THE MASKED GIRL

10

Aliyu

It was hard for me to accept. The army was my peace. It had been three years but everything still feels the same. I sometimes wonder if I'm still a good child. Will my Mama be proud of the person I become? I shut my family out after I joined the army, I didn't know how they are doing for good three years now. And since phone isn't allowed here I didn't mind calling them at all. It was all getting to me now, and it's killing me. So I let it out, I cried my pain out. And I am happy I have a shoulder to cry on, her shoulder.

She didn't stop me at all or asked why I was crying. The last time I cried like this was on my mother's corpse. I stopped after I felt like I had enough. She helped me with water and I washed my face and then drink some. She made fun of how I looked when I was washing my face.

I decided to narrate my life to her. To tell her everything. Everything about me. Even the ones I have never said out loud before. Why did I decide to tell her? Because I want her to be a part of my life. I always want to be with her. I want to spend more time with her. I want to share my secrets with her even the deepest. I want to stay with her. Our little conversations when I bring her dinner are the best part of my day. She has managed to consume me completely. She has become the only thing on my mind lately.

During training, it's her.

During food, her.

Prayers, her.

Everything I do it's her, all her. The feeling is strange, I have never felt it before and I don't want it to go away.

•••

"I've always wanted to be a soldier, since when I was a kid though my dad wants a different thing for me. I have always been a mommy's pet, my mom loves me the most as she doesn't hide it and my siblings don't care cause they have our dad. My mother was my only happiness, the only person I looked up to, she was my everything.

My sisters used to make fun of me for being a Mama's baby as old as I am, saying I was probably still staying single cause I can't be without Mama. My dad always says he cannot wait for me to find my own Hafsa and leave his Hafsa (My mother) to him alone as I always claim that I will only marry a woman named Hafsat.

My family was a simple happy home of My Dad, Mom, Me, Muneeba, Muneefa, and Hafsat. I still remembered how Hafsat was named, I was six years old when she was born, and Mama gave me the privilege of naming her myself and Hafsat being the only female name I love, I named her that. Abbah was against it cause to him she can't be named after her mother, naming kids after someone in the family isn't his thing, and as usual, Mama supported me. Hafsat didn't just take after Mama's name but some of her traits too. She has her voice and looks a lot like her more than all of us. This was also why I left home, seeing Hafsat breaks my heart. The twins take a lot after our father and no matter how much I pretend to not see it and claim that I take after our mother, I am the replica of Abbah. Hafsat takes after Mama and the twins and me after Abbah.

Everyone knows the love between me and Mama is extraordinary, I sleep in her room sometimes even at my age. I love laying my head on her lap as she touches my hair, I am always playful with her. There are lots of things I love doing with her, and it breaks me to think of not getting them ever again.

I still vividly recall the day, the day that I lost her. It was the day I was to take over one of the family's companies. I was almost twenty years old and in my third year in college when my father decided on letting me into his business. The ceremony was to take place in one of the newest M.M Corporations that was recently built, one that my father wants me to manage entirely on my own. Mama decided on going before us to be sure that things were going as exactly planned, she was the type of person that made sure everything goes well. She came to my room before she left, and she helped fixed my necktie as usual complaining about how I still couldn't tie it well. She then sat on the bed motioning me to do the same. We talked, talked about a lot of things. The longest talk we haven't had in a while. We talked about my future, my religion, my life, and on how this world is a temporary place. I thought we talked about all that because I was taking the next step in my life, and she was just advising me. I didn't know that she was saying goodbye, that it was the last time I will ever talk to her. I happened to tell her that she was saying things as if she was going to die and she said she won't mind dying now but she hoped she will be with me when I find my Hafsat. I changed the topic immediately, if there was a thing I hated is thinking of my Mama dying. She checked her time and told me she had to go and I escorted her to the car. My sisters were not ready and I was to go with them that was why I didn't follow her. We talked about a lot of things but she emphasized on me being patient, even while she was in the car she told me that everything happens for a reason. Maybe she felt it in her that she was dying. Maybe that was why she kept telling me to take care of everyone. Maybe that was why I felt empty when her car drove away. It happened in three hours, just three hours. My life was ruined in three hours. Completely"