"Wherever you are, death will find you even if you are in towers built up high and strong."-(4:78)
The walls echoed consistently, the whispers a soft hissing, a distant whirring. It begot to the eerie feel within the institutes walls. A steady thumping was developing in the girls head. Her heart was racing. Another bad dream occurred and she woke up to cold sweat. She turned her head to the right and performed the action done after experiencing a bad dream. She rose from under her salmon bed covers of her rough and solid bed. Her neck was sore and her entire body ached with every step that she took. Her sleep pills had worn off.
She faintly remembered the reminiscent pieces of her dream. A glass tank that was not lacking a lid was surrounding her and water was filled up to the brim, drowning her. She wondered what it meant. Dreams sometimes meant something. Maybe it meant she was drowning in her calamities.
She opened the drawer to the only other piece of furniture in the cramped room and pulled out a small bottle.
She popped off the cap and took out a pill. She stuffed the pill into her mouth, while drinking stale water from a tin cup. As the pill started to kick in, she wearily, almost drunkenly, fell onto her bed. It felt like feathers now as it hit her face. After staying in this place for so long, the girl had experienced insomnia.
With one last effort, she turned her face to the right and dreamily muttered her dua.
Allah will help me. She thought. He is Ar-Rahman(the most kind).
And she fell asleep.
She woke to the sound of a screeching door. She was in between a state of fantasy and reality, not distinguishing between the two. The door stopped moving and there was a faint, muffled knock.
"Wake up, Taamira," came a hushed voice. And then louder.
"Wake up!"
Taamira opened her eyes, her vision bleary, her entire body bone-weary. She blinked a few times to regain her perception.
The tech waited by the door with her foot tapping steadily. Taamira muttered her dua and sluggishly got off the bed. The tech, upon seeing Taamira head into the bathroom, left.
Taamira brushed her teeth and then her hair,combing through the interloping tangles. She then made ghusl, letting the water hit her almost heedlessly. It's felt nice, normal, like she was back home.
Home, she thought. She missed when she had a place to call home.
That was before the incident occurred.
She lost the meaning of the word home. It was like her mind was a dictionary that had not printed out the denotation of that specific word. She did not know if she could go home, if she could even call that place home.
As Taamira exited the bathroom in her long red shirt and loose trousers, she heard a shrill scream. It was one of the characteristics of the Institution, so she just continued to adorn herself. She tied her dark hair into a braid and calmly wrapped her hijab around her head.
The hijab had a small flower design at the crown, but was otherwise plain. She refused to wear the immodest clothing the Institution provided. Yes, the hospital gown cascaded to her ankles, but the fabric was too thin.
Taamira walked to the nurses station, her footsteps light like a hauntingly timid ghost. The nurses station offered cold coffee or gum. She condemned gum, because it was TV for your teeth, so alternately, she took the coffee. She recited her dua. It tasted stale and bittersweet, but she was grateful for not starving to death like the millions of children in third-world countries.
She threw out her coffee cup, and made a beeline for the wall. When the line started to develop, the technician guided them to the cafeteria. They passed by the stark hallways, dimly lit by the sealed windows. They exited the ward, and Taamira could feel the fresh, clean scent of outside air. The moment ended all too soon.
They were dispatched when they reached the dining halls. Their dispatching did not help with the small uproar occurring in the alcove.
A few people were fighting. Others were screaming or muttering to themselves in the edges of the rectangular room. Nurses, technicians, and practically everybody was trying to calm and control the patients. In the midst of the action was an old, wiry women. She was limp. Taamira gulped. There was a difference between being unconscious,and dead. Taamira knew it was the latter. She glanced around, alarmed.
A peculiar boy stood in the distance, his face ashen and his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He looked like a blue-eyed white lion.
Taamira lowered her gaze before he turned in her direction, before one thing lead to another.
Taamira should have expected this sudden death to occur sooner or later. Unfortunately, it happened sooner, rather than later.
The ludicrous patients were pushed to the ground and were being pulled away from the scene. She knew where they were going. They had refused the oral sedative, so they were forcibly injected with it. As they went slack, they were hauled to the "special" room. Taamira shuddered at the thought. That place was terrifying.
The old woman was perceived by the nurses at that moment and that was when Taamira and the rest of the onlookers were motioned back to their rooms.
Taamira swiveled her head back at the scene once more and noticed that the boy had disappeared.
