one
Hanifa
The air
Cold, strong, colourless, powerful, important, peaceful, so real and true. A god of its own. I would prefer snowy air entering my nostrils in a cold and beautiful sensation. Entering like a cold passenger into first filling my throat into every place in my body. From the flow going through oesophagus, lungs each single step. I breathed again and out this time. A strong whiff out.
I breathed.
I breathed.
I breathed.
I breathed.
I breathed.
I am 24. I want to see them, I want to hug them, to love them, I want to vlog on my routines and schedules, I want to take photoshoots, I want to cook cuisines, I want to wear clothes, pray but all I can do is die. They spend billions each year for all this medication. I came at seventeen and dude I am not leaving. Not even feeling the air or any part of my body.
The annoying thing is I want to go out and the pain is like put in the middle of a star. The pain. I have had thousands of people come and try their extraordinary minds at it peaks. Every great doctor has probably met me and failed. My family paid each hundred of millions to get them work their best. I looked at my visions and foresaw beauty, happiness, fun and lots of opportunities.
My mind was like a living dead. I couldn’t even see in my brain. I could only hear through a device inserted in my brain. I have forgotten lots of memories and even now I have only three mental pictures of my family. The doctor’s voice is there, very serious. With hope and serious will for it to work out. ‘We have a girl here, she is to make you better and oh! your mum is greeting you, your dad too. Your brother is getting married and your sister wrote a book about you’. ’Hunh, is this guy serious. I muse.
‘God!’. I thought. Aryan is getting married and Jamilah wrote a book for me. Who did Aryan marry? What did jam say? How did he meet her? I am sorry I made you sad jam. How did that very introvertive nerd ever get a girl? Is she Arabian?... dude, he even promised I could be the flower girl and he will not ever have to fall in love because he thinks not feel. Aryan how did you tell ma and dada? Does jam and our pet google like her? Jam you said you will leave writing to me. Jam are you sad? Am I finally a role model? Jam jam jam did you do a tedx or what?
I want to cry. Oh lord. Cry cry cry. See see see. I sit or stay in confusion and I hear a voice like a friend of mine. ’Uhm uh okay its being ten minutes and for each forty minutes I am paid one hundred thousand dollars. She sighs. (Wastes ten minutes). ‘I uh don’t know what to do’. ‘Do you want to watch a movie?’. ‘I could send it or can you smell my delicious baked cookies?’. ’Ok since I can’t, your brain it’s not showing anything, just two pictures and listen you can’t feel, can’t see, oh humanity? I hissed. How can I tell this monster I feel bad?
Of all inventions with even mars and mercury even jam has planets but to understand and hear me they cannot. They can only do the wickedness of sending videos, pictures I can’t see, now I can’t tell ma and dada I do not like her. ’Hey love’. She said softly. ‘I do not know but I think I see you don’t like me… people do because I see just normal stuff’. ‘wow’. I wake up and listen. ’So, I am just a normal girl and I am stranded in space. I was just put by an organization to do a last task before going to earth. She said crying. ‘I am sorry’. She spoke. Wow she feels. I smile. ’Love I know you will think what a feeler but I just want to tell you that you are so rich and well I don’t know much on people, I am just meant to sit, watch tv, selfies, restaurant, pool, park, everywhere in a room. She spoke. ‘I am a really used up tissue’. She speaks. I laugh. She laughs too.
I am like very tired because I climbed a flying ship. She spoke. Woah she is poor I say. she says so. I am just nineteen I say. I am wearing a purple sequenced dress with a green bag. I have a purple scarf and brown leather jacket that’s size two. ‘Ohhh and I wear lenses and they are bright lilac’. I smile. ‘I have stuff for the whole day.’ She says, ‘The first is a movie where our cities knew fame. It is so inspirational. This guy cute like hakeem’. I roll my eyes. ‘He is like dark but hakeems better he is very nice and kind’.
‘The story is so nice because hakeem is a CEO. She is a lawyer. She became ill and he and her met at a hospital. They were in so much pain. Hakeem and her vowed to prove they loved each other. As average people they did fifty impossible things. They live for twenty years doing that before the protagonist and his girlfriend realizes one needs to die. He became all he had to be yet in the end had none. No love, care etc just fame’.
‘What!’. I speak. ’I hate summaries. I grumble. And then I see something she smiles and tells the stories in detail. I end up crying. ‘There is also another book and it is called don’t like. It’s the story of how human beings focus and everyone thinks. Some live for food, others for goals, some for dreams, others for money, others for fame, others for love and other principles’. I keep quiet as I think, reflect and meditate on this amazing story. I live. I don’t even breathe. ‘I live for a lot’. She speaks.
She opens the Quran and quietly reads it. She reads and reads and I can hear her softly crying. She recites, translates, analyses, meditates, explains, reflects etc. I love the surah its duha. We spend half an hour and then an hour and we spend the time talking on and on and on and on and on. She then closes the Quran and looks out. ‘wow’. She says, ‘our sun has gone’. ‘It is beautiful’. She spoke. ‘I am disconnecting the video’. She spoke.
I can’t pray so I imagine praying six hundred nafeels. I then pray to God and keep quiet. She comes and we read bulugh maram. We also sit and we talk on stuff. Isha, tahajud, shafii, witr. She keeps speaking on and on even while I prayed my ten nafeels. She then put an arm on my shoulder and hugs me. (I knew it because she said so). She gives me a kiss from my family. Aryan beter tell that woman she has a friend, I never felt alive. Maybe there is hope but I just prayed and told me to do everything twice.
…..
When I wake up, she does a fun audio of my family. Dad is speaking and his voice is cracking. Aryan is telling me It is his marriage and he knows I will like her. Everyone tells me a story. ‘I was sitting in Jupiter’. He spoke. ‘Noooo, you saw her on the sky app’. Jam said. ‘Hey you feeler, I the thinker is being sane shhh’. He spoke. she laughed and spoke. ‘He loves her’. She spoke. ’Hey! the mind might have the ability to…’. ‘Oh, kids Aryan stop the bullying please’. They laugh. ‘Thank you, ma love,’. {always comes with a kiss even on phone, bathroom even in sleep}.
‘So, I am sitting reciting Quran….’. Aryan narrates. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Quran when you saw her pics on sky I’. Jam interrupts. ‘Lemme explain’. He speaks. Our dad groans and they at once become serious. I looked and saw that everyone had three beautiful chocolate flowers the healthy one and I only had one. So, I called a robot and said I won’t eat a terrible food and this girl she stands up and asks if I will like hers, she feels bad because it still feels her chocolate in her mind. I pause because I also do.
So, she asks me why I am in the first percentiles suite. I say .’duh cuz am stinky rich’. So, she says do I sound like a gold-digger. I said no. I said if she’s kind she could come and speak to me. So, I pay for her suite. So, we speak and talk on life. I notice she feels and its so cute so. (a laugh). ‘Woooooooh, jam screams……usssss’. She always is kind and cute cuz she’s sensible’. I notice not so many girls go to Jupiter or even have the wit so you see I think of her, test her, speak to dad, talk to mum all while talking to her.
Then we speak to her dad and then they wait for me to have a meeting with rayz which is the richest Muslim group to `ever breathe life on mars. I am like richest in the earth and mercury so…. (I weee). I know and jam is second on earth. So, I know you will like her. We do the marriage program for a year and woah we get married and ma love (a kiss) loves her. So, we do the best wedding. We rent Pluto and we do moon day etc. he said.
‘Hi I am layl his wife but your sister if you want. When Aryan told me about you well, you were like a god and you loved your fam and so I was there and well I can say its stupid to speak buh I just was impressed… love you’. She said and did a mwah kiss.
Aryans wife says. I smile. Aryan does an event for me. His friends, my friends, my family and all. Then jam snatches the gadget for herself. ‘Uhm, hey you were the sister I always wanted. it’s just that I never knew how special and how you were to my life till you left’.
‘I had to see every second you lived for me. I had to see every second you lived for me. You had so many legacies that I could follow. Yes, mum and the robots could… everything could but you didn’t leave an event every day, pray every duah, every schedule (I am crying) was gone. I saw how you were there for me and I was meek for two years but you never came back. Don’t ever give up. I have hope’. (I didn’t listen).
{She never cared, she never said appreciated it, she never made the memories count}. (But I listen). I sigh and look up at her faded memory and try to reach it, I see jam. A name, a story, I try to reach it. I see
. Clearly. Jam., I listen to how Aryan awarded her a Nobel prize. Dad gave her a planet on mars. One over fifty of it. Mom also rented her Saturn for her holidays. (How can’t I give her anything?). she speaks on the profit. A loooot.
Then ma speaks, her voice is soothing. She can’t speak without tears and can’t keep shut about pain. ’Hey leo when I see you and all you did, when I wake up and look around, when we pray Isha, when we interview, when I say I saved a kid my heart asks where you are. Wake up (she says in pain). you don’t belong there. You are a descendant of Elon. We won’t give up. She says and cries. I don’t hear anything just cries and then ’leo look at who we are. Leo, leo, leo, leo, leo (she screams and says). I will be the ma I never was. I will give you anything. I will give you anything, I will live every moment you breathe in, I will make it up. A legend never goes lower’. She is human I say and leave.
Dad is really quiet. I expect him to act like we do outside… Two people who are not the same. ‘hey’ he says. ’Maybe you will think we are two people who gave up and we feel sad. Maybe, maybe you never said we were people who only saw your light. But it shone till you became an angel. I never believed after what our own people did to us, I was believing failure from me. A little kid asked me what I wanted.
Maybe I didn’t believe when I told her. She said I will be strong and prayed. A little kid did my plans for me. Each meeting she did. Each plan she thought.
We owned earth, we owned mercury, we owned moons, we owned mars. She said it was I when they asked who was she. How could a kid who acts, speaks like a random four-year-old do that? She loved her sibling she loved everyone and she was the best to ever love me till my mind smiled when I heard you…I …I …. I meant live in a world where you’re not there’.
This was the second time he cried. ‘I love you and I will always give the earth if it is for you to smile, you showed me love where the world showed me hurt. Aryan, jam and I we got our goals, we see the world shouting our love but was your goal ever to be this?’. He spoke. I knew he was sad. I struggled, I fought, I yanked every power, screaming and begging, if it takes humanity I will fight. I said and fought.
I yanked every power, screaming and begging, if it takes humanity. I will fight I said and cried. ‘I …. I …. I …. Know how you feel. I know because I was the cause because of my illness’. He spoke. I was blank with roaring rage as I told my mind. ‘wake’. ‘wake’. ‘Wake’. I felt a sharp zing put me out. ‘I hate you if he cries. I yanked myself. I hate you if anything happens to him. I hate you for all this pain’. I said screaming and with all force connecting with God.
I felt the vision. ‘I loved you’. It showed me and my family. ‘I loved you’. I said shrieking.’ Wake me up if you really love me ’. I said as my eyes clouded. ‘Do one thing, one thing, one thing’. I said and I cried. ‘I will delete everything I ever know about him. I am tired. I don’t want to survive I want to live’. I said.
I want to hug him. ‘Yaa Allah’. I spoke. He then said something. ‘Remember how everyday how we try to live like caliphs following each prophet’. A cry.
‘A real me will have died. I am just like you, a living dead’. Every part of me ignited. ‘A leo never ever gets lower’. I would wake up. What was all about this life after all? What was this illness after all, what was it to make a person cry? The person I loved the most. I laughed bitterly. I know I must wake up. I must. ’Oh life. Oh. I screamed.
Oh., Oh., orrrrrrrrgh, argggggghh, oh’. ’I feel, I feel… I felt your love dad. I did. I felt your love mum, Aryan I am proud, jam jam jam I love you.
I am leo. The richest person in the universe, a percentile, a legend, A descendant of Aliyy. Life I can’t be here. I need to change the world. I need to lead’. I started to feel mad and feel my veins jolt. My veins! I made a move. A pain. An atom. An atom. Jam jam. I saw her. ’Leo once your best friend
once I loved you always. He spoke. Oh. I screamed. I felt like my mind bursting through my veins and entering through electricity to reach him.
Love was so so big. Too big to be said by him. Once a leo always. I said and saw him. He is my father. Sooo old but just like my mind never let go I can see him above any human. Aryan must be next looking handsome. But I had trouble with jam. Is she the one by the left, or right? But the older woman looks so disturbed. Then the assistant girl gasped and screamed.
Doctors came. The press came. I smiled fast. I am leo and I will wake. ‘Oh humanity’. I spoke. My dad smiled and hugged my hand. One energy’. he said in between gulps. ‘One thing. One thing. Loyalty, leading, special’. My father continued. He did a thump in his hand and smiled. ‘Aryan, love (a kiss) hajr, jam, google, Venus come alive noooow! My leo is back’. He spoke. I was struggling. ‘wake’. I yelped. ‘Leo wake’.
I heard the press. ’Aww the whole heirs are here and I think leo is back. The press shrilled. Leo is twenty-three. Leo is alive not dead. My father said. Wow I am done and I would fight and do the best I said as the air finally was felt breathing through my nostrils.
…..
