It's About Her!

Awareness is a curse.

Zoya closed her eyes to the strong wind that began to flow in her direction. Every fibre in her accepting the cold droplets that the wind brought on their feather. She opened her eyes to see how the sky was transforming from blue to grey. A smile appeared on her lips as lightning flashed on the grey. The clouds were too proud to hide the moon behind them. The clouds collapsed on each other and turned into heavy rain. She opened her arms to welcome the storm. She stood motionless as she spoke to herself. 'This will only make me strong."
Once again the lightning flashed in the sky, and finally, it started pouring heavily. She shivered on the cold droplets meeting her skin, but soon the sensation was replaced with soothing feelings.

She looked up to catch another thunder roaring by; it appears like it will split the sky into two. Her body turned numb after a few minutes under the rain and soon a long-lost memory appeared before her eye.

"Zoya?" Her mother called her from the kitchen.

It was her 14th EID, and she was excited to celebrate it. After fasting for a month Finally Allah gave her the chance to rinse all her sins and earn some point to be in his good book. Ammi always mentioned how Allah never left his followers. How he always stood by innocently to save them? Then why he never came all these years when that monster harassed every night. Why he allowed the monster to trouble an innocent?

As she grew up, she became aware of her body; she became aware of what was happening to her all these years was not a game. She became aware that at a very tender she was turned into a woman.

Awareness became a curse for her.

When the truth revealed itself, she denied it on top of her voice. She didn't want to believe what has happened to her. She was taken to gynaec for a checkup in plenty of time, but neither the doctor nor her parents informed her why she often missed her periods in a few months? She complained to her mother that her stomach was bloated, and she suspended stating it's just fat accumulated there. She laughs now when she thinks how naïve was she back then. She never understood why she was always on pills, even when she had no medical issues. Now she has all the 'why' answers, but it's too late. She was used over and over again till the man was satisfied to the fullest.

She remembers the last time when she saw her mother; she had a tear in her eyes. Her mother pleaded for her forgiveness. Zoya did not understand when and how she became so stoned that she could not even forgive her dying mother. Zoya felt suffocated as she sat near her mother, so she got up and began leaving when her mother stopped her by holding her hand.

"I am dying, Zoya. Stay with me in my last breathes. Let me see you till my heart content before I die."

A tear rolled out of her eyes, and Zoya's throat constricted. There were so many memories associated with her. She took the 9 months of pain to give her birth. She fought with her stepfather to send her to school and finish her studies. She remembers how her mother used to stand outside the nursery school for hours so that Zoya would not be afraid. The first time she taught her to cook something, the first compliment, her smile, the way she brushed her hand in Zoya's hair as Zoya rested her head on her lap. Many such emotions rolled before her one by one, and then it dripped down from her eyes in tears. She wanted to do nothing more than to hug her mother and cry her heart out at that moment. As she was dying, Zoya felt like a part of her was dying with her, but she remained motionless. The pain, the sorrow and all the hatred that had accumulated over so many years made her bitter from inside.

"I didn't know, but you were aware of what was happening to me?" she begged the woman who gave birth to her.

She remembered how her mother took her by her hand one night and offered to the monster sitting on her bed. She looked at her mother with questions as tears of betrayal slip through her eyes. It was the same day when she found out that the game she played was sex and the punishment she got was rape. She thought admitting to this her mother would catch hold of the culprit and punish him for the crime, but she broke when the same night she presented Zoya in red fabric to him.