Intricacies of the Horizon

I collected the crayons from the floor, the free verse written on the paper with yellow 'Al-Suoffan'

I folded the paper into half and placed it under my pillow.

The delirium dropped. The vacuum filled. I patted the head of my four year old.

I breathed in and then sighed.

The jungle fire ceased.

The phone blinked.

A mail from Fathimah, she sends her daughter and her son's photograph.

I smiled.

I replied.

With everything changing yet nothing visible, the hidden growth of souls.

I, ran away far far into the Dark from Dar-Al-Maqamah.

I knew well what the walls expected of me.

The callous walls. The dark dungeons. The chambers. The gazebo, the incandescent light. The elated garden

I knew everything.

I read Al-Wais's letter yet again.

Why did you do this? The unseen question probed.

I looked outside, the sky with the glittering Galaxy, the Innummerous stars all with their hands on their chin, passing me the message "how are you Falaq-Naaz? How are you? "

I seams of the lines in the road come to me and lead the way to my memory.

"but I want to see him please" I requested ardently.

"Ma'am we cannot,it is against our rules" the white lady in her pink attire denies me the permission to meet my husband.

"Please..... " I turned to the doctor.

"He is dangerous Mrs Elahim " he warns.

"I am his Wife" I pierce through his cold eyes. They shrink.

I was admitted to the room,where there were pink walls, the offensively placed mirror and a bed.

There on the bed, the stench of urine mixing with the vile smell of medicines, I saw a Man tied up with a 'straight jacket' for every man and women who does not know what a straight jacket is, must never discover it.

The worse than animosity in the barbarians of human science experiments with the extent of cruelty.

I saw him tied, trapped, strapped and suffocating in the jacket with his mouth taped closed.

My heart broke.

I held him. His eyes fell on his reflection, dear life should ceased, I should not tired to see this. You are alive in the these moments to suffer, to endure.

The pain ensures that you are living.

I pulled the tape off his mouth, the quivering sound of the scalding motion.

I rushed to his embrace, my arms around him, his tied. My eyes red, his light, my heart thumping, his quiet. My soul mourning, his crying.

Love.

It happens most uncertainly.

Tears were streaming down my face like they knew the way well.

His eyes moist. I should not have left him into this cruel hospital.

I should not have. He denied.... I still.......

I cried helplessly apologizing without a voice.

He stared his own self tied like an animal in a zoo.

The guilty eyes of mine, broken soul where would this go now. The doors of the heaven were closed.

"Ladyship... " the voice of my beloved.

"I love you" I breathed my unconventional sigh.

"I love you more.... Ladyship,look" he lifted my head with his eyes "look there" he tilts his head to the glass window,the doomed window which holds his reflection.

"no.... " I shook my head.

"Ladyship... Look!" he commands.

My head was falling in the pit of the dark hole.

"Lady Al-Souffian! " his authoritative voice take control "look at me" now softens.

"I love you...." I cried... That was all I had to say... for everything ..as an apology... As a question.... As a answer.... As my defense....

"Ladyship, I want you to hear me carefully. You know me right? We know how I do not understand or can control what I can become the next moment. So far as I am here, I beg you my love, listen to me"

I cried and cried.

"Ladyship, in a week or two, one month or two, one, two, three years to come; I am to kill myself. As long as I live, I will continue to cease"

I broke down on his chest.

"This child" he voice quavering "this child is my son. Listen my Love...

My son shall be named Ar-Afaq Bin Al-Souffian Elahim. You are to love him greater than you love me. You are to raise him like a Elahim. You are in debt of my heart, everytime he you see the embodiment of the Elahim in him, you would be set free of charge"

"we are going to raise him together! " I pushed the lumps in my throat. Breaking the walls inside that refrained me from speaking.

"You are going to raise him well. He should be a Great man. A greater Elahim, not afraid of sorrow, not afraid to weep. Kind and pleasant. To be like a flame and like a River. To enlighten,to mesmerize the one who encounters him. To be like a King, the compassion of Al-Wais in him. The melancholy of Al-Hassan in him, he would not be afraid to grieve life. The sharpness but refinement of Al-Shizad in him, the warmness, the kindness of my little Al-Wildan in him. Lastly he should be born with the brave heart that his father posses. The vulnerabilities of his mother. The Elahim. The successor of Dar-Al-Maqamah. My Ar-Afaq...."

I pursed my lips, the unsuccessful attempts against tibulation.

"I want to hold him once Ladyship... I want to see how he feels....once"

I wiped away my tears.

"Let's go home" I stood up. I undid the straps that tied him.

"I will kill myself Ladyship. You or him or anybody else should never witness it"

"Then don't kill yourself " I gazed in the grey specks.

He smiled "I wish it was that simple"

"Leave" he grabbed the back of my head. "Leave and never return "

"Stop please" I pleaded, his words like dragger murdering me.

"Never tell my son of my madness. I want to be his hero"

"You are my hero" I whispered, my lips close to his, his fist full of my hair, the tender pain of the action.

"Without the pity in the eyes. I want to be his Hero" he added.

Tears fell from my eyes. He kissed my lips and the sorrow in me, he drank it.

"I will see you tomorrow " he said.

"But-"

"Go home " he looked away. The neutral.

The morning pricked into my eyes. I smiled. I thought things would go well. Sometimes you know the very point where you will lose, the battle that has been lost but still you limp with one leg towards what you feel would be your happy ending.

Unlike fiction, the real life has plenty of dilemma. We were limping with one leg towards the worse. He descended into madness. He was hurling like a wild storm one day and the other day he was soothing the melody in the happiness of his coming child. He loved him endlessly. He wanted to see him once. Just once.

On 6 April 2018,the sky was Pale, the wind was silent. The soil was stuck to the land. The flowers were paralyzed. The resentful Day,Al-Souffian, my love passed away

He ceased to be? No, he is alive in everything.

He ascended to the heavens and my child descended to the earth after three days, I hope on the way he met his father, that they had a heart to heart chatter. That he held him before me because the pain that I feel whenever I remember that my beloved could not see our child kills me.

I carried Ar-Afaq for ten months. In the sorrow and madness of the death of my husband.

However, I would never affirm that I left Dar-Al-Maqamah because Al-Souffian wanted me to. It would likely make him accountable. It was entirely my own decision.

Everybody was playing their card, Al-Souffian would not take his medicines saying he was being selfish; that he wanted to die. Al-Wais wanted me, for the first time he was reluctant but firmly selfish. Now it was my turn to be Selfish and I delivered my whole courage to be so.

I did this most for me, a little for Ar-Afaq.

After Al-Souffian's funeral I did not ever return to Dar-Al-Maqamah. Though In the last two years, Ar-Afaq gets a hearty visit from his uncles.

How surreal is the fact that the blood ties are stronger than the societal ties of my son. He is more like them than he is like me.

The Elahim Brothers....

I smile everytime I see him growl over in manners. The intelligence, the straight back. The soft heart. The hard look. The mandatory,most precious quality; the frail and naive use of words, he is a four years

old but he is so affluent with words.

I miss Al-Souffian. I remember him in Ar-Afaq.

He is like him.

My pride.

My heart.

My love.

There were several reasons why I left Maqamah. One of which was Al-Souffian's cold slap on Al-Hassan, I felt oddly humiliated to be the exact woman his father feared. I saw the upcoming events, if I stayed, if Al-Wais spoke of love for me, would Dar-Al-Maqamah ever stay the same again?

Indeed a curse had wrapped around, no Woman could endure in the mansion.

"one sorrow reduces with the intensity of another sorrow, when it is repeated "

If the pain their mother gave them was repeated, would it hurt less then?

If one thing is done twice,would you be as much affected?

It reduces the pain. I did the same thing over. The past exchanged for the present.

"you will forget everything, you will remember me, only me"

I wonder what sorrows I ever had before I entered Maqamah.

Everything is nonexistent.

Why did I come here?

"He has subjected for you. The night the Day, the sun, The moon and the stars are subjected by his commands.

Indeed in that are Signs for people who REASON. Verse 16:12"

To learn, To reason. To remember. To gain. To Endure. I did not know the reason,the way to live... I met these young men, whom I admire so ardently and with whom I have these indescribable bond. They taught me the deepest sympathies of life. The beauty of living. The language of hearts. The unexplainable quality of life. The richness of emotions. Love. Love like.... Love like no one has ever known. The pure. The Elated... The beautiful Elahim Brothers.

The sky open,the light blossoming.

"Do you know what Ar-Afaq means Ladyship? "

"wot" I teased.

He narrows his eyes but then smiled

"Ar-Afaq means Horizon. You the Dawn of the Sky and I, the storm of the sand,we meet at the mesmerizing point, the Horizon. Falaq and Souffian meeting At Afaq"

The unseasonal rains poured down.

I smile at the dainty drizzles.

Fateh picks Ar-Afaq and they both bathe in the tranquil water from the paradise. I stepped out.

"Breath away the scars. You did not bear them, they bore you. Your life is the open stream of opportunity. What is passed,has withered. Let the wind heal you. I am here. Fabricate Falaq-Naaz, Fabricate into fragments and whither away with the sorrow of your soul"

Fabricate.....

-The End-

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