Alnihayya

||U m m i||

F o r t y  T w o
This one is for YouAintInvited
:)

If Allah wants to do good to somebody,
He afflicts him with trials.

-Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم

☆

5 years ago
Damascus, Syria

Narrator

It was a beautiful day.

The translucent clouds covering the golden sun in the blue spring sky. Warmth and white sunshine engulfed the pedestrians, the birds coming in flocks from colder climates to settle in Syria for the warmth it offered.
The yellowish white jasmine flowers in full bloom, spreading an air of intense fragrance.

Mohammaed Zeyara Suleiman stood on the pavement, grinning. His windswept dark hair seemed blonde in the yellow sunshine and brown eyes, which seemed to be hazel. His gaze fixed on the green traffic light which allowed the cars to use the road.

All the sixteen year old boy wanted at that time was the green to turn red, the traffic to stop and make way for him to cross the road to reach the Al Salam hospital in front of him.
The straps of his heavy school bag dug mercilessly into his shoulder blades but he didn't seem to care.

He was going to see his mother, a nurse in the hospital. This was always the best part of his day. After finishing school he would go straight to his mother's hospital instead of going home. His mother, Naila, a tall Egyptian lady with thin lips and the brightest of smiles, was the one from whom Zeyara had inherited his curls. She would always rebuke him for coming through such busy roads but then being a mother and knowing that Zeyara would never go home without her, she would sigh in defeat and give him her iPhone to play Temple Run while she packed her stuff to go back home.

Then they would go home together, hand in hand, where the two year old Marwa would be waiting with her grandmother and sick father who could do nothing but stay in bed.
His heart could be operated but it required money.
Something they were short on.

Naila had doubts though, about whether her son came for her or for the years old iPhone, the only smartphone at their home.

Zeyara frowned, today the traffic light seemed to be stuck on green. He used to cross the road even when the light was green but Naila had seen him do it a day before and had warned him not to do it again.
"Don't ever cross the road when the cars are moving." She had said. "I can't lose my only son."

The traffic light finally turned green, bringing the grin back on Zeyara's face.
He was happy.
His mother was just a few metres away. Soon he would hug her and pretend to play Temple Run on her phone when actually he would be using the free hospital wi fi to hunt for jobs, careers which offered the most money and ways to save a heart patient without operation.

And then it happened; the incident that was going to shape the rest of his life, haunt his days and turn every dream into a nightmare.

How he wished he had not seen it, but he had. He had been a sixteen year old witness to the ISIS air strike on the Al Salam hospital.

His heart ramming in his chest, the ambulance sirens ringing in his ears, the rising smoke, the shattered glass shreds flowing in the air. One even struck his face under the eye, his beautiful face because of which the neighbours used to say to Naila. "You should've named him Yusuf."
A tiny stream of blood followed, as if it was a stream of his tears, red tears.