It's not all Roses

Karachi

Zaynab

Present Day

The singsong manner of birds overhead is less than pleasant but it's early morning and as groggy as I am, this messy chirping and hoo haw feels like a cruel mockery to our shabby demeanour.

Above our heads, the blank sheet of black has  been stirred with a milky dawn. Even then, graying thunderous ghosts swirl about, ready to burst down any minute.

"So, where are we going now?" Ayzah asks.

Sweat and exhaustion lines her face. Asad seems to be lost in some deep thought and I was grateful for it at first but now it's making me uneasy. I know he is not prone to long spans of silence.

"Asad?" Ayzah says again.

"Yes?" He is facing her now, still distracted. I raise my eyebrow and he suddenly realises what is being asked of him.
He can't keep Talha's secret anymore. Not for long at least.

The thunder claps and Asad's voice is small when he mutters the address. It's foreign on his tongue and I realize he hasn't been told much either.

We haul our minimal luggage into the Careem. I look out the mist tinted windows to gaze outside. Karachi is waking up and my head has already started registiring its differences from Lahore. Somewhere in the strangeness of this city, Talha has run off to.

To what?

The question doesn't rest until we reach there.
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Ayzah won't get out of the car. Some ten minutes ago, we had pulled up in a posh residential area and given the number of broken seats and cramped, high apartment buildings we'd seen so far, this place with its well kept houses and gardens looks pristine.

And Ayzah won't set one foot out of that humid car.

"We are not going to leave you here," Asad says to her.
Her face is blank.

Golden white rays peak through cotton clouds and my forehead prickles with sweat beads.

"I am ending the ride,"  I say. At this, Ayzah glares at me but her stubborness is costing us money.

"Fine," she says breathily. Asad tries his utter best to look reassuring but Azyah's face is the palest I ever remember seeing. Once she had accidentally forgotten to check the time table and arrived for an important test with no preparation. The look on her face right now is worse than that.

"I know I agreed to coming with you guys but," a pause and then, "I don't want to see Talha," she finally says.

Asad scorns."Then why did you even come?" he asks.

"Look, I am not an idiot. I know why you tagged me along," she says in a sharp voice, "you got what you wanted, now get off my back."

She says all this while looking at me. Of course she knows she is here to dilute the haraam-ness of Asad and me travelling together. She knows we have used her to get a guilt-free trip to Karachi. She knows and she does not look happy about it.

"Ayzah, come on," Asad says, "Where are you even going to go?"

"I have texted Khala, she will be here any moment."

Now, for me this is happy news but Asad's face dims. He looks at me helplessly and before I can say anything a bony hand grips my shoulder.

"Churail," an all too familiar voice says. I don't know how I  don't snap my neck as I spin around . Talha's large eyes hiding behind his hippie glasses stare at me.

I don't see others' reactions, I am glued there.

"What are you doing here?" He says. As if actually expecting me to answer that. I can't seem to say anything. It's Talha. It's actually him. Intact. In one piece. Drapped in an oversized shalwar kameez, drenched in sweat. Trying not to smile too much. It's that son of a bitch Talha.

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TALHA

Eesha and I stay up all night, watching old ptv dramas. It's almost dawn now and I can see sleep hitting her, lingering in her expressionless eyes but she stays.

We haven't spoken much. There is an awkward stillness that has lasted too long. We have been friends for as long as I have known Fahad. She doesn't resemble him at all, not even close. Annayah does.

This lack of conversation between us is tangible now. Words seem to be suspended in a vacuum of unease. From the slits between windows, a deep blue blankness is paused. Like a held breath.

"You want something to eat?" Eesha asks.

I don't want to ignore her but I am lost in my reverie. I can't seem to pull out words.

What have I done? This ever-existent questions has become an irritable itch. Always looming with a backdrop of guilt and panic.

Right then, I hear a sound. Down in the street a faint argument has erupted. Maybe at some level of subconsciousness, a thought is registered. A click. A traceable, redundant memory lane has sparked up. But I don't feel it. I simply get up and open the window, just a tad.

The curtain brushes against my face and it hides the view temporarily. However smudged the scene maybe, the nostalgic synapses in my brain spark again. In my dazed state, I step out of the front door, a thousand feelings  brimming under my skin.

These faces are etched in my brain but I still gasp as I see Zaynab's wild hair and Asad's tired face. Ayzah has already seen me. She's frozen at the spot and Zaynab continues to speak.

I step forward. Ayzah takes a step back. I am too close, this is all real. Too real.