Her Encounter | Islamic Story

Chapter 28

Twigs and fallen branches cracked under my feet as I walked around the trees to my destination. Sounds of birds' melodious chirping rang in my ears, but paying no heed to it, I kept up my pace on the ragged path holding the water bucket in my hand.

I wasn't ambling jauntily neither was my walk anywhere close to a promenade. All ears, trotting carefully, I hurried through the clumps of debris and bushes, whilst keeping myself as low as possible in this clotted wood. ¹

After minutes of following the signs on the trees Aiza and I had marked on the trees a couple of days ago, the cabin finally came in view. My already thumping heart sped up in my last footings and I entered through our self made door inside as quickly as I could. ²

"You're back," Aiza said with a sigh, as she got up from the mat on the wooden floor, relief was evident on her graceful features. This was the first time I had gone to fetch water alone after much insistence that I would be fine.

"Yes." I placed the bucket in the corner and sat down where Aiza was initially seated and pulled my knees close to my chest.

Apart from the rotting smell and detritus, this small room was filled with misery of its occupants from the last week since they came.

"Will it ever be alright?" I looked up to meet Aiza's gaze who was standing near the wall of the room in front of me. The walls were all wooden, breaking, sunlight poking in through the countless holes in it.

"It will be." She came to sit next to me and stroked my back. I smiled at her and laid my head in her lap, forlorn.

It was usually our routine. After waking up in the morning and having bits of food for breakfast I would go outside to fetch water from the well, a thirty minutes distance from where we were resided in. Then we would, throughout the day, talk and plan about our next move. The rest of the time, I would wallow in my misery; think about Uncle, think about my imminent death and how Kantun would like to murder me.

Whereas Aiza, she would pray and shed a few tears time to time when she thought I wasn't looking, but that's it, I did. I did look at her every time. A room with hardly of six to seven feet length into breath, where could she have hidden her tears when we both always laid or sat with no more than a foot's distance between us.

I took her family from her. Guilt was one of the things killing me before Kantun could.

"We're running out on food," Aiza told. I was stretched out on the mat now, head still in her lap, and my hand was slumped on the wooden dirty floor. How could I care about getting dirty when it was all there was?

"We will have to then leave this place, buy food and find a new location." I shifted my head enough to see her. She hardly ever removed her scarf now, fearing an immediate evacuation, or an intrusion.

"But this is the safest place to be at," she argued. "We could just go to market, get something and be back."

I laughed humorlessly. "Aiza, this may be safest but is this a place to live?" I got up from her lap and pointed to the room. Our small mat filled more than half of the room. A log, which we had collected from somewhere outside, had the food placed on it, and was only a foot away from the mat.

The water bucket and our always-ready bags sat in the corner of the room. The place only had this much but was cramped. I could reach out the food and my bag from where I laid now, such was the littleness of this place.

"Also, that's a rule of being on run; never come back to the same place."

"But-." She started but I cut her off.