Philophobia

TWENTY-TWOETH

AssalamoAlaikum.

With heavy heart and aching shoulders I am updating this chapter. I never knew that writing would someday become biggest nightmare for me.

I am thankful to my friend, LadyWithADiamond , for the beautiful chapter today that relieved me. 

Move on! Read and tell me what you think! Remember that your comments are my biggest support. 

I cannot say much now! 

Take care,

Allah Hafiz.

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He was supposed to fast nor did she take any morsel. Sitting alone in the room Sataish was busy in persuading Allah. She had no option left.

"Ya allah, you know. You know. You know."

Although being at different places their hearts were synchronized since forever. She was shedding tears in the hotel suite and he was prostrating in the nearby mosque. It was not good for him to take stress just on the eve of his surgery. He should have taken rest but has something ever stopped man from praying? He had always prayed in isolation where no one closer could catch him being vulnerable in front of his God. She had never seen him praying and never had she known that mosques were the first place he searched for. In the late hours of that hard night she was wondering where he was when the door of the room unlocked and the clicking sound made her attentive. He looked like a weary traveler tired of commuting. He was from no single angle looking like the man who used to be in perfect shape. There were no secrets in between them. There were no formalities. She knew his past and he had no reservations to take care of when there was no point of concealing their true selves.

But there was a lingering desire; the desire to break the still unseen barriers.

She had her face covered with her hands while praying when he thought, "Today you know everything about me. I am in my real state; with no mask covering the true me. Today, Sataish, can we stop living in reality? Just today as I have no other."

She was then wiping her tears and sniffing when a defeated smile covered his lips and he lied comfortably in the sofa. Her eyes noticed his exhausted state and she softly started taking steps towards him.

"Irtiza, I would not sleep tonight so please come to bed."

He removed his arm from his eyes and looked at her for a second before getting up. Fixing his slippers in feet he rubbed his temples again and her throat twisted.

"Ya Allah, I cannot see him. Make him live otherwise let the death consume me."

And her tears raced. He took a single glance of her red aching face before dipping his head in the pillow and she turned the night lamp off.

...

The phone was ringing in Pakistan after a long time. The thoughts of echoing bell in the living room was making her nostalgic when the ever soothing voice of Rizwana Auntie stroke her mind and she finally made the decision to tell her.

"Sataish, my daughter, how are you? You know, we talked last time when you had reached there."

"Auntie, I am ... I am fine." And she pressed her hand on her lips.

"What happened Sataish, is Irtiza okay?"

The night sky thundered unexpectedly when she breathed against her phone.

"No, nothing is okay. Irtiza has a surgery tomorrow. He had called me for this reason, Auntie."

And she told her everything making the wrinkles on the lady's face deeper. They both were noiselessly crying as they both were women. They did not possess big hearts to lock the pain they were going through. They lacked the courage to feel that everything was going to be fine again.