The Essence of Noah (Muslim story)

Yoga

"Mum?" I stretch in bed and push the messy strands of loose curls from my face. I squint through the open door of my room where the living area lights are illuminating too brightly and sigh. The side of the bed where mum slept is bare and when I lethargically drop my arm on it, I realise it's cold. "Mum?" I try again, this time reaching down to pick up my phone from the floor. It's six thirty. I got up to pray fajr almost two hours ago and mum was fast asleep then. She's never been the early riser type, unless she's decided to change her habits over the past few months.

When she still doesn't reply, I push the covers from my body and swing my legs over the side. My feet come in contact with the unbearably cold floorboards and a silent hiss escapes from between my chaffed lips. I walk out into the living area where I have to close my eyes before they adjust to the brightness, and a shiver runs through my body.

"Mum, are you serious? It's freezing!" I stand at the head of the coffee table, watching mum through the open glass door of the balcony. She's spread out my prayer mat on the concrete and is taking up a 'get set' runners position on all fours. As she turns to me a gust of air blows over her head, covering her face with hair and enters into the apartment.

"Morning hun." Her breath comes out in even regulated pants, her voice giving off an air of zen.

"Mum can't you do that inside? You're freezing the place over." I wrap my arms around my body as another gust weaves its way past mum and straight through to my body.

"Morning air is good for you Hana," She turns away from me and asks "Isn't it?"

"I honestly don-" My words are cut off as another voice beats me to a response, presumably one mum wanted to hear.

"So I've heard." I can't help my slackened jaw as I hear Noah's voice from the adjacent balcony when he replies to mum. I take a few back tracked steps as I hear mum comment that morning air is practically free of photochemical smog and is better for the lungs. From my room I grab a scarf and wrap it around my head, tucking in loose curls where they stubbornly escape.

My heart beats have slightly increased, throbbing in my throat and simultaneously heating up my face. This is not what I expected to wake up to. In fact now that I think about it, this is seemingly worse than mum doing yoga on the balcony, much embarrassingly worse.

I shuffle my feet to the glass doors and place my hand on the handle, my gaze focused on mum- now taking up a lotus position on the floor. With her eyes closed and the wind blowing against her long curls, she looks calm and at ease, much like Noah when he stands alone in the morning. Slowly, I shift my gaze from her to him, who's leaning against the banister of his balcony- barefoot, in joggers and a jumper and holding a cereal bowl between his hands. His focus also seemed to have been on my mum's early morning yoga performance, though his gaze catches mine when I stare at him.

"Morning." He speaks, his voice carrying a groggy husk in it as smiles.

"Morning." I nod my head and return the smile. "I see you've met mum."

"I have." He nods his head as he looks down to his cereal bowl. Mum takes in a loud deep breath and exhales.

"God, that feels good." She sighs and stands, shaking her arms and legs as she does so.

"That was a pretty good routine." Noah comments as he pushes his hair from his face. With the minimal sky light, his hair looks darker, like a deep chestnut, that's nothing like his usual golden tassel.

"And it feels great, you'll feel like a legend afterwards." Mum pushes her hair back and holds it in a ponytail with the hair tie she always conveniently has on her wrist.