Two faced

Chp 9

***
Afzaal immediately ran towards the stairs and Sana followed him with quivering steps. As guided by Sana, he looked through the window at the very same spot but found that no one was there. He without wasting another minute dashed out of the house, towards the outer pane of the window. He looked around every possible nook and corner wondering if anyone was there or not.

Sana was still standing at the main door still horrified by those deadly pair of eyes glaring at her. In moments her skin had turned pale while her pupils dilated out of fear. Soon Afzaal returned to Sana, with Sana looking at her with questining gaze. He calmly locked the door and turned to Sana.
"I checked everything. There is no one." He told her.

"I saw a pair of eyes." She argued. He took her by her shoulders to comfort her.

"I believe it was just your imagination. It was dark, maybe because of that you saw it." He replied and walked while still holding her towards the stairs.
"Umm okay." She agreed and then moved upstairs while Sana was still thinking about it and still did not believed in him.

***
It was almost evening and everyone in the house hold was engaged in their routine tasks. Naima as usual was ironing her clothes, Haider was playing football with his neighbourhood friends at the nearby ground and Maria was like always, in her room.

She was seated on her study chair, dressed in a blue pleated trousers and a lisome white shirt. She had neatly balanced her both feet on her chair while still seated on it. She was applying grey nail polish on her toe nails. She slowly shoved down her feet as she was done with the nails, while securing the bottle tightly, making sure not to spill it.

She swirled her chair towards her desk, carelessly handling her scattered stuff like pens, anonymous pages etc. She cupped all the pens in her palms, opened the first drawer and threw all of them inside except a black pen with silver geometrical print on it.

***
Flashback

It was a bright sunny day in accordance with the weather as the month of may had arrived. I could hear birds chirping outside under the bright sun as I opened my eyes. Since last few days I wasn't able to sleep properly or I could say I couldn't sleep at all. Just three to four hours of sleep per day was enough to recharge mybody but my soul was hungry for more.

My daily routine was waking up at seven, going to school or not going to school because It didn't even mattered to anyone as my parents were busy, coming back at two, then I would usually have lunch with my brother served by the maid though sometimes mama or baba would join us, then I would be isolated in my room for different reasons like doing my homework or playing with my dolls or spending time with Haider. Until dinner was served for me and Haider in the dining.

Then at last I would lie down in my bed at about eleven waiting tirelessly for few more hours until sleep would overcome me. As usual I woke up without any alarm. Though today was Saturday but I still woke up at seven. I walked out of my bed following the sound coming from the downstairs lounge.

I peeked down through metal railing, squinting my red and puffy eyes to look down the floor. I saw around five people dressed in formals, my mother and my father dressed in their casuals seated on the sofas while the tables were covered with white tea cups, multiple files with documents protruding out of them and two black pens with the same white geometrical design on it.

One in my mother's hand while the other was  in my father's hand. I could already feel my body shivering minorly as both of them kept signing papers one by one presented to them by those officials. As those people were done with the paper work they greeted and left the place with all the documents enclosed in files.

Then I saw my mother stood up from the sofa. She threw the pen still in her hands carelessly on the table and without even glancing at my father, she left towards the corridor. My father picked up that pen, placed both the pens carefully into the pen holder present on the table and left towards the lawn while dialling a number on his cell phone.

Flashback over.

***
"Dr Afzaal, thank you so much. I feel alot better now. My headaches have reduced much," Maria porclaimed and smiled simontanouslly.
"But the nightmares, they need some more help." she added as she played with her fingers.

She was seated on the same black comfy chair in Dr Afzaal's cabin and Afzaal was seated right in front of her casually on a similar chair. Afzaal who was previously making notes of the session, tilted his head towards her, raising his gaze to meet hers.
"Okay," he sighed and moved forward towards her.

"You keep a diary and write down your dreams on it as you wake up, so that we can work on those too." he told her and she turned up her sunken eyes.
"Okayyy." she replied plainly.
"Trust me this will help you alot." he consoled her.

"I know, I trust you dr." she said.
"I am glad that I be able to help you." He replied softly. He calmly placed his journal on the nearby desk, dropping the pen on it. He crossed his fingers between his palms, sighed and glared at her observingly, with certain flashbacks played in the back of his mind.

'I wish we could choose which memories to remember'