Tag

Pain


Browsing
Creative Fiction

DIARY OF JANE; THE MURDER SERIES (part 5)

By

#5 Secrets in the Grave.

The dead lay still,
Dislodged from the moving habits
Of the living
By the scythe of death,
As silence followed the absence of their souls
Into veils of the nether-realm,
Where stars are
Shadows
Of a phantom dark.
They slept on the fields of eternity,
In blade-less grass beds
That never felt
The coldness of the sun…
The dark of the moon…
The storms after summer…
Or the decaying warmth before winter…
The dead remained motionless
As they collapsed from
Time-held shells of their mortal coil
Into an ending of
Bones & dust,
Becoming unnamed figures
Of the non-living
Carrying tombstones
Where they put their crosses,
As nails let coffins
Keep the living away.
She looked on at their becoming,
And like the silence
She saw them off without words,
Or hymns,
Or sorrow,
Or sympathy,
For they were ill-fated bearers
Of her secrets,
Damned
To take it with them
To the hell
Where her demons lay.

***

Sirens wailed into the heavy air as police cars whizzed past him, splashing dead rain onto the walls of curiosity in his mind. Anxiety was as thick as the sky, while the wind plucked leaves from where uneasy butterflies hung on branches, fleeing from the chaos of the world. He could feel his own pulse throb through the linings of his shirt, pleading with him to stop running & keep his feet on the ground. His lungs burned from perspiration, chasing the very air that rushed past his face. He was on a full sprint, looking for turns, alleyways & basements that would throw away the policemen on his tail, but it seemed as if there was no way to shake them off.
***

He stood in the light drizzle, taking in the intoxication of jasmine scents left behind by the empty air where Luna once stood, flirting with the nasal trance as he fought off the urge to run after her, to go down on his knees and beg her for forgiveness. He lost himself in the slow of time, between the seconds that he stole to either decide or let go, but when the pendulum swung once again, he found himself tailing the phantoms in the musk of her perfume.
***

He dashed into a new corner now, where the road narrowed into a bridge. A river roared beneath the walkway, splashing on its stone-soaked banks like a water dragon as it struggled to bring down the wooden aperture to the floors of dead rock beneath it. He looked back & saw five more police officers had joined the chase now, making the corner he just came from and taken aback by the fury of the river.
“No time to think now…”
He made his way up the archway, his footsteps heavy on the aging foothold. The river seemed to grow bigger once he made it through the first few feet across, tumbling every now and then over water from both the ocean skies above & the river dragon below, having to do all he can to keep himself from spraining his legs. A quick glance back and the officers had made it to the footwalk as well, guns drawn from their holsters and aimed at him…
“FREEZE! DON’T MOVE!”
***

It seemed like it was mere seconds ago that he traced the path she had taken, snaking through empty roads of the leafy neighborhood and abandoned play fields, her hair falling off from the shelter beneath the white maven she wore. She rounded into a distant corner just as a police car was steered next to her, but he was still too far off and blinded by the corner walls of the building.
“Must be something to do with the investigation, looks like the Chief’s ride…”
He slowed down his pace then, his instincts telling him she would definitely tell the cops he’s been lurking and he didn’t feel like spending the night at the cell…
***

He almost laughed at the remark, seeing how he ended up with an option he literally wanted to run away from since the beginning.
“Stop and get killed by law enforcers or run and manage to escape them and find a way to think everything over…”
He sprinted onward, the other side of the bridge opened out from the short horizon the arch of the bridge had made.
“I can do this”
He panted heavier now, his breathes coming shorter to him. He could feel his asthma fighting through the wall of sheer will he had built up to keep himself from collapsing.
“No…not yet…”
***

He felt like he had left behind a lifetime of memories now. The spontaneous burst of each moment escaping through his line of sight…the sudden scream…the sound of two bodies scuffling…his realization of the wrongness of the situation…the sound of a man yelping in pain…the sound of his footsteps as he ran to where Luna had disappeared into…the sound of the first gunshot…him making it to the corner…the sound of the second gunshot…him seeing a masked figure over Luna…the surprise that held him to place as he realized what he just stepped into…the rush of bullets past his face as the figure rounded toward him and fired a couple more shots…fear pulling him into a sprint back around the corner again as he dashed to hide his open back from the gun of the attacker…
***

He got to the end of the bridge in time and made for the forest that opened up into an eerie dark. It was harder here to maintain a sprint when the ground rose and fell without his notice. Barks of trees sheltered him from his pursuers’ guns as they fired at him incessantly. His chest however, was burning holes through his torso, and he couldn’t even maintain his speed when he wanted to run faster. In the silence of the trees he could make out their footsteps as they rushed behind him, the thought of losing his life the only reason his legs needed to keep moving forward.
The police cars were suddenly behind him, not to protect him, but to run him over.
“What the hell…”
“Don’t let that murderer get away. We’ve been given orders to shoot on sight”
He had barely made it over a nearby fence when he heard the police guards shouting.
“They think I killed…?”
He had made his way through the flood of wood and branches into open space, the road ahead still busy with cars as they dashed back and forth into and out of the neighborhood. He could feel his asthma rising, drowning him in the heaviness of his own chest as his heart raced to keep blood flowing and his legs running…
“Just a little further…”
He made the steps up to the road when one of the officers fired a shot on his right leg.
“Argh…!”
He stopped then, falling down to the tarmac. He turned to see them coming closer as they made their way past the clearing into the open field. With a monumental effort he stood up then, seeing a motorcyclist come up his way.
“Now or never…”
Before he could do anything he felt his whole body get rammed by what felt like a hundred iron bulls, as he suddenly plunged upwards into the soar sky, then down again on rough tarmac…
Pain…
Too much…
Can’t breathe…
He turned to see what happened, finding a black figure come out of another police car…
Headache…
Images growing more blurry…
Liquid in his mouth…blood?
The black figure squatted beside him
“I got him guys, over here!”
He raised his eyes, saw a mask being tucked into a jacket…
His life flashed before his eyes…Spilling milk on his mum’s carpet…doing drugs in his teens…dropping out of school…the first big money he ever made…his first kiss…
The first time he fell in love…
Luna…
He felt himself ooze away from the world, away from all the chaos that erupted around him, into tranquil nirvana. It was funny how everything that felt so important seconds ago, seemed like trivial issues now.
The dimming finally steered him into a full dark…
Light became shadow…
And he could do nothing as the release came to him as swift as the last words of the living met his ears…
“Nice work detective Lall.”

by
Keep Reading
Creative Non-Fiction

WHERE IS MY BABY

By

Photo Courtesy: Unknown

The only thing I constantly dream and anticipate of my future, is to be a mother. Not just any kind of a mother; a very dedicated one. I live for that. And I hope that God makes it come true. Ameen. I don’t know what it feels like to lose a child or to be in marriage and await for children, but I can only imagine and pray that God doesn’t test me with that and to grant those who are still having faith and praying for a miracle, a good offspring.

This is a rather special post for me because here, I narrate two different stories of two different individuals who lost their children. This gave me a heart ache but I do realize the need for people to hear other people’s stories; to appreciate their own journeys and to be patient in whatever they are going through. It is not going to be an easy read. Take heart and know that if you are/were in this same journey, you are never alone.

***A PREVIOUS NARRATION BY A DAD WHO LOST HIS FOUR UNBORN BABIES***

“Not many have the courage to speak about their disappointments in life, it hurts to lose people you love but it hurts more to lose people you expect and they don’t materialize. As we celebrate my 29th birthday, so do we celebrate the lose of our four unborn kids that never even had a chance to have a breadth of life through miscarriages. It’s the most devastating and disappointing event that has ever met our lives, and the worst of it all, the doctors can’t explain the cause of the miscarriages even after spending chunks of bills for tests and medication.

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg posted his experience with miscarriages and now expecting a baby girl, this is reassuring that there’s calm after storm. The comments and replies the post received were amazing, I came to learn that as I find it difficult having lost four babies, many other families have lost more than ten before they finally got a baby or more thereafter. And the least pleasing fact is that a huge number of couples have not even had the experience of the miscarriage itself let alone having a baby and passes on after successful birth.

Allah SW provides to His subjects what they need and not what they want, for what they want may not be beneficial to them or rather harmful in their lives and religion. For as much as we don’t know is in store for us by destiny, we shouldn’t stop trying and exploring available halaal ways of finding solutions to this problem. Allah has given mankind brains and resources to find solutions for such medical conditions, and the best of the mankind are those that are patient and those who depend on Allah for their lives and their hereafter.

The miscarriages issue has come with it many disappointing and devastating events. Young couples divorcing, wrangles in families and lack of happiness in homes. Yet the problem may be a medical condition that is treatable or may be chromosomal that is not, but in the long run, couples must remember it’s Allah SW who decides who gets what and when and in what form, so it’s not upon you to question the deity. The best of your response should be to thank and remember Allah SW during all moments. Allah tests His subjects both in hardship and pleasure, so the have are no better than the have not. Children come with responsibilities, so for the one who have, it’s also a great challenge for them too since the responsibility comes even harder for who they become is a reflection of what their parents are!. Lastly, as I pay tributes to the gone babies of ours, we missed you though we never had the chance to hold you in our arms, perhaps the right time hasn’t come. Or may be, better babies are yet to come. We shall always remember you and cherish the feeling of your few weeks with us. You gave us a lot of hope and joy but Allah Has the better plans for them and the many that have gone before and after you.”

***A NARRATION BY A MOTHER WHO LOST HER SON***

“Two months into my marriage, I was already pregnant. There was excitement in the house. It’s every woman’s dream; any couple’s dream and mine was finally going to come true. I was happy and counting down of the nine months began. Then one day we went out with my husband to a hotel at Diani and I hit myself at the abdomen with the swimming pool slide. The complications started right after that. My abdomen started aching and all the hospitals I went to, I was told nothing is wrong, the baby was fine but I should have bed rest. My scans were clear too.

By then I had already resigned from my workplace so as to take care of my health. Nonetheless, I got better and I applied for another job of which I was accepted. On the same day that I reported to work, I started feeling unwell and had to ask for permission to go see the doctor. By the time I got to the ferry, all I was seeing was black. I went and held a pole nearby to support myself as I tried to regain my strength. Two ladies came to me and asked if everything was okay. When they noticed I was pregnant and helpless, each of them held one arm and helped me board the ferry. I was still feeling nauseated and I started throwing up. The two ladies noticed I was vomiting red they thought it was blood although it was because I was from eating watermelons. That worried them and a nurse came to their rescue. I couldn’t clarify it wasn’t blood because I could barely open my mouth. So the lady nurse came to us and decided to carry me. Since they considered it an emergency case, the ferry immediately left to take me to the other side where my husband was waiting for me.

After the three ladies got me to my husband, I went for check-up, the doctor insisted that this time round I should have a bed rest for one whole month. As such, my husband had to go to my new workplace and inform them that I can’t make it.

My grandma decided to take me with her, to ease it for my husband since he has to go to work. But then one day, the pain revisited my body, this time more painful than ever. Nearby, there was a mid-wife so we went to her and she gave me a massage. I was told that the baby was leaning on my abdomen and thus the pain. But the massage was like adding charcoal to the fire. I had to be rushed to the nearest hospital which was Coast General and was told that my baby’s path was already open. I was about to give birth. At six months.

The nurses injected me and prepared me for birth. It was going to be a pre-mature birth and chances of survival was 50-50. But we were hopeful and I had faith. All my relatives were told to wait outside the ward. I still had some time before I could give birth, so the nurse left me alone. But then the bone-breaking pain came and I was confused. It was my first time, with absolutely no idea how things work. I just pulled off my hijab, kept it under my thighs and started pushing and pushing…extreme pain, sweat…then black…

“Ah! She has given birth already!” I could hear the nurses calling out from afar. “Ma’am, ma’am…do you know that you have already given birth?’

I didn’t know,but I just nodded. I checked the time, it was almost 1 hour 45 minutes later since I started giving birth and lost my consciousness. There was frantic movement for some time. Then cleaning me up, then cutting of the umbilical cord. One nurse then came to me, ‘Ma’am, you gave birth to a baby boy…but i’m sorry, he passed…Do you want to see him?”

I said no. I requested for my family instead. My aunt who raised me came in with my mother in law. They found me crying. I could now feel the emptiness in me; in my heart, in my stomach.

“Have you seen your son?” My aunt asked as she went on consoling me. When I said no, she insisted I should, “This is your son and you are never going to see him again. So take heart and hold him and kiss him. Be strong.”

And I bid farewell to my son; my only child, my only flesh. For a long time, I was never going to forget that moment.

Almost two weeks after giving birth, the abdomen pain struck again. It was too painful. I went to see my gynecologist and after yet another scan, they noticed a leakage, though they couldn’t tell where it was from until I was operated on. The assumption was that it was bacterial infection from the post-birth. So the next morning, first thing I was taken for the surgery. After being cut, is when my gyno, another general doctor and a nurse realized that my appendix had ruptured. There was a lot of pus inside and the baby had been drinking that. But my situation freaked them out. They had never handled such a case so they called another fellow doctor who directed them what to do. When they were done, four hours later, they called in for another nurse to take me to my room and they disappeared through the back door.

My family followed me to the room with worry, but the doctors were nowhere to be seen. One hour later is when my gyno appeared. Upon being asked where he was he said, “In my entire 20 years in this career, i’ve never seen such a thing and i’ve never had such a surgery.” They had removed 3 liters of pus from the leakage and some pus was still left. While I was about to leave the hospital, my nurse asked to have a private word with me and said, “My dear, if you ever feel the need to cry, then cry. No one should tell you you have to be strong. Let it out. Scream, shout, do whatever will make you feel better but don’t let it eat you up inside.” And that was it. Weeks after that I was still going to the hospital to have some more pus removed. You can’t imagine the pain. Both the physical and mostly the emotional torment.

Months later, I went for my final check-up and I met my gyno and he said, “Has anyone ever told you that God is great? That was a very risky operation, I have never been that scared in my life. I never even imagined you’d get up and be well again…Your baby saved you. He was drinking the pus which was poisonous all along. Hadn’t you given birth to him, we wouldn’t have known of the leakage…” He then quickly summoned for the other doctor who had operated on me to come into the office.

“You remember this lady?” My gyno asked his fellow doctor.
“How can I forget this girl…” Looking at me, “When we did your operation, I asked doctor here, can I just cry for this girl? I went home that evening and told my children, ‘before you sleep, there is a special patient at my hospital, we have to pray for her condition. You are a very strong lady!”I just nodded with a smile.

It was such a rough time. For months after that, I cried. I had a difficult time whenever i’d see relatives and friends with their children. My husband and I had to move to a different house to avoid the questions and the despair. For years after that we were still praying and hoping for another baby…but nothing happened. It got to a point I told my husband he can marry another woman if he willed. I was broken. But he was supportive and still is. I remember when I told him about marrying another woman he said, “Say audhubillah. Go take ablution and pray two rakaats to your Lord…” It’s been five years since we got married. We still don’t have a child. It may be a hard test but as my husband always reminds me, “God doesn’t give you except what you can handle…and maybe, He is preventing some harm into our lives by all this.” When you ask my husband about our gone son he would say, “I did not only have a son, but an angel who saved the life of my wife and gave up his own. He was our hero!”

I have faith in God and I still pray for what is best for us. Yet I have this beautiful memory of my son for I gave birth to him, I felt him and I experienced labour pain.”

****

All I know about this life is that it wasn’t meant to be heaven. You will be tested; in one way or another. He will give you wealth but test you with lack of health. He will give you children but test you with a difficult spouse. He will give you health but with lack of children. He will give you wealth but you will be tested with early death of parents. Everyone, and I mean, EVERYONE, is fighting some kind of battle. Even those happy people you see spending money and acting all classy like they got it all…they also have something missing in their lives. It’s pretty much difficult for everyone in this life, but we need to pass these tests. We need to believe that God knows what is best for us, He knows the answers to your questions, He knows why He gave you this instead of that…We need to be patient and strong. We need to have faith that God only gives us what we can absolutely conquer. So whatever you are going through right now, soldier on.

I pray that Allah grants children to all those who’ve been waiting; a good, pious, healthy offspring that will be close to Allah. May Allah grant you higher reward for your patience and grant you strength in all stages of life. Ameen!

by
Keep Reading
Creative Fiction

DIARY OF JANE; THE MURDER SERIES (part 4)

By

#4 The Reaper.
Sunburned eyes watched on
From above the peaks of her shoulders
While she pricked the feet of
Pilgrim clouds,
Releasing silver blood onto the
Waiting palms of the
Rising storm.
The world lay at the edge of the horizon,
At the threshold where
A thousand suns
Fell victim
To the endless rage of hell,
Whose fires burn
Black
Over the scarlet blood of
Sin-rich graves.
She watched the becoming
Of her vengeance
Shatter
Diamond pieces of her soul,
As chaos adorned
The fury
That crowned the skies above her with
Lightning thunder,
While the rain rushed forth
To scavenge pieces of her victims below
Like they were grim reapers
Drawn
To the damned.
She blessed their end with the peace in her gaze,
Listened to the silence in their screams
Quench her requiem,
& in the finality,
She discovered new pools of
Satisfaction
Where she could drown
Her demons.

***

He arrived like her pain, unexpected, unwanted, unshakable. The smile beneath his eyes was meant to be soft, but she knew first hand of the forked tongue that sat lazily behind the river of his mouth, swirling in the poison of the words that sat at the banks of his lips. He stood as a representation of everything she ever wanted, and a culmination of the betrayal her desires dealt her, stripping her off the joy of living as she sunk into oblivion.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes. Life is devastatingly taking a toll on you”
He spoke once more, his words like ghosts of the skeletons in her closet.
“What do you want?”
She asked, anger shaking like the silver orbs balancing on her line of sight.
“Can’t I swing by and say hallo? Say I’m sorry? About Kat and everything else?”
“Not if you know whatever you’ll say won’t work on me.”
“Luna I’m not out to deceive you…”
“Ha! Where have I heard that before?”

They stared at each other then, collecting everything that was left between them, taking what they wanted from each other; him a look at how she was doing, her to destroy every bit of him that was still breathing. The knife in the kitchen seemed to be shouting her name now…
“Will we ever get past this?”
“There’s no we anymore Sin. Didn’t you get the memo?”

She walked away then, her legs engulfing stride after stride as she made distance from the devil behind her shoulder…and the knife left on the kitchen counter. She didn’t dare turn when he called out to her, seeking to get the haven of her solace rather than to battle with her anger and the murderous intent screaming in the back of her mind. The wind roared in her ears, taking out strands of her brunette hair into the steady drizzle of rain, turning it darker than the circles around her eyes.
She had been walking for a long time, walking to a direction she was yet to know. The street she blindly took was empty, abandoned by the warmth of human crowds and left to the shallow beat of rainfall on dark drums of the tarmac. There was no tune, no music in the noise, she had walked into a destitute avenues; a mirror manifestation of her memory lane where plagues accompanied her reminiscence. She turned into a corner right as a car pulled up in front of her.
“*sigh* what now?!”

She looked on as chief Inspector Said came out of the car, lips tugged to the waist of a cigarette. He seemed to be too old for his job, but then again she was surprised when Tiffany told her he was just 35.

“Ms. Valentine, may we have a word please? It concerns your sister, Katherine.”

She froze then, taken aback by the fragility of what was being told. It seemed as if the world was filling the void of emptiness inside her with pain, and she was yet to know how to drain it all out.
“What’s going on?”
She asked, tension tying double nooses around her neck.
“Come with us to the station, it’ll be more convenient there.”
She felt agitated then, almost as if he was intentionally letting anxiety crowd her lungs.
“Just tell me what is wrong.”
“We’ve collected evidence that incriminates you in the investigation and we need you to come with us back to the station to answer a few questions.”
“What do you mean incriminates me?!”’
“Our forensics found your fingerprints all over the crime scene, couple that with the death threats we found on her cell phone sent by you last week.”
“Excuse me?! Wait are you insinuating that I killed my own sister?!”
He watched her then, reluctant to draw her away by force, but not at all against it as well.
“Ms would you please come with me?! I understand why you are angry but let’s not do anything irrational that will aggravate the situation any further than it already is.”

She put her hands in her jacket-pocket as she tried to make sense of the situation without having her hands grow numb in the cold. She felt something jab her palm from one of the pockets, a slight distraction that pulled her away momentarily from the officer.
“Ms would you please put your hands where I can see them!”

The Chief looked alarmed, too alarmed. He was walking closer to her as if to apprehend her, and in response she pulled out her hand together with the blade she carried on her hands. The inspector pulled out his gun & aimed it straight at her chest.
“Put that weapon down!”
“What are you….this isn’t even mine I swear!”
“PUT IT DOWN!”

A new figure rounded the corner she came from earlier, blindsiding the inspector with a blade thrown to the space on his chest. She turned to look at the attacker just as she got punched square on the jaw, knocking the gravity out of her feet. In the breath of a second she was down on the ground, her head whirling around as dizziness gripped her where her head had began to ache. She looked up, trying to make sense through the haze in her vision, seeing only a shadow figure in a mask stab the chief once…twice…thrice…the body in front of the attacker jerking with every slash from the knife…
“Someone! Somebody hel…”

The words hushed from her lips as her attacker gripped her mouth, a handkerchief perched on the tip of her nose as she was forced to inhale a bitter substance. Her vision grew more out of focus then…her mind slowly shutting down as the darkness that never left her finally engulfed her. She felt her body grow limb…her head heavy as it grazed rough corners of the pavement…her eyelids shutting her off from the light of the sky…and as she fell off from the world, the masked figure stood above her, sending gunshots into the plunge of her release, reaping her with death-scythe precision into the silence of the unknown.

by
Keep Reading
Creative Fiction

DIARY OF JANE; The Murder Series (Part 3)

By

#3 Sin
He stood at the precipice of the world,
Watching the cacophony of
Automobiles
Tear through neon-lit storms
And asphalt clouds,
Turning shadow earth into walkways
Where
Sky winds kissed star dust.
He was an artist,
A prisoner to everything
That was beautiful,
And he willingly succumbed to its
God-crafted temptations
As if it was a
Blessing
To adorn its sin.
She watched him in his element,
Listened to the way
Her demons
Roused
To the music his presence sung,
Tasted the longing
That collided with
Bittersweet words he left
Unspoken
At the edge of her tongue.
It was hard to tell
What sin
She would do next,
Plunge herself into the rippling
Echoes
That called to her desire,
Or drive a knife
Into depths that were deeper
Than the extent he
Destroyed her.
Then again,
How bad could it be
If she did
Both?

***

She wasn’t prepared for this. Pain ruled her world now, & it seemed as if the world was daring her to die… to take the knife she’d been watching for the last 30 minutes and finally lift the veil that hung between her and the Other world. Time seemed to be irrelevant. She had been chasing it all her life, but now when she gave up on it, she was drowning in an anguish that tore its way through her, leaving separate pieces of her soul to drift into grey realities of Forever. It seemed ironic, that sorrow made her feel immortal, and not love.

Her cell phone kept buzzing by the minute, calls from family and friends sending condolences and making haste to conduct the funeral ceremony and get it over with, as if keeping her dead sister too long from the grave would disturb the reality of the living. It was hard to tell, part of her was angry that they were rushing her into the earth, far away from her reach, but another part of her didn’t really care. Why would she? Katherine was part of the reason she was broken for the better part of four months now, she probably got what she deserved.

“I can’t be thinking like this right now”
She murmured to herself, trying to latch on to the loose shreds of humanity she still had left within her.
“She was still my sister nonetheless”

She couldn’t hide the fact that the way she was killed was chilling in every way. She remembered Tiffany’s face cringe as she described the scene of her murder, keeping the urge to puke away long enough for her to be able to tell the entire story. T was strong, the strongest girl she’s ever known, seeing her at her weakest like that was like a sign that the world was truly coming to an end. She even fell sick in the morning, and it fell to her to get her kids ready for school. Redd, her husband, had decided to stay behind as well and look after his wife, not letting Luna do everything that he could do as well.

“Trust me Lu, I won’t hear the end of it when she gets better or if the roles reverse. Plus I love her just as much as you do, in the least, I have to do my part don’t you think?”

And so with that she was left to her thoughts by mid morning after exhausting every physical activity that she had set out to do that day and distract her mind. It felt strange somehow, spending days hating everything about someone to feeling completely alone when they are no longer there… when it felt like thinking about them was the only solution you have for making you feel like you haven’t lost as much as the whole world is telling you. When memories are all that you have of a life that makes you feel more alive than you are at the moment.
She let herself indulge to the days she grew up with Kat. The first time she knew she was getting a sister was when she was 3 years old, her mom heavily pregnant back then.
“Mom how come your belly is getting bigger than dad’s?”
“Well Luna, that’s because there’s a baby in there who is about to come out”
“There’s a baby in there? How could you mom?!”
“How could I what, honey?”
“How could you eat a baby?!”
That was probably the first time she ever saw her mother laugh that hard.

When Kat finally came to the world, Luna realized that her mom didn’t have a mouth big enough to swallow a whole baby, especially one that was as big as Kat. Then again, she was 3, anything she carried on her hands always seemed to be bigger than her. Her sister though, was as adorable as her name. She had a heavenly scent that was addictive whenever she came from being bathed, something that reminded her of the warmth of home…of waking up to eggs and fried sausages and pineapple juice in the morning…a scent that grew from the endlessness that their mother loved them. In a way, it made them inseparable. In the end, she learned to love her like anyone would love their own sister: to infinity.

And now here, she sat after having spent what felt like eternity hating her sister. Building up waves and waves of anger that never met the shores of her lips, cleaving away the stone cliffs of her mind with every splash the memories of pain spilled from the seams of her shattered soul.
“*sigh* I hope God can forgive you Kat. Wherever you are, I hope He can.”

She thought about Sin, and everything he took away from her after he came into her life.
“With a name like that, I must have been a fool for not knowing what I was walking into!”
Finally, with relative ease, she put the knife aside, and set out to get another kind of poison to kill the bleak voids of her mind. It was only when she opened the door that she stopped short at the figure that was now walking toward the threshold.
“You got to be kidding me?!”

He watched her with artisan eyes, taking in every color she spilt into the hollow canvas of the world, seeing how darker her shadow-brown eyes were, how tears ate away the blush from her cheeks, the storm that weighed down the feather-light wings of her hair, and the pain; pain that took everything else God gave her. His steps were careful, but with intent, like he could see dragons rouse in the spark of his presence. His black suit did nothing to drown the devil in his smile, even though he tried to make it seem sympathetic. A light wind pulled at his tie, and it hung to the gale like a cape tied to darkness as infinite as his sunless eyes. He stood a few feet in front of her, minding the space he left between the artist & the living portrait of anguish he created.

“Luna”

Sinclair finally called out, agitating the dead leaves of her heart with soft words that pushed through his lips & to the ghosts of skeletons in her closet. Her hands coiled into raging fists beneath the sleeves in her sweater, trying to lax the fire that burned in her mind as anger rose like a new-born phoenix. Between the split second moments, she found herself wondering why she left the knife on the kitchen counter.

by
Keep Reading
Creative Fiction

DIARY OF JANE; The Murder Series (Part 2)

By

Blood.

The night was silent.
Moonless stars gazed down the dark
From the inky banks
Of their depth-less oceans,
Their milky eyeballs
Hooded
By the backs of
Stray clouds cursed
To endlessly chase the sun
Into the edges of
Forever.
She remembered breathing,
Summoning the free air
To the broken halls
In her chest,
Where shattered glass lay next
To empty mirrors
That wore reflections
Of the world that died beneath her skies.
She remembered water,
Born from the heaviest silver,
Melted by fires that dared to point
Fingers
At sacred flames of the sun.
She remembered its false smoothness,
The way it washed down
The spines of her hair,
Turning her copper mane into
A deeper brown,
& felt how it
Pricked
At every corner of her mind.
She remembered it all,
& then at once,
As if by her own will,
Let it go,
And threw the knife back
To the other broken parts that were as
Lifeless
As herself,
And walked on to the silence
That the dripping blood
Sung to.

***
She was exhausted. Tired to the point where she couldn’t remember when she ever got this tired before. There was a throb at the base of her cranium, rippling waves & waves of a silent chaos in the already collapsing haven of her mind. She wanted to sleep, desperately. But the events that had transpired that day were nails that pinned her eyelids awake.

“Oh God! How can anyone sleep after seeing such a thing?”

She let her mental thoughts out to the empty room, to the walls that have ears. Sighs escaped the worn out spaces of her lungs, seeking out for her relief like they were prayers from a hopeless heart, but they found only silence & wind as absent as God in a sinner’s heart.

Thankfully the kids were asleep, and her husband would probably be sailing with them in the distant shores of slumber, riding night mares to dreams she now longs to reach. She walked up to the coffee machine, let the whirl of its mechanism agitate the eerie quiet of midnight, as she let her mind loiter to the events of the day.

It was well past 10 o’clock in the morning when she received the call, a couple found dead in a suburb apartment, one body torn beyond recognition. She thought she’d be walking into another episode of CSI, waiting to find a team of forensics at the crime scene drawing up chalk marks on the floor where the body lay while they looked for clues around the murder site. But what she saw was something television never prepared her for, let alone her 2-year police training.

The local police had issued a quarantine around the building, evicting everyone out and conducting procedural questioning of the tenants as was the protocol. Inside, there were some federal agents and a few detectives, but no one dared to go beyond to the room of the murder.

“I have a bad feeling about this!”
“Detective Lall.”
Tiffany turned to see her boss walking over to her with a smug that (she was completely convinced) never left his face, even if he got rid of the stubble he called a beard that seemed to make him look like a living fossil.
“Chief?! I didn’t expect you of all people here. I thought you had a meeting with the mayor to discuss resource management & distribution?”
“The mayor is here. We were forced to cancel everything after we got this distress call. Its messy inside detective, I don’t think you’re gonna want to see it. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, I’m sure I can handle it”

I was wrong.

There was blood everywhere. Too much blood, it was impossible to think all that came from the woman lying dead on the mattress. She could still hear it dripping on the floor after having soaked the entire bed. Its only when she came closer that she saw the thing next to her…
“Is that human?”
A torso…
“…what the hell…”
A leg where the left arm should be…
A huge tear on the right leg, a too muscular leg to be another woman’s…
“A man…her husband! Wait! Where’s his…”
His head was being cradled by the woman, intestines slung around her neck as if they were ornaments…
“Dear God! Are those from…”
The man’s torso had been gutted, the insides removed…
“Oh my God!”
The woman held his head on her lap, held lover-like in her own hands…
“I need to sit down…”
Vertigo swirled in her head in rhythm to the flies that circled around a blood red wine glass on the bed stand…
“Don’t tell me that’s…’

Flies danced at the tip of the glass…inside the brim…and on the droplets that had spilled over to the flat of the table. Right next to a white note…
“That?”
“Suicide note”
Chief police Said spoke for the first time after watching her horrified reaction.
“It just says ‘sorry’. There’s a bottle of prescription pills at her side if you look closely, so we are assuming it’s a murder & suicide.”

There was too much gore around her for her to find sense in what he was saying. She looked up to see the girl now for the first time since she walked into the room, and the swirl in her head grew ferocious.
“I know her!”
She realized, horror choking out the air in her throat.
She closed her eyes trying to shut down the memory. Shaking her head over and over again, waking up to find herself in the hush of her own home, away from the violence the world had thrown to her feet. She let out another sigh…
And another…
And another…

Slowly, she downed the coffee into the depths of her that had turned cold, bracing herself for her last duty of the day.
She walked to the guest room, where Luna had been sleeping for the while as she sorted out her fall out with her fiancé.
“Hey, Lu. You awake?”
The girl in the bed whirled in absolute laziness, turning her face through the colossal tide of her pillows and waves of sleep to see what her best friend wanted in the middle of the night.
“What? Is it morning already?! I swear I have just slept for five minutes!”
“Luna… You have to hear this…Its about Kat.”
At the mention of her sister’s name, she was awake. Tiffany considered this moment, knowing very well that the mere mention of her name was a thing Luna especially forbade. She saw the anger rouse in the shadow of her eyes, lingering behind an invisible leash as 3 month old ghosts zombied in her thoughts with memories she prayed to forget.
“She’s dead”

by
Keep Reading
Creative Fiction

DIARY OF JANE; The Murder Series (Part 1)

By

Photo Courtesy: Unknown

It Began With Death

I looked on
At the death of your
Laughter,
Watched as tears came down your face
Like angels of
Life,
Gleaming like silver-winged diamonds
Caught in the gold beams
Of the sun’s web.
One after the other
They carried your laughter down
To the surface,
Where the rest of the world
Received everything that
Your sky eyes let go.
There,
The wind brought forth
Loose fragments of the memories
You left behind…
The blushes…
The love…
The kisses…
And gathered it over the grave
Where broken hearts lay.
And I could only watch
As your world
Collapsed
Into yawning black holes
Filled with
Undying ghosts of the
Non-existent.

***

She watched the world in silence, letting the solace of the cold winter wind wash out dying embers of a once raging inferno that still charred the inner parts of her being, drowning any semblance of light inside with blackness as ancient as night itself. It has been days, and time still persistently dragged her back to empty avenues of memory lane where pain rained on the reminiscence, soaking her reality in gloom that doomed blooming colors to a grey hell.

“Hey! Hey Luna! Are you listening to me?”
Tiffany was at her side, her black eyes straining to find the open latches to the windows of her soul, finding only hollowness instead. They had been sitting at the restaurant for hours now, steam dancing between them like misguided ghosts from the heat of their coffee cups.

“Lu I know what he did to you was wrong, but you have to let me in, I want to help you. You have to let him go. I have to see you letting him go.”
“I want to, I really do T. But I don’t know what kind of person I’m supposed to be anymore. How can I let you in when I don’t even know myself anymore?”
“I know its not easy. It can’t be. But I know your pain won’t last forever. Don’t look back, there’s nothing there…”

She was right. As cruel as Tiffany’s words were she was still right. She always was.

Looking back felt like she was looking for things she could never find…light she could never see…the touch that she would never feel…a face she’d never wake up to again…

“I’m trying, but its hard letting go of someone who could love you like that!”
She could hear how soft the words fell from her wounded lips, torn by the endless nights she spent sobbing, as she watched the girl in the mirror crucify her lips upside down. Tears that dwelled from the seams of her ashened depths were now rounding the corner of her glass eyes, willing them to break one more time. She held her breath, hoping to suffocate the growing buzz of his voice…
His words…
His eyes…
His deceit…
“…I just don’t understand! I just don’t understand at all! Am I cursed to be this way?! Do I fall in love too hard every time just so karma can stab another knife through me deeper & deeper again?! What did I ever do to deserve this?!”

Familiar hands wrapped themselves around her own, as Tiffany moved her seat closer to Luna to comfort her. She hated it all. Hated how this angel she has always known to be the kindest girl in the world could never be given the love that she deserves. She was perfect to her, more perfect than she could have ever been, and had a beautiful soul. And today is the third time she’s seen it crushed, but the hardest she has ever seen her hurt. It made her angry…vengeful…almost like she could walk out there & kill him right now…
“He deserves to die.”

It was a surprise saying it out loud like that. And they both laughed at the thought. It was the first time she successfully made her laugh in a long while since the breakup 3 months ago.
“Damn right he does!” Luna added.
They laughed harder this time. For once, talking about death didn’t feel like a bad thing. It was just simple. Innocent. A release from the grip of an already dying reality. An escape from whatever fate time had conceived for her. And they laughed on, chiming out the gloom like church bells in the rain.
…That was how it all began.

by
Keep Reading
Guest Posts

THE AWAITED ONE

By

By: Farwa Shariff

At first
Life was amazing
No hurts
Just hugs and kisses
No regrets
Home full of blessings

He wakes up with a smile
Kisses her on the forehead
And says goodbye as he goes to job
So happy she was
So blessed she was
To have
A loving one

The whole day she spends
Looking at the album
She smiles on seeing the friends
Who attended her wedding
She keeps on looking
And suddenly
Tears start falling
Not because she is hurt
Not because she is mad
On looking at that
She is elated
Contented
Feeling so blessed
To have
A loving one

In the evening she waits
So curiously
At the gate
And suddenly
The awaited one
The lovely man
Arrives
Overjoyed she is
To have
A loving one

Years passed
More happiness filled their hearts
The expected happened
It is a baby boy
It is a baby girl
Yes!
They were blessed with
A daughter and a son
Expected was another little one
Three months old
She felt she owned
A more precious thing than gold
So exultant she felt
To have
A loving one

One bright day
He went away
On an extremely long journey
Left home no money
And there she was
The optimist one
Waiting for her man
She believed
She was blessed
To have
A loving one

With the little one
Daughter on the left
On the right is the son
Eagerly waiting
At the gate
For
The loving one

People passed
Cars rushed
Yet!
No appearance
No news
For the loving one

Time passed
Really fast
Children grew into
Economists
Managers
Directors of big hotels
With the help of no one
But only
The optimist
Courageous
Strongest woman of all

The awaited one
Never showed up
Yet!
Happiness was their title
Success their body
And
Forgiveness their conclusion.

You can read more of her work at: https://farwashariff.wordpress.comhttps://farwashariff.wordpress.com

by
Keep Reading
Guest Posts

#ALEPPO

By

By: Nilu Bachani

There’s the image of fire reflecting through my eyes
Flames burning little children as they cry.
With that, innocence is turning to bones and ash
Syria is falling, on its way to crash
Oppressors think they’re winning
But Allah, we all know He is watching
The world has turned to a blind eye
Ignorant and nonchalant, with no reply
People are always fighting for what’s happening on the other side
Yet, here everyone has closed their ears, their mouths, their eyes
to something I call a genocide
Each tear, each scar, every drop of blood of an innocent soul is nullified
This is inhumane and atrocious
Yet with blood all over them
every whisper consists of His name
Al-aziz, The Victorious
They lost hope in the world, but they know who to fear
Despite knowing that death might be near
Fathers mothers brothers sisters constantly weeping with the words inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiuun.
More bodies are piling up, praying that all this will go away soon
Aleppo, oh Aleppo, how can I be silent Aleppo
Ya Allah bring the Ummah together, to fight for their tomorrow…
understanding why the Prophet cried for us so much
women pick death rather than being raped, over my stomach my hands clutch.
Yet here I am envisioning it
while they’re actually going through it
thinking how unbearable the screeching of their screams must be
Feeling helpless, as I prostrate towards Allah accepting reality
That this is cruelty
and I question have we forgotten humanity?
But with guilt inside me I pray for forgiveness that all the damage that’s done is because I was silent all along
I, another human watching more blood being shed, seeing that it’s all wrong.
Tick Tock, look at all the time that’s been gone.
Tick Tock, now all their flesh is bone….

——————————————————————————————————————

Nilu recited her poem after the prayers for Aleppo on Thursday (and it honestly gave me a chill). She was also one of the organizers of the event.

Alhamdulilah the turn out was not bad. Around 100 people (both men and woman) attended while the organizers reported to have collected around 130, 000 Kshs which they are still collecting until Monday then send the money in shaa Allah. May Allah bless the organizers and all those who participated in one way or another, the ones who attended from far and near, and even those who wished to be present but couldn’t; may God grant you well in dunya and akhera. I hope we can do better than this next time because I believe we CAN DO better. Alhamdulilah ala kul hal. Let us keep praying for Syria, for Yemen, Palestine, Burma…all the countries suffering. May Allah grant them victory. Ameen ya Rab!

by
Keep Reading
Creative Non-Fiction

FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE GONE

By

Photo Courtesy: http://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS VERY DISTURBING CONTENT

For those who know me well enough, they’d tell you you’d rarely see me in the middle of a crowd. It makes my head spin. In any event or occasion i’d either be within the two/three rows and most probably at the side-end of the line. It is always easier to get away you know. The nearer to the door, the better. So yesterday I was at the Iqra Youth foundation seminar and they had us to follow the lines. I ended up right at the middle of the third line. So before the event started, we had almost two hours. There were some nasheeds being played. One of the songs was one of the songs my late Mama two loved. Immediately upon hearing it, I could feel her face right in front of me. The memories, the laughter, her jokes…I started crying. I thought it would just a be a tear or two but then it almost became like an outburst of a spring. I was nervously and anxiously searching for my handkerchief in my bag with my head bowed so down almost getting buried in the bag. Obviously I didn’t want anyone see me cry. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be seen crying. I could’t find my hanky so I just used my hijab to wipe the over-streaming tears. My younger sister was seated next to me, I could see how deep in thoughts she was. I guessed that she probably was thinking about her too but no, I wasn’t about to let her see me in tears and make her cry too. I am the older sister remember? In that roller coaster of thoughts, my mind replayed all those depressing videos I had seen the previous night of Aleppo. I started crying even more. Here I am crying for losing one important person what about them?! Losing everything all at once; homes, schools, hospitals, families…Seeing your sisters being gang raped right in front of their eyes…God! It made me feel miserable. The helplessness, the burning feeling…God knows how many times I kept my head bowed down in my bag, pretending to still be searching for the hanky. Looking behind after every two minutes to check whether my best friend had arrived to my rescue. My head was spinning, I could hear the laughter around, people busy chattering away, heads bowed down to their phones with no easy exit to the washroom so I stayed put, had a monologue trying to stay calm while taking deep breaths. God knows how many times I’ve wanted to disappear in such situations; be invisible, dissipate totally if possible. That is what helplessness does to us. Makes one angry, stressed, sad, frustrated all at the same time. It makes one question humanity, question God, question so many things…

This is perhaps one of the worst times to live in, one of the worst centuries to exist in. You see the humanity burn away into ashes. You see misery. You see rivers of blood flowing in a river-less town. You see children being tortured. You see women being raped. You witness a lot while you can do NOTHING about it. NOTHING.

But then this isn’t about Aleppo or Syria only. This is not about religion, race or politics. It is about the lives of innocent people. This is about Yemen, Palestine, Burma and many MANY other places around the world. It is about humanity. It is about the universe.

They cry, they scream, they die. They are calling unto us? Where are we?! Where are we in helping them? As much as we keep tweeting, updating, blogging, instagraming about them, we have to REALLY ACTUALLY LITERALLY pray for them. Let us not just say, ‘let us pray for them.’ We need to take action NOW! We need to organize protests. We need to organize tahajjud for prayers for the whole world. We need to go back to Allah because He? He is the only one who can help them.

I am not trying to torture you too with these videos. I hope you can see the importance of your prayers and protests at this moment, to see the blessings in your life that you barely thank God for…to see how much privileged you are. Alhamdulilah ala kul hal.

Take heart people. God is seeing this all. He is watching and He is preparing great reward for all these people. Take heart that God has a greater plan. That He is still in control; always has been, always will be. Let’s all turn towards Him. Let’s complain to Him. Let us beg Him. Let us PRAY PRAY PRAY! Let us pray for the sake of all those who are gone and those still clutching onto the feeble straws 🙁

Ameen thumma ameen! ;(

by
Keep Reading
Creative Non-Fiction

LOST HOPE

By

By: Haadya A.

Photo Courtesy: http://img15.deviantart.net/

 

Shadows of the battles we fight,

It’s memories keeping us up at night,

The sky now is never bright.

 

Blame in folded knots,

Hammering our hearts like nuts and bolts.

 

Fear of expression

Our souls dying with depression

 

Courage blown like an autumn leaf,

Happiness fading like our once vast coral reef.

 

We have forgotten to care

All we do is nod and stare

 

We are like dying roots of the big tree

We are trapped in our own battles and can never be free

 

It has been a long while

Since we last saw a real smile

 

We lose seconds of reality

Our actions are now done silently

 

If we could all go back to our heart

We can make another beautiful start.

 

We are but oblivious things

We’ve lost the title of human beings.

by
Keep Reading

Powered by WordPress