Dangerous Territory [Completed]

The Graveyard

It all seemed bizarre to think what stomach wrenching turn our lives had taken. People who say they are better off alone lie to themselves, and I didn't think there was anything worse you could do than to knowingly lie to yourself. If you want to survive you need people around you, and if you want to live you need family. Bilal and Ramsha were no doubt there, but I wouldn't have been able to move on if Adil and Aunt weren't there to support us. How wrong we are to cut ties with our blood relations and then try to find solace in people who can be as varying as waves of the sea.

It took me a week to recover, to see what might lay ahead. And there was one thing clearer than anything else. So I stayed awake that night, waiting in the lounge for him to come back home. Bisma was still struggling, I didn't deem it necessary to inform her what I intended to do.

Adil had avoided me throughout the week, he didn't attend any meal and left the house and came back only in the dead of the night. If I hoped to catch him during the day, it was no use because I couldn't keep track at what hour he went out.

Once she had bid us goodnight, Aunt had gone to bed. Without making any noise, careful not to alert her, I trudged out into the sitting room, deciding to not sleep until I'd talked to him. And he came some time past midnight. He was tremendously quiet to not make any noise, and I wouldn't have realised he had arrived had he not have switched the lights of the lounge himself. He blinked, clearly not expecting me to be sitting here in the dark.

"I want to talk." I stated without further ado.

"Yeah," he spoke after a brief pause, "I've been meaning to talk to you as well."

His declaration came to me as a pleasant surprise, and I was eager to know what he had to say. "Yeah? When?"

Adil shrugged as he came around the center table to sit beside me on the couch. I turned to face him. "I don't know, I've been thinking a lot." With his hands clasped between his knees and eyes at a blind spot on the table, he seemed to be thinking of the right words to say. "I'll take you to Baba's grave." He said and looked at me.

I waited, expecting him to complete his sentence but apparently he was done. "If?"

"I'm not proposing a condition." He shook his head.

"Oh." I mouthed, my mind and heart a flurry of emotions. Somewhere in the periphery of my vision I was seeing an opening, some sort of light washing in. "Thank you Adil, you don't know how-" I didn't know what I wanted to say, words alone couldn't describe the humongous waves of emotions crashing on my heart. Thank God he interrupted me.

"I know." He said. "You wanted to say something too?"

I gave a nod and looked up to meet his gaze. "I'm going to clear Uncle's name. I'll start tomorrow. I'll be going to the office and-"

"It's okay if you don't want to."

"I want to." I said rather desperately.

He nodded. "I'd be grateful."

Adil stood up and I heard him say in a low voice as he walked away. "Goodnight."

It was a progression.

---

Aunt and Adil took us out to dinner one day. The restaurant was a bad choice, for the moment we stepped in, all the memories washed over us with an overwhelming force, bringing both of us to the point of tears. Aunt noticed our discomfort and told Adil to take us somewhere else. Bisma let Aunt know that it was the one Father brought us to on his return from a business trip, which was often. It was bizarre to actually feel someone you had known and lived with your entire life no longer around you, even though you're still breathing. Maybe it was better if everyone died together. But life didn't work that way. No matter how happy you must be, the bliss never stays for long, and life in general is sad. If God didn't exist, and if Allah hadn't promised us Heaven, I'd sure have ended the misery once and for all.

We had to move on, no matter how much energy we had to muster to even drag ourselves a little forward, we had to do it nevertheless. I started debating if I should quit medical, but couldn't reach a firm, satisfying decision.

---

Ramsha wanted to visit, so I gave both of them our new address. And the next morning, I don't remember what day it was, Adil at last took me to the graveyard. I needed closure, and he was taking me there to give me just that. The more we walked, winding our way between rows and columns of gray stone headstones, the more heavy my steps became, the more rapidly my heart drummed. Somewhere on a tree, a crow cawed, and a stream of life spiked in the silent land of dead. He finally stopped in front of a tombstone with a cemented grave littered with dead roses. The sight left me to wonder when was the last time Adil visited his father.

"A week ago." He voiced as if reading my thoughts. "I came here a week ago, to check up on him."

I simply stared at the name inscribed on the headstone, unable to fathom the wavering, shimmering reality in my vision. There will come a day when people around me would find my name written here too. Everyone has to go one day.

"From God we came, and to God we have to return." I recited as a tear escaped my eye. From the periphery of my vision I saw Adil step back to give me space. Everyone has to go, but no one should leave their loved one without a goodbye. Maybe without a warning. If only Uncle could hear me, I would tell him one last time, how much I've loved him, how much I've craved his presence since the day he left. I'd tell him how unlucky I am to not realise what I'd been missing, what I've lost. Just one time, could he not come back for the last time, to just hear what I had to say? Why could he not? Oh Allah, would you please tell him, how sorry I am, how very sorry for everything.

I didn't realise when I had come down to the floor on my knees, I didn't realise when I had started sobbing, when tears just kept gushing.

---

I went to the office the next day, personally took reports from the Chief Reporting Officer and gave him the order of revisiting Uncle's case. I told him I wanted to hear of it the next week. Father's business was expanding, it saw no loss with his death. A new deal was signed, another industry was made a part of our enterprise. It needed a new CEO, and I thought I knew just who it should be.

Bisma was recovering. She had agreed to go back to college from next week. She wanted to visit Father's grave. Adil came along, and took us to Uncle too. I dropped out of medical school, marking the end of a chapter.

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