When Stars Collide

Hibba

The first time Hibatullah heard of her last exams, she viewed it as a grace, as a luxury then she viewed it as a stepping stone to her great success. It was the only thing she thought about for weeks, as she ate, breathed, laughed, cried; exams.

So when the day came, she entered the examination hall of the department of political science, armed with her views, her books crammed into her brain and her prayers as support. She didn't even think of anything or anyone else, for she would have noticed the tremor that went down her back as she crossed the walkway into the exam.

At the door, she was checked by a female NSCDC official who was there to invigilate the examination, the woman put her hand behind her head, checking through her hijab for any useless things that could cause trouble later. When Hibatullah was cleared, she walked to her seat near her only friend in the department, Mardiyah.

"Did she ask you open your hijab?" Hibatullah stared at her friend quizzically.

"Did they open your covering Mardiyah?" She asked her friend instead of replying the question. You see, it was the very way Hibba was set up. She had a very great pet peeve and that was for anyone, male or female to ask her to remove her covering. She would go gangster on the individual.

Mardiyah quickly shook her head, she knew her friend. "The lady, she's a Muslim fa, but she actually out her hands on my hijab and nearly took it off, thankfully I was holding the ends." She watched Hibba raise a brow at her.

"You sure?" Mardiyah nodded. Hibba made a sound of assent and sat down about four feet away from her. She shut her eyes and made a dua for remembering everything she had read and for the exams to be easy. She beseeched her Lord to make this final paper as easy as He had made the others.

She was not a braggart, but she knew she was awaiting nothing less than a first class honor's from this degree and nothing short.

Soon, the hall filled with students and lecturers began distributing empty scripts to students. When Hibba received hers, she sighed and picked up the ball point pen she had prepared and wrote her details on the exam script, then she leaned back, awaiting the questions.

"Tsw. Tsw." Hibba chuckled before turning slowly to her best friend. "What?" Mardiyah smiled with all of her teeth and asked her mischievously.

"You don read?" Hibba shook her head, saying that she hadn't. Her friend made a show of fainting, which forced Hibba to bit her head down on the table to laugh so hard. She was restraining her laughter when the invigilator came over to drop exam questions.

"Why are you laughing?" She struggled to shake her head and tried to cover her mouth to feel a little more lady like, then the laughter bubbled out and she suddenly made up her mind and laughed out loud.

The man instead of replying her, walked away from her after leaving her question on the table. Hibba sent a sharp look to Mardiyah and warned with her pen in her face.

"Don't disturb me oo. Ehen." Mardiyah nodded and faced her own question, while Hibba did hers.

About two hours, forty five minutes later, when Hibba came out after reading again everything she had written rather carefully, her life changed forever.

"Hibba!"

Hibba blankly looked at her wiry old uncle who had probably calling her for a while with the way his face looked; frustrated.

"I'm sorry uncle. I'm here now." She looked down at the nearly three month old child that lay peacefully sleeping in her arms and sighed.

Life was one of those really unpredictable things that shocked into loving people you never thought you could love and finally living after letting life just pass through you for a long while.

This was what Aisha, nicknamed Ummi had become to her over the four months of her birth. It looked and felt like yesterday when her only brother had fallen to the hands of bandits who swept through their small town in a flurry of guns and machetes.

His wife, Naeemah had gone into labor right after finding her husband's dead body at the door of their four bedroom home, she never came out of Labor. Only leaving behind Ummi and Hibba in the whole world.

"Hibatullah." Hibba sighed and concentrated on her uncle. He was the most patient, the only one who pronounced her name correctly amongst her uncles.

"While you're gone. Be good. Ummi needs your thorough concentration and complete care. I've asked you to marry your cousin Mohammad but you've turned him down time and time again." He cleared his throat and Hibba nearly rolled her eyes.

She had been asked to marry her cousin Muhammad who already was married to the love of his life; rearing cattles. He was a serial flirt and knew nothing of taking care of women.

Hibba knee her dreams of working and earning her own money would go down the drain once she married him, so she refused very firmly when the idea was brought up a month after her brother and his wife's death.

"Have you gotten a house in Abuja?" Hibba sighed and replied slowly for the unpeemth time that she had gotten a one room apartment on gwagwalada, near where Mardiyah lived. Mardiyah was not going to go through her Nysc with all righteousness like she was, so she would be helping care for Ummi until Hibba found a good care person.

"Have you gotten food?" Hibba nodded. She has packed rice, beans, millet, dried corn. Nearly everything.

"Be safe. I'll miss you here. Please be aware that no one in this world is to be fully trusted, keep some doubts to yourself, know when to share and when to keep it in. Okay?" Hibba nodded. She knew that for sure, after all she had navigated four years of University by herself in a different state.

"Thank you Uncle." He was probably the only reason, well he and his wife, why she had not left Katsina totally. Some five weeks after her brother died, some older family members came and said they wanted to give the house to their youngest sibling. Hibba wanted to ask what Fulani custom dictated they throw out the only child of their family just because of her gender. But in the end, she agreed and let them move into the house, she moved herself, Ummi and their load to her uncles and house and since then, she had skipped her compulsory three week orientation to be able to prepare properly for her moving to Abuja.

"Okay then. It seems like you have everything under control, since you seem to have zoned out at least five times this night. May Allah protect you, may He guide your steps, may His light be upon you." Hibba cupped her hands and said Ameen in a low voice that was unlike her if she wasn't so ashamed of her behaviour this evening.

"Sleep well." Her uncle bade her and she got up, put Ummi on her left shoulder and walked out of the room. She walked to the small room that served as her room since she moved in about two months ago and looked around the room again with a little nostalgia.

Bags of everything were mounted on each other in many parts of the room and even the bed had a rope beside it, getting ready to go to Abuja the next day.

Hibba sat down, put her niece on the bed beside her and using a few wrappers, she made a whole fortress and laid Ummi in it. She sighed, blowing duas of the fast asleep girl, asking Allah to make their lives easier than it was.

When Hibba finally lay herself on the bed, she let the tears she had held in since she got out of the exam hall and found her uncle waiting there with a small truck used to transport millet from the farms in their town to the cities.

At first, a smile broke out from her lips, she happily walked to her uncle and just when she reached him, she knew. It was the same way he had announced her parents death to her just the way he knocked their door on that cold October morning. To think of it, it would be five years in a few months.

Hibba cried, hard. She out her hands over her mouth and got up from the bed, doubled over on the floor and finally let out her grief.

***
So guys, here it is. What do you think of Hibba? Does she remind you of any of my other characters?

Please leave me your thoughts and please tell others about WSC(I already have an acronym because the title is a mouthful). 😂😂

See y'all soon.

TheOmoope 💙💛