Choosing The Right Path

15)●○Ali Ali○●

Would 5 o' clock suit you?" I glanced at my wall clock and sighed. There were too few hours in the day.

"I guess so. I'll see you then?"

"Yeah sure. Salaams."

"Salaams." I cut the call and grinned. This project was really going to be interesting.

✴ A Z L A N ✴

I greeted Mr. Saqqaf and got straight down to business.

"How do you acquire a halal certificate?"

I waited patiently as I could as Mr. Saqqaf laughed at my question. My patience wore thin, "It depends what you need it for, child."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you have to fill in an application. If you want a halaal certificate for a butchery, the application would be different to the application of a restaurant."

"How do you get a halal certificate?"

"Easy, just google one. That's what I did. Of course, since I'm a Muslim, the AMHCC wasted no time in giving me a certificate."

"AMHCC, Mr. Saqqaf?"

"American Muslim Halal Compliance Council. They would approve your application."

I thanked Mr. Saqqaf for his time and left the butchery. It felt good to be helping Zak, the man who sold hotdogs at the park. He was going to be so excited to be getting a halal certificate, after all, that meant that he would be getting more customers. I had learned a lot about Zak over the past few days. He reminded me a lot of my father who worked several jobs in his life just to support my mother and I. He even worked as a peon in a law firm just to earn the money to start his own business... Memories aside, Zak was a part-time security guard at a bank and cleaner for a company called Sparky's Cleaners. How he managed to cope with so many jobs, I'd never understand. Zak was thirty-five years old. His parents died in a plane crash when he was just two years old. Having no family, he was left to fend for himself and thrown in a government-run orphanage;
not a place anybody would want to go to. Zak wasn't part of a religion. His parents were both scientists so it made sense as to why they supported science, rather than the idea of a higher being. I felt bad for Zak and understood exactly how he felt. At the moment, I guess I understood the importance of parents but this was not about me, it was about Zak. Zak didn't have a wife or kids so he said he didn't mind living from day to day. I couldn't wait to meet him later that day. He would've been so excited to hear the news.

Now, I was going to get myself a halal certificate.

👯A A M I R A H👯

I squinted into the distance, searching for Raeesa. We walked up to each other and hugged, in the middle of Seaview Center's parking lot.

"Watch where you're going!" A lady called from her SUV. Raeesa and moved out of the way and chuckled. It was so typical of us to do crazy things in public. We were going to find a casual food outlet where we could just eat and talk about our project.

In KFC, the air conditioner was on full blast and the food outlet might as well have been in the middle of Antarctica. I cringed as the cold air hit me at the entrance of the halal restaurant, causing my hijab to go crazy around my face.

Sigh.

My mood picked up again when the smell of hot chips and chicken wafted through the air around me. Raeesa and I joined the queue and waited for the lady at the counter to call on us. The store was basically empty, besides for one person who I couldn't recognise as anybody I knew. Besides, her back was turned to us. Raeesa and I took our orders and paid. We left the counter to get a table. We sat in the little booth behind the only other girl in the restaurant.

"So, who can we interview?" I put down my phone and looked at Raeesa.

"Mr. Ali."

"Who is that?"

"An old man I met on a bus and-"

"Sweetie, you cannot just interview someone who you met once on a random bus."

"But that's not the entire story, Raeesa." The lady at the counter called us to get the food. Raeesa leaped up to get our food. She walked back to our booth with a tray of piping hot chicken wings and hot chips.

"Time to feast!" Raeesa was such a drama queen, "Now what were you telling me about this guy?"

"Mr. Ali is a good Muslim man. He converted to Islam when he was younger and is really passionate about being a Muslim. He gave me his phone number because he never got a chance to tell me his story on the bus."

"When were you on the bus anyway?"

"Remember that day we came to do shopping for Aunt Husna?"

"Oh, yes. I was with you the entire time, though. When did you meet Mr. Ali?"

"After you were dropped off at your place, genius. Don't you remember what happened that day?"

"Right, right. I forgot. I was really sleepy, you know. Don't judge."

I grinned at my best friend and popped another chip into my mouth. Crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. Exactly how a chip should be. "So, are you willing to meet Mr. Ali?"

"Alright. You've gotta call him first and see if he's alright with it, though."

"Obviously."

"So what does Mr. Ali look like?"

"Grey hair, immaculately dressed, glasses... He's caucasian, Raeesa. How many caucasian people in America convert to Islam?"

Raeesa looked surprised, "Not many, I can tell you that mu-" Raeesa abruptly stopped her sentence. I looked up from my food. She looked very confused.

"What just happened?"

"That girl that was sitting behind you in the other booth just got up and gave me a really weird look as she walked past. She looked angry, Aamirah."

"Did you recognise her?"

"Well maybe. Not sure if she's actually this girl but remember that girl your brother was with in the cafteria that one time?"

"Yeah? Oh my gosh! There's something about that girl that... I need to talk to Hamid when I get home. Maybe she is related to Mr. Ali but I can't be sure..."

"Isn't her name Petunia, though?"

"Yeah..."

Raeesa's phone began to ring. She answered and cut the call after a few minutes, "My mom called. I have to get home. Something urgent has come up, apparently."

"Alright. Let's get home."