Expectations and Reality

Chapter 35 | A GLIMPSE AT HIS PAST

These pains you feel are messengers, listen to them.

Rumi

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Tensed and confused, Ms Amrah tried hard to swallow the lump in her throat. Everything was getting out of her control and her subconscious was telling her that everything will go so damp and hindered. On normal basis, she'll have prayed a two units of prayers in gratitude and joy but now, she felt numb to even stretch forward her legs from her sitting position.

She's yet to convince herself that everything that had happened wasn't just a mere dream, it was reality. In many occasions she'll pinch herself to make sure it's real and always she ends up bearing the pain on her sour skin. But now she didn't have to do any of that. She didn't have to slap her face mentally out of thoughts. Everything was real.

She needed no reason to confirm her apart from the different mixtures of Oudh and lily follower scent that had enveloped her being since she stepped into the house. She would never forget that scent, she once dwell in it, how could she now.

But then now, she felt hard to compose herself to that feeling. Years ago it was her favourite but now it felt like it'll end her life. The oxygen she inhaled in is mixed up with that scent and every ounce she inhaled, that's how it reminds her of everything. But then she couldn't stop herself from breathing.

It somehow felt like joke how years have passed without her appearance in that little place. Before, it was mixed up with wailing and cries of the beings in the house and the neighbouring children but now everything went dead-silent, only for the bird's noise echoing around the compound.

Everything about the environment irked her because of how they made everything click back to her fussed memory but above all, the purpose of her being there sent shivers down her spine. She felt stupid and all. She couldn't make choice out of herself until someone had to probe her being. She lived indeed a coward's life.

The little musings of hope that she'd lived on before, now felt like she was just building a castle in the air. Everything went down destructive and she couldn't fathom the reason behind such. Had it been she was the cause of all, she would have blame herself to the interior core but now who would she hold responsible? Her faked-mushy lover!

But still she had to thank Allah and the great man behind all this. Only God could reward him of such effort he made in amending her relation with her family that was before a history. Without him, her name might now have been erased from the family. Maybe it's almost erased, she don't know. But now the last thing she could think of was that. Why would it even pop up in her mind when she's in such condition, almost clueless about her future.

She had loved the silence of her father since childhood - not that he was a talkative tho, he was reserved - but now it was killing every hope within her. In facial features, it's her father but within, she fears who is within. The glint of betrayal lining his rims got her knees so darn loosed. She felt like vanishing in the air so as for all the tension to be eased and his commotion to subside. But she couldn't, she came farther to Palestine for reconciliation and forgiveness, she wouldn't turn her back now. She wouldn't make all her hopes seem a few lines of imagination.

When he spoke, she became alerted. She listened with raft attention, not that she's afraid of what he's saying but afraid of whether the words will sink in her brain talk less of understanding them. "Amrah, ma aldhy aeadaki ilaa munzili?"

Ya Allah! How is she supposed to tell him now that she no more understand Arabic? That will only boil up his anger. "Ya Abbi, I no more understand Arabic, only some phrases"

Her mother gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Amrah! It's your language"

"Seriously! I can see you're all-Canadian now. And at least you didn't forget the word 'Ya Abbi'" the tension behind those words, she couldn't miss it and the sacarsm dropping from it scared her. He was never a sacarstic type. The words were rapped with anxiety and different commotion. She muttered a 'SubhanAllah', more like trying to control her own emotions.