Her Encounter | Islamic Story

Chapter 33

"Did you get the keys?" asked Aiza.

"Yes, I did." I subconsciously placed my hand on the bag's pocket where I had placed the key.

"When exactly did Uncle give that to him?" Aiza asked, referring to the key Uncle told us about, which would open one of the drawers of my office room where he would place our fake documents so we could fly off to some far away country. So that's where we were headed early in the morning, after leaving Char's home, in the cab, to my office.

"When Uncle was in the hospital," I said looking ahead on the road. The sun was coming out now, and the light was getting brighter by the minute.

I turned to face Aiza whose eyes were laced with worry. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering if Uncle gave the key to Char when he was in the hospital and didn't give us a call to let us know about the papers being ready then that means..."

"...there is a high chance that your papers are still not ready..."

"...and never will be," she almost whispered.

I hadn't thought about the fact from this angle. I was excited and almost believed that in a day or two's time we'll be out of the country for good never to come back. Oh how wrong had I been!

"But we can't lose hope, maybe they are ready and he just didn't have time to tell us," Aiza said trying to sound hopeful. Though her words were just as shallow as my feelings.

"Yeah I guess," I said with my staccato heart. And now I was suddenly thinking about a future that seemed so vague now. What if the papers weren't there? What would we do then? Run for life until murdered? And how long till Aiza's parents could do something?

All the while, the pain in my heart for Uncle kept nagging me. The thoughts about Char haunted me. This adversity felt like detonations in my heart.

Thankfully the office building came in view and I got out of the painful feelings. We paid the driver and made way to the entrance. The security guard took a minute recognizing me because of the scarf, I think which made me realize then that Char hadn't made a single comment about it and neither the look of surprise crossed his eye. I had no idea why, but the realization brought a smile to my lips.

The entire building was deserted which was least surprising as the opening times were nine and it was six of the morning.

"I hope your papers are ready, Aiza. I have no idea what would we do if they aren't." I looked at Aiza, whose eyes looked calm now as opposed to how they looked in the cab. Maybe she had taken to acceptance realizing that she would have to accept the fate willingly or unwillingly.

"I hope so too," she said and pressed the elevator button. We waited a few seconds for the elevator to arrive.

All the while nostalgias kept on hitting me. I had never thought that I would miss being in this place, that I would miss working, that I would miss the walls and the floors of my place. Everywhere I walked to, it had a memory to tell me. How we humans are so ungrateful to the things we have. It is only when we lose them that we realize how gifted we were.

We reached the fifth floor where my office was and walked out of the elevator straight to it. Oh how good it felt to be in there after about four months of constant hiding and running.

Although the room was clean and tidy but it had the aura of being uninhabited. Maybe no one was allowed here after I was gone which gave me a good feeling.

I walked behind my desk and wondered aloud looking at the drawers, "Which one of you?"

I started putting the key in different drawers one after the other. Throughout this proceeding, Aiza kept quiet. Maybe because it was inherently her papers in question? Maybe because she thought that she would be the reason I won't be able to run off to some other country, for we both obviously knew that my documents were ready. Well, whatever it was, I never asked and she never told.