Story: A Midnight Prayer Chapter 1

By Alawiya Abdalla

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Bismillah

Asha
Asha is not feeling her best these days...
Yes I do like to refer to myself as a third person (how sad).
You see my best friends are gone. They are married...
TO MY BROTHERS
Ew! I feel so betrayed, so furious...so...Happy for them.
With a slight hint of anger.
No, not anger per SAY.
A little bit Jealous...

Yeah, add a dash of jealousy and a cup of happiness then you might have a clue of how I'm feeling.
A teeny tiny percent of human horribleness is threatening to come out.
Yes I feel happy for them, but they are married to my obnoxious brothers.
Well, not really.
I love them, but they are my brothers and it would make bullying my sisters inlaw hard since they are my friends and everything.
Well, not really. I wasn't gonna bully them or anything.
Maybe a little bit.

I'm a nice person REALLY, but the fact that my best friends married before me makes me slightly sad.
Plus I really wanted to ask them about the...Ehem...Wedding night and stuff.
Whenever I ask my mum about it, she flies across the room in less than one second!
I don't want to know DETAILS or anything, but I always wanted someone to reassure me about it.
I always thought that we were gonna get married TOGETHER.
At the same time.
Get pregnant at the same time.
And give birth at the same time.

At the risk of making myself look even more pathetic and horrible, I always thought that I would be the first out of Khadija and Jawahir to get married.
I even had proposals!
Every year since I turned 18, I had men asking my brother for my hand in marriage.
But they kept diminishing in numbers every year.


One day I woke up, went to a wedding and BAM...No proposals.
I thought to myself "That's alright, just a little blip won't harm anyone"
However, as weddings upon weddings came and went during the summer
(I mean do weddings have to be in the summer when my face gets all sticky from all the humid in the air)...No one proposed!
No Mr-too-much-gel
No Mr-I have-no-job-but-that's-alright-because-your-family-is-rich
No Mr-I-can't-be-bothered-to-make-an-intelligent-conversation-with-you-and-why-should-I-since-you'll-be-slaving-after-me-anyway
No one...
No one proposed anymore...

It didn't bother me until Khadija and Jawahir got married.
As much as this sounds exaggerating, but I felt betrayed.
I had no idea that love was forming between my best friends and my brothers!
I am sooo happy that Jawahir and Khadija are my best friends AND my sisters inlaw at the same time.
But watching them all happy with my brothers, makes me even MORE depressed.

Mashallah they have a love match.
I want to find someone who fights for me, the way Mohamed fought to find Khadija.
I want to find someone who accepts me, the way Jawahir accepted my brother Ibrahim despite all his faults.
I want that kind of love.
I cannot possibly imagine any other kind of love.

I work as a beauty therapist in a salon called "The Edge" and I came to a conclusion that I won't find a husband whilst I'm still working here!
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE working there. I love chatting to the girls, and I love doing something that I want to do.
I also love the fact that I finished my NVQ Beauty Therapy course, and I found this job straight after I got my certificate.
But the time has come for me to leave this manless job...
Yep, you heard me! there are NO men here!
How's a girl supposed to find a husband working in a "Oh my god I hate my husband so much and I'm thinking of getting a divorce" enviroment!
No offense ladies. As much as I loooove hearing about your problems, they put me off men AND life.
So I decided to change my job Inshallah.

The only way to meet a decent guy is to go out there and LOOK for him.
I don't have to wait for men to propose to me anymore!
I have to search in the highest mountain, to the deepest place in the ocean for my future husband.
Well not really, I was thinking more like searching in Mosques.
YES. I am a genius! Why haven't I thought about that before??
I could apply to work in a Mosque, thus giving me a great opportunity to find a decent god fearing husband.
I have to put my plan into motion Inshallah...

First, I have to give in my notice to my current employer and then go to the biggest Mosque in London.
I'll start with The Regents Park Mosque Inshallah, and if they don't have a vacancy I'll go to Harrow Mosque.
I was imagining all the exciting scenarios as I start working for the Mosque, when something really odd happened.
I saw our new neighbour, throwing a scrunched up piece of paper to the wall!
He watched the paper for what seemed like a second.
When the second passed he held his face between his hands, and then he began sobbing!
Oh dear, I better stay out of view. Wouldn't want the guy to see me watching him as he cried!

Men tend to deny these kind of girly feelings you see. I should know, living with my brothers and everything.
You wouldn't BELIEVE the kind of excuses they make when I catch them crying.
"I have allergies" That is Ahmed's famous excuse.
"A fly went into my eye and I'm trying to get it out" That is Ibrahim's Ew excuse.
And Mohamed always comments on the ceiling!
"Don't you just think this ceiling looks magnificent"

Not this man though, he is SOBBING his heart out. The kind of cry that makes you spill your guts.
Mrs Evans used to live in that house. She wasn't very friendly, but we knew her character.
What about the new neighbour though? or should I say, neighbours!
I've seen a couple of Polish looking guys go in with their suitcases a few days ago.
What is this muslim looking guy doing there?

As I was pondering about our new neighbour, my brother Ibrahim enters my room without knocking!
Arrghhhhhhhh
"ASHA HAVE YOU SEEN..." He doesn't finish the sentence, as he spots me peering at the next door neighbour from behind my bedroom curtain.
I duck down and say "Shhhh, he might see us! Get down"
He ducks down, and then he starts crawling towards me!
Are you kidding me??
"I wasn't spying on our next door neighbour!" I blurt it out, as questions form on his expression.
"Well I wasn't!" Sure I was lying, but he doesn't need to know that!
"Then WHY are we talking about it, UNDER your window?" He asks me, STILL staying in a crawling position next to me.
"I was just making sure...HEY YOU DIDN'T KNOCK!"
I change the subject like a true pro, Ha Ha beat that bro.
"Did Jawahir call or text you?" He asks me anxiously.
"No. Why? Did something happen??" I reply, sensing that things aren't well with him and Jawahir.
He was about to answer me, when...
"What is going on here?" Enters Ahmed, looking at us as with an arched brow.
I told him things seem to be not going well with Ibrahim and Jawahir, before Ibrahim had a chance to tell him that I was spying on our neighbour...AHA
Obviously not one of my proudest moments in life, but Ahmed is scary!

I leave them to argue, and I slip out of sight quietly...Shhhh don't tell.
I pray to Allah that Ibrahim didn't ruin it with Jawahir! She is my best friend man...
You see, THAT'S why I had doubts about the whole thing in the first place.
And what is it with the new neighbour??
What is his story?
And why do I care?
I don't care...
I really don't...
I don't...
Don't...
D...
Okay maybe a little...

Hamid
I don't know why I even bother. Why do I bother writing these letters?
I know it won't reach them, I know it wouldn't arrive.
So why do I bother?

My parents died simultaneously two years ago, and I never went to their funeral.
It's not that I didn't want to go, I just couldn't.
A part of me didn't want to go, and I cannot get into explaining why without having a good old cry.
And I've just had one right now, not knowing that my nosey neighbour was watching me!
I've spotted her as she ducked down, and I've also spotted a guy doing the same thing!
What do they want??

Great, JUSSST great...I have annoying neighbours.
That's what I need right now, SURELY.
To be honest with you, I would have watched ME if I was them!
I mean, how many times do you get to see a man crying?
Exactly...
But nothing can take away the pain in my heart. No one can remove the dull ache resting in my heart.
It all started back home in Yemen, specifically in Tarim. I had a slight idea from the age of 6 that my family were not welcome in the village.
I can still hear the taunts.
I can still feel the punches, and I can still feel their hatred towards me and my parents.
It was like we were parasites. Even with the passing years, the shame never left my household.
I wanted to scream that it wasn't my fault, I wanted to punch them back...
In fact I did, but it was never a fair fight.
A group of thugs against one person was never fair.
It was never my fault, yet I was their punch bag. It was my parents' fault, but I always ended up paying for their mistake.

What is stopping me from going to visit their grave now? I had a valid excuse before!
I was waiting to get an indefinite leave to remain in England.
I even got a British passport now. I had to pretend that I'm from Somalia of course, and go in this lengthy journey to enter England.
I had a friend back home, who said he was from a place called Barawa/Somalia.
He was the only friend I had back home, who would talk to me without judging me.
His name was Abdullahi, and we were inseparable. We had something in common...
We were both social outcasts.

One day Abdullahi came to my house to let me know that he is flying to England with his family.
He said that his father had to cough up alot of money, to pay this guy who arranged the whole journey to England.
A few years went by as I finished high school, and worked in a fishmonger's shop before I realized that I NEED to leave my beloved country.
I came to conclusion that I had no future in a place where everyone knows me.
I had no chance of having a normal life with a wife and kids, when everyone still treated me like I had an infectious disease.

I had to leave my mother and father behind as I embarked in this new journey...
With a new identity...
Where no one knows me...
And no one knows about my family...
I am simply Hamid Mukhtar...

No one has questioned me who I am so far...
No one has questioned where I come from...
Apart from the people in immigration, but they just use that for legal reasons.
I was living peacefully and happily for a while...
Getting a job, and living in a shared flat with other lodgers.
Moving from time to time when the contract finished, but things were fairly peaceful.
Life was kind of normal and good for a while, and I kept in touch with my parents most of the time.

But ever since my parents died, things haven't been the same.
I haven't been the same...
I went back to that dark place I was before. I keep telling myself that the prospect of starting a new job would make things easier, but everything seems pointless and tasteless at this point.
The guilt is tearing me apart, and the fact that my mum wanted to talk to me before she died didn't help matters either.
What did she want to tell me? What could possibly be said after what she and my dad did?
I love them from the depth of my heart and soul, but I just couldn't get over the scandal.
I was always respectful to them, even during the worst times of our lives.
However, anger was always imprinted within me as I struggled to deal with my mixed emotions.

Every day I wake up at midnight and pray two Rakats...
I pray that Allah release this dull ache from my heart...
I pray that Allah forgives my mum and dad, and I pray that Allah grant them Janatul Ferdos...
So far the pain is still there, but I'm hopeful.
I just need to keep praying.
Because without praying and clinging on to the hope that one day Allah will answer my prayers, I don't know what will happen to my sanity...
My very being counts on that fact.

"And We have enjoined upon man [care] for his parents. His mother carried him, [increasing her] in weakness upon weakness, and his weaning is in two years. Be grateful to Me and to your parents; to Me is the [final] destination." (Surah Luqman 31:Verse 14) 

I'd love to hear your views on my short story. Please post in the comments section below! :)

Posted in: Alawiya Abdalla,Asha,Chapter 1,Hamid,Short Story,The Midnight Prayer