ON HOLD The perks of being a Hafizah

Dark Beauty

بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم
Amatullah's POV

I lay in bed, legs stretched across the mattress, eyes fixed to the ceiling, hands across the pillow.
Every grain of paint that rested itself into the wall bulged up, a sequence of magenta buds unable to sprout. From a distance, the ceiling looked magenta, but if you looked closely enough there was an inch of bright white seeping through each bump; inconsistent in its texture yet so normal in its abnormality that many of us walk past many painted walls unaware of the detail it presents.
I was nervous that's why. I felt the very need to pick out the most smallest of the details to find an inconsistency that had assured me of a greater inconsistency; I was staying at Zahra's tomorrow.
It didn't diffuse properly into my long and confused mind that I was about to. Ummi had packed my suitcase while I was away at school and the house remained statically charged; a stagnant aurora of sadness that my Ummi had etched across the house.
She was upset and didn't want to leave...at all. But she had to, and that was the problem.

A problem for her....and a problem for me.

"Amatullah?" My mother called my name.

"Yes mama"

"Are you okay" she was lying in the room opposite but the short distance felt like a infinite mile as I shouted a response.

"Yes"

No I wasn't....nor was she. But that's what should settle in the heart; not to be heard. A white lie as it is. But it wasn't white...it was magenta, like the ceiling, and the walls. I told her I was ok, but deep within, I was textured, a run of emotions all tumbling on top of each other wanting to escape but trapped by a coat of fake assurance.

"Are you okay?" I asked Ummi.

"Yes" the magenta lie reciprocated.

"Good night sweety"
"Good night Ummi"

I switched off the light and embraced the infinite shades of black openly and let it take over my senses. I was asleep 10 minutes later.

*******************************
"Amatullah, you okay"

I lay in bed, legs stretched across the mattress, eyes fixed to the ceiling, hands across the pillow.

I was in bed....at Zahra's house.

The time in between in irrelevant...so irrelevant that I have chosen not to mention it.
The emotions, the sadness, the confusion, the level of adaptation needed...all culminated into forces both positive and negative; two opposite forces culminating into a big fat zero.
At the end all emotion and sense of loss was far too upsetting to describe; trying to do so would be a crime.
But now what mattered is that I was at Zahra's house.
I felt out of place but settled. The sense of comfort was unusually comforting, and Zahra's presence made it all the more better.

"Yep yep I'm cool" I looked across at Zahra who lay next to me, presenting a comforting smile.

"Cool? Seriously Amatullah" she smiled at me and looked across at the clock.

"What's so bad about cool?" I turned towards her on my side.

"It's an old word. Like why cool, it's such a bland word, and it just doesn't make sense seeing as it is mid November like your feelings are incongruent to your surroundings"

"Incongruent? What's happened to you Zahra, you can't be incongruenting my emotions with the weather. Its not Greek times where you make weird links with the alignment of the stars and why you are depressed" I replied.

"Hey, don't say that! Your rational mind is annoying" Zahra looked at me blankly.

"My rational mind is from Allah swt thank you very much, don't be jealous okay, in the hereafter you don't need to worry about me being better than you" I kicked her under the bed.

"you are a mad child" she replied shoving me off the bed and clearly failing.

My emotions began to take over me as I began to laugh.

"quote Zahra I have muscles the size of teenage Tyson" I replied to her.

"Tyson doesn't even have muscles and I said that to you like years ago only because teenage and Tyson rhyme" I stared at me piercingly.

This girl....this girl.

"Stop justifying you stupidity" she looked at me at shouted in too of her lungs.

"I am not!" She began wrestling me.

I loud echoing knock accompanied is in this fetched room.

"Yes" we both spoke in unison untangling ourselves from each other.

"Zahra, you sound as if you hoarding a pack of elephants" a low softly deep voice came from the door.

"I am. I have one here" she raised her eyebrows at me.

"Go to sleep" he voice spoke again.

"I can't Yahya, I can't" she said.

"You want to watch a film?" He spoke quite slowly.

"Yeah yeah! I am coming" she leapt off the bed as I began to tuck myself into the duvet seeing as my scarf was not at hand.

She swing the door open.

"Come on then" Zahra walked out of the door leaving me in the room alone.

I emerges out of the duvet and took the room in.

Did she just leave me? Like.....

The fire swung open instantaneously and I leapt out a scream covering my long black hair with my hands.

"Oh shush Amatullah" Zahra walked in casually and handed me a bundle of fabric. I waded it out and worked out the shape of a full suit abaya.

"You might want to put this on" she helped me place it on as she grabbed for my hijab.

I wrapped it around loosely and felt too naked to go to join Zahra.

I grabbed the Niqab and walked out with Zahra.

"Are you going to put the niqaab on?" She looked at me.