The short prelude to the whimsical story of Ayesha’s unique and strange life.

Sajjath

Moonlight shimmered through the trees in the backyard of the John Carmack Cemetery. The light breeze that rustled through the leaves of a Dilapidated Banyan tree gathered mass and stole through a jarred window.

The opening was under the branches of the tree, in the 2nd story of a house. The house just outside the graveyard, was owned by a widow. Inside Mrs. Hameed was writing in her diary. The more unhappy she was the more she decided not to weep, cemented by dire will. Because she was done crying over her dead husband. Ayesha (Hameed) inherited the building from her late husband Sajjath, and lived in it with her son and daughter. She has been raising her children, Imran Khan, 18 and Dyana, 10 for nine years now and was weakening by the day. She had refused to lay her husband or son to rest outside her home though, because she dreaded her other children growing in the shadow of persons who don’t exist however aloof.

She was quite resilient to the death of her husband Sajjath, whom she lost quite abruptly. As crazy as it sounds, hehappened to willingly ingest 15 pints of lethal Insecticide after he got home lunch time, nine years ago. It was tremendously weakening to look into the eyes of her girl of one year, Dyana, knowing that she was never going to remember a Live version of her father. His death was tragic. But it gets Worse.

Although she didn’t see it coming, she wasn’t entirely surprised at the occurrence. True she loved him dearly, but she was helpless for the love of god! She had no control (previously) over how his family treated him and made no attempt to intervene howsoever innocuous, at any cost. Little did she trust herself because she believed that her terribly poignant ways; that had ‘evolved’ while helplessly observing their kin’s uncouth conduct, that betrayed a rather obtuse attitude; had adversely affected her judgment and might have led her to actions that her husband could certainly label ‘acutely debauched’.

She wished she did chuck an oar in now though. Also, despite their attempts to bring peace among his kin, his friends helplessly watched as Sajjath fell prey to heavy oftentimes belligerent drunkenness.

It so happened that one day Sajjath decided to make an attempt on getting drunk on a bland liquid! Well Ayesha had put that just above the detergent shelf where she was definitive that their unusually tall eight year old couldn’t reach and this was consequently the cue for Sajjath (because he was really hoping to help with washing). It turned out to be a one-time attempt, that was severely injurious nonetheless. Taken aback at his sudden sobriety in spite of hours of deplorable alcohol consumption, he somehow managed to refuse medical attention in between mouthfuls of frothy discharge that he spastically vomited. He gave in to a violent seizure a minute later, when the fumes from the poison hit his cerebrum like he housed a secret network of pipes; while a very vulnerable and obstinate (in a good way) Ayesha watched with crossed hands "because every attempt to aid him had come to be rudely refused".

There was almost nothing that anyone could have done even In the Emergency ward of the War Memorial hospital at the edge of the city where he was rushed to, by a neighbor almost an hour later. Ayesha could hear Sajjath cursing the city counsellor under his breath.

That was the story of Sajjath. It began and ended right there. Wasn’t much, but she missed him a great deal. Losing her first born though, was utterly unbearable on the contrary. Feroz Khan, twin of Imran, likewise but dissimilarly, fell prey to a dreadful accident on the eve of his father’s funeral.

Feroz

He had fallen asleep at his school and had forgotten all about the service that was to commence that evening. He rushed to catch the only bus on the hour back to his home -that was at the edge of town,- only to be (ironically) rushed to the War Memorial hospital (again) later; for second degree burns, broken ribs, a partially shredded face, and a fractured skull & collar bone; all while cursing the city counsellor under his breath. While treating him, the doctor was also able to ease his rigid arms that clutched his throbbing belly just above his waist; by administering a strong anesthetic that was powerful enough to sedate him over the excruciating pain he had undergone while still conscious. They revealed his mangled abdomen that had given in to the metal-lever that penetrated him right below the navel. He had lost enough blood already and the imprudent move made by the doctor to hastily allay his drugged (previously frenzied) fingers from the wound, resulted in the blood pulsing out in enormous squirts akin to a choking blowhole over a norrisanima with a deathwish.

Erratic signals firing from his injured brain-spine conjunction were now probing for limbs that never existed and hence rendered his body to a dangerous (to his own self, and of course, anyone within spitting distance) and unstable state. No quicker did the paramedic (unprofessionally) throw his arms back in horror, realizing his error, Feroz lost the critical pressure that made him tick ever so weakly. But that, contrary to what any sane person would anticipate, did not kill Feroz. His arms, once eased off of his middle, now exacerbated and frantic, went for his own neck. No sooner did he choke two last words did the nervous overtone triggered in the muscles around his wrists apply just enough pressure to bulldoze the air in his throat to blow his trachea in two. And also rupture his esophagus. He knew it was the Beginning of the end then. Fallout did he from the lore of an already diminished exuberance (the passing away of a parent).

Downright chaos was the weight on Ayesha’s world of rut. It seemed an expulsion of dust in the form of her dreams and expectations had been sucked into her lungs when she bent over in an attempt to stomach that weight. She found solace in her first born (Feroz had come out drop kicking Imran back in) for Sajjath’s loss, and was in no mood to being consoled for losing him. She felt she was far behind the departed.

The diary

A year of agonizing loneliness, reveries, and painfully reminiscent childhood photos (and their sad smoldering in a desultorily lit flame) later, with her other two children to support and absolutely no moral aid from her late husband’s (or her own) family, she discovered that writing a journal about what life could have been, devised a new vehicle to drive her through a journey of unconsciously coming to terms with her bereavement. It was after all a mental device to trick her brain into thinking it hosts a conscience that’s not all that bereft and in despair.

She felt she could face anything this way. The more she wrote, the more the stumbling block of anguish swelled out of her scene.

What she didn’t intend or expect was what her writing was doing to the dead people.