voice and he was amazed at how fast everyone seemed to be moving to form a line, a nice guy took him by his hand and stood beside him on the third row and then everyone started to do the same thing.

It was strange.

All his life, he had never stepped his feet in a Muslim church before and he certainly had never heard or seen their synonymous practices.

A pull of his shirt got him out of the train of his thoughts, he looked around and he noticed everyone was bowing, he quickly emulated them without thinking twice and followed all their movements until the prayer ended.

After the prayer ended and everyone started to leave he heaved a sigh of relieve, he somehow managed to successfully scale through that with constant pulling of his shirt from the extremely nice guy who was beside him.

"Salam alaikum," the guy said with a bright smile.

"What?" Farooq frowned in confusion.

"Sorry I bad, I meant hello, my name's Jamal, it's nice to meet you," he corrected himself with a grin.

"Oh hi, Farooq's the name, nice to meet you too," he replied.

Jamal was confused but didn't let his confusion become obvious to Farooq, he was a curious person and would ask questions when he was confused, "You're a Muslim I suppose, how come you don't know how to pray?" He asked out of curiosity.