The Dark Cloud

‘Mehu!’, Farida’s voice is unusually timid but squeaky at the same time.

‘Mehu, I am not going to call you again, wake up and do your things kid, you won’t learn, won’t!.’

Even Farida is speculating why she is sounding so melodramatic this morning. Rain was around the corner, and Farida’s garden looked gloomy and cold, the environment Farida used to love. She would be around the garden, she would stare up at the painty sky, and she would slowly murmur the song that comes to her mind. Farida was staring at the garden, which was right in front of her car porch through her freshly painted kitchen window. She neither seemed contemplative nor speculative.

‘Ammi, honestly I can’t handle your voice every morning’, Mehu mockingly kissed Farida and strode towards the kitchen slab. Farida leaned her body towards the wash basin, her head was slightly bent down.

‘Ammi, what if I quit my degree? I don’t want to do anything. Can you find a guy for me? Mehu made a rhythmic sound by poking her mouth.

‘Do whatever you want Mehu, but what if Ammi won’t be there?’ Farida was still thinking about why she didn’t kiss Mehu in the first place. She looked like a kid who had committed the first blasphemy of her life, especially when you realize that this is just a precursor of a long train of profanity.

Mehu slowly got down from the slab, and with her lazy walk, she gently touched Farida’s hair and said, ‘Otherwise, you won’t make it Ammi, you won’t make it to Jannah. I’ll club with some malicious gang and lure you into hell’. Farida could still hear the squeaky voice her mouth made.

Farida has an unusual way of holding Mehu’s face with her hand. Almost forcefully she turned her head and kissed her cheeks. ‘Come back on time and study your things, promise me that you will at least get three A’s in your next semester. ‘Go, assalamu alaykum.’

‘Ammi, I’ll take you around next month, he’ll be there. He wants to impress you it seems.’

‘Go Mehu, we’ll talk’.

‘Give Abbu the keys if you are late, and do give me a call. I’ll get it from him.’ Mehu screamed as she rambled her way. It seemed as if she was not in the mood to take notice of Farida shutting the door before she had completed her words.

Farida looked around the house, she had the same amusement the day she got into the house. They waited for 5 years after their marriage, house and Mehu happened in the same year. She closed her eyes and stood there, she was badly expecting the sound her rooftop makes every time it rains, an orchestra of chaotic rhythm. Farida heard noises from the kitchen. The noise lacked the rhythmic charm, perhaps Rahim is a new player in the orchestra, or rather yet to be qualified to be in an orchestra. Farida sat on the sofa, her eyes were still closed. Her ears were constantly searching for the sound of the rooftop. The kitchen was unusually bright, Farida ain’t use any light in the kitchen, she liked it dim with slow and melancholic music. And neither Rahim nor Mehu ever bothered about it. She remembered one time, when Mehu jokingly commented, ‘Ammi will fry insects and feed us, how can this woman even see the things she cooks’.

Rahim was mostly silent. But the rhythm set a different tone, the rhythm was morose, and maybe so was Rahim.

Rahim still had a sleep tint, he came slowly towards the sofa next to Farida. The room looked dizzy. He sat on the sofa, he placed the cup of tea at the same time on the coffee table. The quirk of the hand was enough to make the cup spill some tea. Farida’s eyes remained closed. Rahim sat still, lying back on the sofa. He might have been so soaked in the damp climate.

‘Aayi, have you decided?’, Rahim maintained his always accompanied manly and autocratic pace.

Farida’s eyes were still closed. One, if closely observed, would notice her eyeballs rolling. The movement was not mechanized but rather completely random and unpredictable.

‘Aayi, do you hear me?’, Rahim’s voice raised a bit.

Farida remained cold. Her ears might still have been searching for the sound of the rooftop rain. The dark clouds were as iron-willed as Farida with her eyes closed.

‘Aayi, stay with us, what do you want? Tell me that’, Rahim slightly bent towards Farida.

‘I have to pack’, Farida said with a calm smile on her face. She moved towards the room. Their room smelled the same, the same color, and the same position of the furniture, even the curtain was also tilted to the same position Farida remembered from last time. She picked an old, rustic trunk, placed it carefully on the bed, and started to gather things in. A small handkerchief, her five-year-old salwar kameez, and a quarter-filled perfume bottle. She was only having a quick scan around her room to pick the things. Rahim stood numb at the room entrance, he seemed quite lost with the odd selections made by Farida.

‘Aayi, talk to us, what’s bothering you?’, out of the blue Rahim advanced and held Farida’s hand. She was looking down. ‘Aayi, what’s wrong with you? Think about Mehu, think about me, stay’. Rahim’s hand was slowly squeezing her fingers, the ring tended to break free from her fingers, from the pain it might have been enduring by the collision of bones.

Farida looked straight into Rahim’s eyes. His eyes remained the same, like how it was on her wedding day, how it was when she delivered Mehu, how it was when his dad passed away in an accident. Farida still had the calm and staunch smile, this almost frightened Rahim.

Farida tilted her head to one side and listened conscientiously. The rhythm of the rooftop, the best player in the orchestra. She drifted Rahim's hands and ran to the front door. She tried to open it straight away, she felt aloof in figuring out she would never ever leave the door without closing. Farida turned the key and again tried to open it, but the door remained shut. She would always put it on a double lock. She drifted her head and smiled, her hijab swayed like a white seagull. The door opened in front of Farida. She ran towards the garden and reached in front of her favorite jasmine. She tried to inhale the jasmine smell, but the fiercely dripping down rain overpowered the faint and subtle smell of jasmine. Farida widely opened her eyes, the rain wet her hijab and made it rock solid. The soil under her feet went down to accommodate her feet and made it firm and resolute. Farida looked straight up at the sky and opened her eyes widely. The front door remained open, neither Mehu nor Rahim bothered about the dim kitchen lights, maybe they would joke, ‘Ammi will let the water come in and let us drown to death’. ‘Otherwise, you won’t make it Ammi, you won’t make it to Jannah’ was fading away in Farida’s ears, the echo was so bleak to reach the destined, the dark cloud slowly ran its course. Farida stood there, with her staring eyes and a mild murmur of a song.