Sweet Lingering

Reminiscence

Life had been rather busy lately unlike last year.
Eliya wouldn't spare me for a day. She'd take me shopping in the pind bazaar across The Ring Road where she said you could find a Valentino and Vuitton at throw away prices. She had this thing for designer wear,especially the ones she couldn't afford. So this was her go-to spot.
After long walks through the hustle bustle of the pind and the constant endeavours to win the lowest bargain,I was pretty exhausted unlike my teenage cousin. She tried on all her 2nd copies of Armani till midnight until she was satisfied with the bucks that she had shelled out at them.
After the drill was over, Eliya snuggled into her quilt and fell asleep instantly. I don't know how they did it. People falling asleep like that, Instantly. While it took me an hour or more to convince my brain that it needed some rest. The duration of which had only prolonged after He was gone.
But tonight my mind refused to rest. It was one of those nights when sleep had eluded me. My body was exhausted and so were my eyes but not my mind. I couldn't stop thinking of all those things my mother had advised me to not think.
Have you ever heard voices in your head that would never stop? The voices that are only dulled by the constant chattering of the people around you, that for a while you forget about them. But then at night when everything seems so quiet,you hear them again getting louder and louder still,untill they begin to deafen you.
3.00 a.m.
I crawled out of bed. I needed a warm water bath. I callously shut the door behind me. I opened the tap and water began flooding the tub. I squeezed the foaming gel into the tub and drowned my self into this bliss. I loved this smell. It was almost familiar. I turned the bottle to read the label with my poor sighted eyes. Fresh Lavender, it read.
Lavender.
And there he was in front of my curtained eyes . Faint memories began to flood my mind once again.
Among most fading memories of him,one thing I remembered in particular. His scent. He smelt of lavender infused in ashen smoke. A bit like cigarette,a little burnt. But it alone could make me rip my laced belongings. And then I would drape myself in his silken skin covering his sculpted chest where his scent was most significant. His scent and his chest.
I can probably never forget that marble skin perfectly cladding those 12 well formed ribs. Perfect lines like a cadbury brick delicious to the eyes. Almost edible.He often joked that God took the most time detailing that part of his body. He barely had any hair on his chest and I liked it that way. I could never tell if he shaved them all or he never grew them. But he was beyond his teenage years or was he not? I am not sure. I don't remember asking him how old he was. He looked like an early twenty to me or may be I had just assumed it..
     'Farah, Open the god damn door. I need to pee.' A series of thunderous knocks succeeded those words. I knew that the moon had began to sink and it was time for fajr namaz.