Chapter 2 – Aishah

As the house was embraced yet again by fleeting silence, Aishah walked down the hallway to her room. Although her parents had already finished praying earlier, and despite her young age, she prepared to pray by herself. She opened up her wardrobe and picked out her favorite outfit – a long, black ʿabāyahA long dress or gown covering from the chest down to the feet commonly worn by Muslim women as part of Islamic dress More and the ḥijābHead scarf commonly worn by Muslim women to cover their hair and neck as part of Islamic dress More she loved to wear with it – purple with a slightly shiny zig-zag pattern emblazoned all across it.

Dressed for ṣalāhThe term of Islamic prayer (e.g., the five daily prayers) More, she positioned herself in the corner and began praying. As soon as she began, a loud bang announced that her brother had just finished in the bathroom and had entered his room – something he never succeeded in doing stealthily. She mentally sighed and then resumed focusing on her worship.

A few minutes later, she exited her room and made her way to the family room. Along the way, her heart jumped. “Oh no…” she gasped. “Oh no no no no…not like this…”.

Wet footprints lead out from the bathroom and to the “chamber of secrets”, something Ali made sure everyone was aware was the proper name of his room. But almost exactly halfway between those two milestones laid a tragedy. Utter despair fell upon Aishah as she beheld destruction of a most precious item.

“What happened to you?!” she cried out, cradling the victim. “What beast attacked you? WHO DID THIS TO YOU!” It was less of a question and more of an ominous announcement. “Ummi"My mother" in Arabic More!” she cried out!

A voice more weary than it should have sounded this early in the morning responded, as if it already recognized a foreboding, familiar pattern about to unfold. “Yes, ḥabibtī…”

“Look what your son did to my soul!” she complained. Her overly dramatic flair in full swing, Aishah held up her dear writing journal. One could be excused for having thought it had been used, admittedly rather inappropriately, as a stepping stone slash drying rag for someone in a hurry.

“Awww…what happened?” Jameelah humored, already preparing some towels to mitigate the damage. She knew all that was left to do, but Aishah, quite characteristically, needed this whole event to play out, and it would not be complete until her brother knew exactly how she felt about it.

“What does it look like happened? That…that…monkey of a brother of mine attacked this poor, defenseless…” she stopped in mid-sentence as her malefactor appeared.

“Ummiiiiiii“, he dragged his mother’s name out, oblivious to the proceedings playing out just prior to his emergence from the chamber of secrets, “I need a bandage. I cut my foot on something when I came out of the bathroom just now. It’s bleeding.”

Putting aside the fact that as he said that he continued walking around the house, Aishah was staring daggers at him, struggling to find the words to express what was going through her mind.

“You…my….feet….ARGH!” Aishah, past the point of words, stormed back to her room, grabbing the towels her mother strategically placed along her way. Jameelah returned back to get the bandages as well as for more towels to address the cleanup in the bathroom aisle she just became aware of.

Ali quickly patched his wounds and made a quick exit before he could be put on the hook for anything further. Meanwhile, Umar spoke up, “You know, Aishah was writing in her notebook right in that spot until just before Ali woke up, and then left it there to use the bathroom before him.”

“I know,” Jameelah said, fully aware of this situation and offering more than a single glance to her husband who remained in the living room reading as she completed this morning’s drama-related task.

As she finished up, her husband offered a well timed, “Can I help you with anything?”, to which she answered with a roaring silence. If Umar’s sense of danger was at all engaged, he did not show it. In a rare feat of self-control, wisdom, or self-preservation, he stifled a further comment of, “I guess not!”, not allowing it to escape the confines of his mind. The clock chimes 7 times and it seems he’ll live for another day.