Leilah Usman awaits an acceptance from a university abroad so she can leave the country she never loved when she stumbles upon an ancient diary. Through the eyes of Mahrosh Irfan, she finds herself in a world so completely different from hers.
One w...
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The grandfather clock in the living room chimes three.
Leilah lays in bed. Her gaze is fixed on the ceiling but she's worlds away. The open diary lays by her side but she cannot bring herself to pick it up and continue reading.
Her heart is heavy and she can feel the discomfort of its pounding against her ribs. I have made a grave mistake – this is not the first time this thought has crossed her mind. It did when the splotched of her betraying tear fell onto the pages of the diary, and when she missed several calls from her friends because she was too busy reading —
I should not have touched this.
She helplessly rubs at her face, turning around in bed and pushing the diary away.
From where she lays, Leilah can see through the window of her room. It is still dark outside, and the sight of the full moon pulls at her heartstrings till she finds herself getting up from her bed and walking over to the window. A gentle gust of wind brushes against her face when she opens the window, looking up at the sky.
"Do you see those stars?"
She can almost hear Walid's voice, a chill running down her spine. Leilah gazes at the twilight sky; and yet, she can not spot more than a single star. "No," she whispers, her voice barely above a whisper. She can only see the city lights and hear the whirring of machines and motors.
Her grandmother had said once that her generation had never heard silence. Khamoshi. Leilah thinks of it now; of silence and stars, and of deep conversations.
Her mobile notification rings and she is pulled back from a world decades ago to the boring, old, twenty-first century. A sigh escaped her lips as she walked back to her bed, turning on her phone.
A message from her friend pops on the screen.
Awake?
Nope.
Haha , very funny
Updates?
On…?
…
Your university?
Leilah stares at the message, the realization hitting her that she has not checked her email in an entire day. And to think I was checking it every five minutes before! She is quick to close the chat and open up her gmail, but the usual anxiety that used to grip her heart has now vanished. An empty inbox stares back at her. Of course. She fights a sigh, opening her whatsapp again.
Nah.
You’ll def get in, don’t worry.
Leilah appreciates the gesture but she has now become numb to it; to the anxiety, the wait, the grief and the fears that knock over her heart every single day. Sometimes, she is even tempted to convince herself that she doesn’t care — but how can she when this is the only thing she has ever truly cared about? She has only had one dream for as long as she can remember; to get admission into a good university abroad and leave this country. This is why she worked so hard in her A-levels, and this is the only thought that kept her going —
