Arabian Nights | #ANBONUS

| #ANBONUS |

Laleh stood in front of the station, anticipation beginning to bubble inside of her. She had been quite worried to travel all the way from the edge of the city where she and Zayn were staying for the last two months, and for the umpteenth time, she checked her phone for any new messages from Zayn.

What made him so sure anyway that I was going to make it inside the mosque without getting lost?

She was beginning to get annoyed as she caught sight of all the colours of the sky melting into one another. Her restlessness was starting to bother her now. Iftar was only half an hour away, and by the stroke of dusk, she was supposed to be with Zayn, at the mosque in London.

They had enjoyed several days in London, where they could pretend that everything was fine for as long as they wanted. Thanks to Zayn's multiple acquaintances, they were settling in nicely, and slowly, their days stretched into weeks, and weeks stretched into months. It was nice, she thought to herself, not to worry about anything except for Ramadan.

A while ago, she wouldn't have been able to imagine London in Ramadan or Ramadan in London. What was the fun in fasting for more than half a day?

There was nothing she could do.

Shopping would tire her out. Walking around would tire her out. Even the slightest bit of movement would make her waste energy that should have been preserved for the last few hours before iftar. Judging by the geographical location of the country they were staying in, Zayn had predicted that they would be fasting for longer hours. Laleh had scoffed at him and called him a Know-It-All because that was what she liked to do when she thought he was being too serious, but she did regret not eating more when it was time for sehr.

Laleh was dithering now, unsure if she should just wait for Zayn to come back from the Malikbahr embassy or should she just go straight to the mosque where she could surround herself with the holy Quran and a whole crowd of people who were taking the time to pray and devote some of their time to be with Allah. It was quite something, she thought, looking at all those people with different backgrounds, from different countries, all heading to the same place, probably the only place where their social status and race weren't divided.

London Central Mosque was beautiful, she thought as she spotted the curve of the dome looming in the distance. She felt herself being pulled toward the mosque, and she took off her shoes at the front as a sign of respect, and she sat down among the women who were talking in hushed tones. A cluster of girls were reading the Quran, and a mother seemed to be having trouble with her small daughter and son who couldn't stop fighting.

Laleh decided to go over to the woman who she thought would be more than grateful to actually have help, but the woman turned out to be a grandmother who was babysitting, and she did not seem to want any company seeing as she was struggling to keep track of her two grandchildren who looked like they were having the time of their lives, playing hide and seek behind the great pillars of the mosque, and so Laleh exiled herself voluntarily to one of the unoccupied corners of the women's space and began to look around at her.

She was aware of the future that was now staring her in the face. How could she ignore it, when this was all she wanted? This was what she wanted, and there was no turning back now.

She sighed and dusted herself off as she got up and walked out of the mosque, her shoes in hand.

'I thought you'd never come.' Zayn was behind her.

'You were the one who told me to come here without you.'

'I didn't expect you to do what I said, let alone show up.'

'I do what you say all the time!' Laleh protested, followed by a raise of Zayn's eyebrow.

'Come on,' he said, threading his fingers through her hair tenderly. 'We'd better be punctual, this time.'

'What do you mean, this time? We're always punctual?'

'I suppose the time when you announced that you had nothing to wear to the baby shower counts too?'

'Well...'

'And that time when you told me that you had a fight with the hairdryer?'

'Okay...'

Their bickering faded as they moved away from the mosque, and their silhouettes were instilled in the sunlight as they walked, hand in hand, through the streets of London.