Barakah

- Echoes Of A Greenhorn

21st January, 2020

. . . . .

What bleached out the glory blue of the sky was a darkness so mournful as Barakah waited in the pained compounds of her family home for the men in her family to finally return from the funeral procession.

Leaning against the cold windows, it had been more than an hour since they had left. Fear raising up to her chest at the thought of something going wrong there.

Not again.

Shoving those thoughts at the back of her mind. Where not even a sound of it could come to pronounce. The kind of agony she had been in for the past hours, it hasn't even been up to two days yet she begged for it to be, just a dream.

"Barakah. . . ." She took flight at the sensation of an unfeeling touch at the bend of her shoulder.

"Yes, Ameenah?" Taking a good look at her younger sister whose skin was faded and hauntingly pale. Ameenah's arm was held up, lips cracked and open.

"Bara'a is vomiting again. I'm worried because nothing wants to sit and digest in her system. Ever since the news about Aunty Hajara's death the day before yesterday." Barakah could barely hear a word out of her sister, paranoia wouldn't let her. Yet, the words "Death" and "Aunty Hajara" set her spine straight.

They were all in the same car. How was it possible that everyone else survived with nothing close to scars but scratches and her only paternal aunt dies?

It was all a wreak as memories of the accident that weren't blot out of her head burned before her eyes.

Still, not a single thing made sense.

"Pour her a cup of kamu or heat up some kunu for her. If she can't keep anything edible down, give her fluids. Why are you telling me this anyway? I'm just as messed up in the head as everyone is at the moment." Barakah had never seen that much blood.

"Our mother had lost something too. Her miracle baby in that car. . . . She didn't even know she was pregnant. Who else is left to talk with?" Barakah's face split harshly into pain again as she held in a sob.

"Baba is wallowing in the grief of losing his only sister and our brothers are out of sight. Family is around yet it's all so bleak. Allah am, I can't comprehend what pain our mother is going through. It's all so hopeless." Ameenah went on eyes wide open and dull.

"Ameenah I think you need to rest. Check the zippers around Mammy's handbag, she has some sleeping spills. Take one for yourself and spike another into Ba's water. She needs it to." Brushing off her sister's shoulder, she turned the eleven year old around just when the men finally arrived.

Anxiously pinning her veil, Barakah stood alone until her sister's frame was out of sight before waiting around the front door. Coupling in perfectly with the other women, following behind them into the largest living room.

Her eyes look around for her father before anyone else and when she pins them on him, his eyes are slumped and so is his posture. When he somehow, peers back at her, she's restrained in a miserable cold feeling.