An Eid With The Prince

[1] PROLOGUE

When thinking of Dubai, people often envision luxury apartments and opulent fabrics of gold. Zarah, too, desired this for herself, but her dreams took an unforeseen turn. Now, she can only hope for a more comfortable life in the apartment her husband secured, despite it being an old and worn place with fading paints.

To top things up, she did pretty bad in the spouse department: a drunk, that was who she married. Packing her husband vomit was the last thing she imagined would happened, yet she eagerly clean the floor like Cinderella as the night owl hoot and the stray cats meowed at racoons who were stupid to search for food in a poor person's trashcan.

"I can't stand these anymore Yusuf, you keep on getting drunk. It's bad for our daughter, I thought you said you'll quit?" Zarah yelled silently at her drunk husband, covering her nose as the stench of half-digested food mixed with alcohol hit her nostrils.

He'd gotten drunk again that night, the way he always did. Routinely, Zarah would pack the puddle of vomits without question, but that night, something had snapped, she had suddenly became tired of such horrible life.

"Woman get to work, and stop complaining. If you want to complain, get out of my house yalla," Yusuf, in his drunk state, yelled at Zarah, who seemed to have lost faith in their marriage. That was all she had to hear, that word broke the marital connection she'd tried to maintain for a long now.

The intensity in Yusuf's voice woke their three years old daughter up, she came out of the bedroom, looking at her parents with sleepy eyes. "Baba?" She said, rubbing her eyes with her small palms.

"Oh haywan, there you are." Yusuf's intoxication was palpable, as he tripped on his way to hug his daughter.

"Baba!" Her eyes lit up, she was about to give her father a hug before Zarah took her hands forcefully.

"Let's go Safeenah, your father is not in his right sense, and I swear by Allah, if things stays this way we are not coming back." Zarah announced, her voice reeking with threat as she glared at Yusuf in the verge of tears, "we are staying with Aunty Noor tonight." She turned at her daughter, wiping her tears.

"Yay!" Clueless Safeenah exclaimed, running inside the bedroom to pack her pyjamas.

"C'mon Habibti, I was just saying nonsense."

"I took your nonsense for long, not anymore." Determination could be perceived from Zarah's voice, Yusuf thought the night will go the way it always went; unbeknownst to him, his wife had cooked up a plan. She followed Safeenah to the bedroom, to get her stuff. She took what looked like eternity before finally pushing out two grey suitcases, her daughter's hand in hers.

"This is temporary, right?" Yusuf inquired, regaining consciousness.

"Good bye Yusuf, at least you'll be happy without me." With these words, Zarah walked out of the bondage of a marriage she was in with her daughter, banging the door and Safeenah waving at her father. Yusuf on the other hand was sober and he did nothing but watch the love of his life walk out in absolute hatred towards him.

It was temporary, or at least Yusuf thinks.

♥

Three years have passed by so fast like a zephyr,  but Zarah's misfortune didn't follow, at least a drunk husband has been deducted from her misfortunes in life — The break she had with Yusuf wasn't temporary after all. Over the years she struggled with the divorce formalities, Yusuf's love for her was palpable, so it took him months if not a year to sign the divorce papers. The documents were just to make things formal, Zarah had already broken their marital rites with him way longer than he could ever knew of.