Reading Yasin

Chapter One • No Surprise

Shouldn't have to give a reason why it's no surprise I won't be here tomorrow, I can't believe that I stayed till today, there's nothing here in this heart left to borrow, there's nothing here in this soul to stay.

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~ Y A S I N ~

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This being the third time this season has rolled around with me in the country, I've come to get used to Canadian winters. The first thing I wake up to every day is the fluff of snow crusting and lying on my window pane. And today, I notice that it had snowed heavier last night than most. The snow has completely covered my window and left no space for me to peer outside my one-room apartment.

I get up from bed and stretch out to my full height, my rumpled t-shirt rolling down my torso as I walk to the window. Upon opening the double panes, the loose snow falls to the ground while some still stick to the glass. When the chilly air greets my skin, they trigger a wave of goosebumps and I immediately shut the window once again.

Looking out through the now cleared up pane, I realise that today I'll have to do some shovelling before I can get my car out of the garage and into the driveway. The snow was so deep that I probably won't be able to drive without clearing a path first.

I sigh as I think about the heavy-duty work that awaits me before going off to have a shower and getting ready for the day. Breakfast, as usual, was a chore I didn't bother to have and if not because I feared of dying of malnutrition, so was every other meal. 

I put on a heavy jacket and black leather gloves with a matching black beanie on my head to give myself as much protection from the piercing cold as possible before I grabbed the shovel and headed outside.

I glared at the scene before me before puffing out a sigh that left a very visible condensation of air in its wake. It would take me at least thirty minutes before I finished shovelling the snow off from the garage driveway.

And so, I spent the next half hour shovelling heaps of snow and throwing them to the side while simultaneously thinking about how much I hated winter. Yes, I had said that I was used to it but I didn't say I like it any better than the first year I spent here and found that my African skin wasn't at all used to tolerating to subzero temperatures. That year, I discovered that hell could as well be frozen too.

My head was still down and my arms busy with their swinging motion when I heard a greeting being shouted from the house across the street, opposite mine.

"Morning to you Yasin! I see the snow's put you to work early in the morning!"

I straightened up and waved a hand at the jolly old man, smiling as I replied. "Morning to you too Mr Siddiqui! Yes, the snow's putting me to quite the task this morning!"

The Pakistani man has always been nice to me and so, I try my best to return the favour, seeing how we're both foreigners in a land. Though now, I've lowered that down a notch since a few months ago, we got into a little bit of an awkward misunderstanding. He thought my kindness meant otherwise, that whenever I helped him with his grocery bags or held up a long conversation with him, it was because I had eyes for his twenty year old granddaughter. Obviously, I don't and to stop things from getting more uncomfortable, I've stopped offering to shovel his driveway too whenever I do mine or doing anything more than the necessary civil neighbour relationship requires.