Chasing Down The Day Dream

Everyday is a discovery

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

~Hippocrates

Asmara Siddiqui is not a morning person. 

She treats her mornings like she treats her time of the month—with a perpetual frown and a heavy dose of caffeine. 

She sighs to herself. 22 years down the line, and she still hasn't gotten used to the idea of chirping birds and the blinding sunshine to one's face. 

She could  be a morning person, she thinks. 

If morning started at like, afternoon.

But that doesn't mean that Asmara has had the luxury of getting a little more beauty sleep in those god awful mornings. It is difficult to so much as blink in the early hours when you have a yoga-enthusiast for a mother, and a newspaper-freak for a father. 

The Siddiqui household's day would begin at 5 o'clock sharp. Her mother had made sure every maid at their place would abide by that essential rule. The kids were expected to be up at the same time too. Brush up, jog about and maybe stretch a little with their mother, if she was in the mood to teach them.

As much as Asmara hated the whole ordeal, she gracefully carried it in her stride. She would wake up with a smile, the hints of a frown barely visible at her forehead. She was good at cover-ups, she had years of practice to her advantage, and when her brother's door would remain shut for the better part of the morning—or day perhaps—she would fill in as the dutiful daughter, laughing at the right places and nodding to her father's tea-time musings. 

She has come a long way, she thinks. From hating mornings to having just enough patience to tolerate  them. 

She quickens her pace to the door. Rania is waiting for her in the drive-way, her car humming noisily in the morning fog. She locks the door behind her and places the key under the mat, and hurries to the car.

Razan, Rania's older sister is at the wheel today. 

"Assalamu alaikum, Asmara. It's been so long!" Rana looks at Asmara through the rear view mirror and gushes, "I never got the chance to congratulate you, man! I'm so terrible, I know."

"Ha, that's fine. Rania tells me how you're busy with work. How's everything going?"

"It's all good. A little stressful with the shortage of hands, but we're pushing through alhumdulillah. "

Razan is a lawyer who works with cases of domestic violence. It's not a pretty line of work, not something you'd want to send your daughter out for, but with two stubborn daughters threatening her fragile nerves, Mrs. Khan had the heart—albeit begrudgingly—to let them live their lives the way they wanted.

"Yeah well, everything is hunky-dory. Now can you please drive faster?" Rania frets as she stares at her watch.

Asmara raises an eyebrow and looks questioningly at the latter's older sister.

"Oh don't mind her. She's PMS-ing."

"Razan!"

"And mother dearest got her a new dress."

"What's so wrong with that?" Asmara asks, puzzled.

Rania shifts in her seat to look at her. 

"Not just any dress, she got me the dress. The-oh-my-God-my-daughter's-all-grown-up-let-me-parade-her-cute-figure-in-front-of-my-kitty-party-friends-dress."