The Oops Factor

A Little Life

My ankle wound has formed a scab, and I can't wait for it to peel off as it’s quite uncomfortable to look at. Lost in thought, I stare at it, unconsciously biting my lower lip, when Jelly's shriek jolts me back to reality, and I almost jump off the bed. With my heart aching, I readjust the airpods as my eyes dart back to the phone screen.

We are video calling today, and this is our 103rd video call. I know the count because every time we FaceTime, we take screenshots, and I carefully curate the best ones, toss out the rest, and stash them in a folder. That folder now contains 102 photos.

Now I have been paying attention alright and listening to everyone's woes and chunks of gossip quite passionately, but then Bia and Opal had to go and steer the conversation towards politics. Jelly listened to them while slurping the falsa sharbat Khala made for her to counter the sweltering Lahore heat. And let me tell you, my brain first decided to take a detour to figure out what the English name for "falsa" is before eventually circling back to Wet Sock and his intriguing gaze from our encounter at the Lodges.

'Geez, Jelly, you let out the most horrifying, blood-curdling scream I have ever heard.'

Cackling like a maniac, she falls off the chair. 'I just wanted to get your attention.' she says, climbing back up on the chair and clutching the side of her head.

I pull a face and say, 'Well, this is not an effective way. I could have had heartache and died. I'm not sure how you would have managed to grab my attention then.'

'What's up?' Opal asks, fanning her face with her niece's toy electric fan (her bhai got married ages ago; I have absolutely zero recollection of it, but they only had the baby five years ago). They haven't had electricity for the past three hours, she said. The eternal woes of Karachi.

Bia and Jelly look at me expectantly through the screen, and I sigh. 'Did I tell you about Hayy and Spozhmy?'

Bia shakes her head, peeling the skin from her lips. 'Nope, what about it?'

'Who are Hayy and Spozhmy?' asks Jelly.

And so I tell them the story.

Bia is the first one to speak when I finish. 'And you're worried about Spozhmy? A bully?'

'She seems like an innocent girl. It's possible Hayy fed Wais a false story just to keep him on his side.'

'And it's also possible that Wais witnessed Spozhmy bullying a kid himself,' shrugs Opal.

I groan, ‘I don’t know. I feel like I want to do something about it.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Talk to Papa?’

‘Wais asked you not to, though,' reminds Bia.

‘Yeah, that’s the problem.’

‘You know what I think, Nana?’ Opal's tone is serious, but as long as she's going to keep that toy fan dancing over her face, I can't take her seriously.

I roll my eyes. ‘What?’

‘I think you should not get into this mess. I am getting bad ideas about it. What if they get you abducted or something?’

‘As if they would dare. You don’t know, Opal, but as formidable and arrogant as some of these Sardar families are, they are intimidated by the military.’

‘Still, I feel like this is none of your business, and do you really think they would listen to you, a child? A girl nonetheless. Don’t you remember telling us how they put up problems for this female principal until the education officer joined?’