Chapter 1
He opened his eyes and said his morning prayer while reaching for his bedside bell to call in for breakfast. Instead of that, his hand collide with a hard rock and he quickly sat upright. He felt the pain on his neck and touched the place. He might have lost balance while sleeping. But how often is that? He has never slept so uncomfortably in his life like how how did last night.
That’s when reality hit him. He’s no more in his fathers mansion on his king sized bed with a bedside bell to call in for what ever he needed. This time around, he's more or less in a place where he can hardly call a room. To him its just a place they decided to put a roof on and a small window where air and pass through. Even the bed is more or less a metallic whatever with a foam on it, because he can hardly call that thing a mattress. Hence the sourness he feels all over his body.
Memories of last night came rushing back to him. How his life took an interesting turn of event within a week. How everything changed in a blink of an eye. A 23 years old boy is supposed to be enjoy his father’s excessive wealth, but here he is in a room that has only one window and a super small bed that can hardly occupy his height. Yeah, you must be thinking it’s a prison cell or a rehab center. Nahh, its his great grand mother’s house. A place where he himself choose to be than to stay with his father or worse, be in a prison cell or even a rehab center. He actually thought it was going to be easy, he thinks that Afterall its just a village and he can survive the lack of luxury and all. But as reality hit him hard, it isn’t as good as he thought. In fact, its worse.
But what can he do? When he's the one that brought it upon himself. When he let his anger overtake his whole body. And what hurts the most is that there is no going back, what’s done is done. He’s here and will have to spend a whole year according to the agreement.
He put it in mind that he is going to do this for his parents. As much as he hates his father for doing what he did, he couldn’t help but think of the pain he’s going through for loosing both his wives in less than two weeks. And then he caused his father that much pain.
He had the screeching sound of the wooden door open nd his grandmother entered. “Adnanu ka tashi ka yi alwala.” The old woman told him to go and perform abulution. He stared at her for some minutes then stood up and abjusted his trousers. “Ga buta a can, su Abdallah na waje.” She told him to take the kettle and meet his cousins Abdullahi. We took the kettle and went to meet them outside.
The cold breeze of the early morning hit him hard and he shivered. He met the Abdullahi fetching water from the well and ignored him. He didn’t really did that on purpose, but he doesn’t know how to talk to him. And besides he isn’t a person that like to talk much. And again, he isn’t really fond of them. ‘Ya Allah, how my I going to come for 364 days’ he silently thought. Abdallah offered to help him but he declined. Hes in it alone, after all it isn’t a favor it is a punishment. Abdallah stared at himafor some seconds and walked away. “Who does he think he is.” Abdallah hissed and left. Normally, Adnan isn’t the kind of person that talks much. And after ‘the incidence’ it got worse. Some people even think that he's mute.
He fetched his water and performed ablution. Just as he finished his Ablution, his grandmother inna came out with a mat and spread it for him. He looked at her and smiled. She smiled back and went back inside. So far, she's the only one that understand his grief and to why he doesn’t talk much, excluding his late Maa of course.
He completed his prayer and sat down ther then fell asleep. After a while, Inna came outside with his breakfast and met him sleeping. She smiled and shocked her head. She knew dip down her that her only grandchild isn’t capable of doing something like that. Even though he has his own flaws, he would never do something like that. Not after everything he went trough. She knew her son took the drastic decision because he was hurt and angry, and he wasn’t thinking straight. But she understood him. Losing two wives at a time isn’t an easy thing to deal with.
Inna never thought they would come a day when her family will crumble and break into pieaces.and here it is. But she is sure it’s a test from Allah, and in sha allah there are all goin to pass it.
