My Qadr

Hospital

This chapter is dedicated to FatimaZahra264 and Teebarh for their quick replies and comments

So....

Zayyad

"Yeah Zay, you have to give thanks to Farrah for being alright"

Nabeela said to me with a mischevious glint in her eyes.

I looked around just in time to see Farrah leave the room, I sighed heavily as I looked back at Nabeela with a bored expression.

"You guys should go home" Doctor Henry said to my uncle and cousin, and i was silently grateful for that because I needed some time to think.

They all excused me while I closed my eyes to replay all that had happened today.

I remembered waking up today still happy that we got the contract that i had been pursuing for a long time, only for my mood to change drastically when I remembered what day today was....

...It was my parent's death anniversary

I tried my best not to focus on the events surrounding their death but how could I erase the voices that haunted me.

"Son, your mum and I love you, take this phone and call your uncle and tell him that 'they' have come"

I remembered smiling at them, thankful at the opportunity to see my two weeks old cousin, Nabeela.

"Bye hooyo, bye dad" I remembered the driver taking me to my uncle Saheed's house.

"Oncle Saheed" I ran to my uncle as he caught my then little figure mid air as i jumped on him.

"It's uncle, Zayyad, say it un-k-l" he mouthed the words out as i giggled at the way his mouth was pouted like a duck's.

"Un-k-l" i burst into a fit of giggles at the funny word.

"Momma and Poppa said that 'they'" I said air quoting 'they' like Momma had done.

".........have come" my uncle's expression froze for a second, then dropped me on the floor as his eyes started to water.

Before I could realize what was happening, I saw my uncle grab his keys off the table and rush outside toward his car.

I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me but the car was gone by the time I got there.

Even for a five year old, I knew something was wrong.

I sat down in the sitting room thinking for hours about what made my uncle run out so fast.

My uncle came back some hours later, his eyes so red and blotchy, but what really alarmed me was not the tears that were rolling down his eyes but the blood that had stained his white shoe.

I remembered the darkness enveloping me as i fell down to the tiled ground with a thud, feeling a suffocating silence around me.

I woke up in the hospital the next day, feeling light headed and walked to the door.

"......yyad's parents and sibling just died yesterday" I moved away from the door slowly, using the bed as my support.

I knew what death was....

I remembered that mum was crying that grandpapa had died a few months back and she was wailing to dad about how "she would never see him again".