Immortal Night

(Short story written on March 5th 2005)




His pen froze, so did he except his muttering, which continued to slip of of his lips. Then like an old truck, he heard some weird noises from his own throat, before he went on a complete silence. He leered at a bulb, his eyes imploring, like a bulb can pity on him and will light up again – which ofcourse it didn't. It was intuitive its implacable power failure which left him all alone in the dark. It wasn't the dark he was afraid of, it was the thoughts, his own thoughts, his guilts.

"Is not the night mournful, sad and melancholy?"
"Yes" he whispered to the thought of what once Rabelais has said. He knew pretty soon his thoughts will become his prison blue. They will slowly crawl in and bring the past along, snare his mind. It was about to become another dead night, atleast for him. He was only and lonely from past six years since his lovely wife Afifa left for the heavens after a painful death. A death which wasn't in the book of thousand possible deaths.

Her name was Afifa Farooq, he loved it when his name was taken after hers, Farooq. Afifa Farooq. It gave him a strange satisfaction, a seal of their love, a
confirmation she was his wife.
"Tell me what you hate about me?" often she lilt with her beautiful smile like petals of a fresh rose will stretch a little.
"I cant figure it out what's not laudable" he would say and she would grin a little more with satisfaction, and there wasn't a bit of not what he told her. She was his asphodel, his blue angel, his xanthic flower. Before he met her he wasn't aware of aesthetics, her beautiful deep brown eyes taught him how to versify his words to praise – praise her. There wasn't a single occasion he could remember when Afifa didn't give him a strained smile whenever his gazes met hers and each time he only thought how beautiful her straight brown hair were with glowing fair complexion which go perfectly fine with her soft pinkish lips and deep brown eyes.
"And what is it that you love me about?" he often inquired holding her hand gently though he already knew the answer thousand and one times.
"Your Atticism and" with a slow blink of her eyelids she would turn her gazes towards him making a direct eye contact and offering him a fresh smile "when you avowed your love for me with the best adorned words I ever heard in my life". Something in her voice always gave his soul exhilaration he could never explain.

His thoughts yanked him again and he remembered Sadia Ashfaq. Sadia was eight, a naïve kid, a slow learner, but an adorable girl with wavy black hair and her beautiful big black eyes (Although she had a difficulty maintaining eye contact and she used to take few moments before understanding and responding even to a simplest question asked). Her upper lip was little plump than the lower and her cheeks fluffy.

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"Whats this smell?" Haroon turned his face back between the front seats and asked.
"Must be Sadia, I presume since she takes an hour figuring out how to brush her teeth every day she skipped the practice this morning" Farhan instantly upbraided Sadia like he always did.
"Farhan. Behave." Mrs. Akmal raised her voice while her eyes glued on a windshield and both kids turned away their faces giggling. Mrs. Akmal was Haroon's mother and picking up these three kids from school was her routine. Though a traditional house wife, she knew how to drive and perhaps the reason why this became part of her responsibility. She was thirty seven, slightly over weight. Okay; a little more over weight, Yes most of you will call her a 'fat woman' but she was soft as cotton bud, could never say no. Mrs. Akmal widened her eyes like she always did on every traffic signal and hit the breaks; car stopped nearly ten feet before the line. She didn’t bother to put it back in a first gear and move little closer.
"Excuse me" Sadia raised her hand, her index finger pointing upwards her gazes still out of window "I did brush my teeth this morning" her voice meaningful.
"Welcome to the history pal, she just replied my pre-Adam comment" Farhan giggled [i]"Besides can you please look at one of us so we could know whom you are talking to?" Haroon was giggling with him already.
"Farhaaan" Mrs. Akmal roared again trying to put the car back in the gear without educated feet on a clutch.

Farhan was always sardonic but he would never hear a mocking word for Sadia from anyone else. He received reprimand from his teacher's number of times for the same reason. He had those stubborn looks with sharp looking eyes. What he often wondered was, was Sadia slow in thinking too? Or does she understand but just couldn't deliver the response on time? Either way he loved her. Her and Haroon, they were his best friends. It was just the magical egg he couldn't break, a bubble he couldn't burst.

The reason he was trying to act bitter was because they had planned Sadia's birthday in the evening, he was trying to be as nuttier as he could before the big surprise.
. . .
. .
.

These were some the lines published on the same day His wife Afifa died. These and the part of story about her surprise party when Sadia was verily happy. Sadia was in her casual green knee length cotton frock and white pajamas when her dark quiet drawing room suddenly transformed into a flashy noisy clubhouse.

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His instinct declared it was a thud of a hit, probably vehicle hitting a beast or a man. He turned around to see almost robotically. Shocked, traumatized. Afifa was tumbled down on the road, fluttering. A van savagely hit her and ran away. He roared, disquietly yelled his lungs out "AFIFAAAA" but he felt his voice was coming from a different world. Lubberly he ran towards her and yelp again "H. . HELLPPP..PP". Her displaced arm trembled on the road up and down, her face filled with blisters and her hair still calmly trying to be in rhythm with wind like foliage in spring. The scene agonized him, he couldn't advert and with a concussion he held her face in his palms and put it in his lap. He felt a shooting pain in his backbone.
"Please Helpp" he cried. "help me. . .help’er. . HELPP Afi"
Her skin livid like one of those Halloween's makeup, she went pale, spongy white, some weird voices coming out of her throat but he never heard her speak again after that. He saw plea in her eyes and pain. Paramedics reached not before seventeen minutes.

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Dissolved in tears he was and night was still young when he heard the heavy barking of street dogs outside the window which brought him back from the memories. Dogs are funny creatures they roar and they yelp. He wiped off tears with his right hand and looked at his radium dial watch on left. There were still few hours before the dawn. His thoughts started to crawl in again.

He can still feel her gore on his hands; her desultory body. Her eyes begging to help, help her out of pain. She spent eleven days in hospital before she died and not for a single moment she was at peace. He would never admit but he know in his heart he wished for her death too – maybe it was the only way to get her out of misery, but how could he? Death for his beloved wife? This thought tears him apart in pieces.

His character, eight year old Sadia who was mentally slow was enjoying her birthday party that evening in the magazine's pages. How could she? His wife was out there in the middle of road dieing and she is celebrating her party? Her sin wasn't venial. Deep inside him he never forgave Sadia. He gave her a lung cancer and made her agitate, wrenched her every inch, he gave her every pain he possibly could. Despite of public dislike of the series any longer he made her suffer. Afifa spent eleven restless days in hospital; he gave Sadia eleven restless months before he finally killed her in a ruthless manner.

Sadia! With her wavy black hair and big black eyes appeared in his dream after almost an year, like always she took her time to understand what happened to her, why so much pain so sudden. She gave him a laconic lugubrious look and her eyes only had one question. Why lynch? And he saw a little pearl appearing in her left eye and disappearing somewhere at the middle of her cheek. She looked so much alike Afifa, the moment he felt he didn't killed Sadia but he was a murderer of Afifa – his wife.

"Dhaaarrrrrrr" he blinked on a vibrating irritating sound of a truck outside the window. Sun was about to reborn spreading the light in millions of lifes, if not his, atleast its shine will wash out the memories for the time being. He was being lull, woeful. It was another day to live. At the end of the longest night is a bright sunshine and the immortal night was slowly fading away in the dawn.