BEFORE Mahra left for London, for her full scholarship, her mother had pressed a book into her palms. Bones jutted under her mother's pallid skin, pulses throbbing clearly against it. Her hands shook as she embraced Mahra one last time.
"Keep this with you, read it every tahajjud," said her mother. Mahra's eyes squeezed tight, tears slipping quietly beneath her lashes, soaking in her mother's fading warmth. "Remember Allah, and remember me."
Nestled in the crook of her mother's neck, Mahra nodded, a sob lodged in her throat.
Now, Mahra pulls the book out from the drawer of her bedside chest. It is cloaked in a navy blue cover, etched with whorls of dainty blossoms and silver-tipped leafage. Gold-leaf Kufic script impresses the right and left side of the cover with "Allah" and "Muhammad". She traces them, fingers following the slopes of the impressions in the hard paper.
Darkness cocoons her outside and inside her room. Stars have dulled. Shubuh is an hour away. This is the most delicate time of the day, when angels descend to Earth, crossing seven skies in a blur of ethereal light they could've been mistaken as shooting stars. But no one does, for they are all tucked under blankets and whisked away in dreamland, and only the roosters do, as they crow into the grey dawn. Jealousy smites Mahra at the thought of roosters being able to witness angels.
Clad in her prayer robes, feet folded underneath her on the prayer mat, Mahra flips open the first page. Please return in kind to Lea Gunawan. Tears blotch her mother's signature, scrawled on the floral corner. Mahra starts her morning with the first Quranic verse curling her tongue, playing at her heartstrings: Bismillah hirrohmaan, nirrohiim.
Echoing in a chorus of heart and spirit and mind, is a prayer, a hope, a wish. Ya Allah, please watch over my mother.
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THE DREAMER'S LAMENT
Storie breviIn the hearts of dreamers, lament will always linger. Sadness can bloom into the brightest, lambent shades, like the rain giving way to the phantom of a rainbow, like the promise of hope. But sorrow may also wind down a darker, colder path. Our hear...
