Letting You Go

~ S i x ~

Mama looks deathly pale in the loose hospital gown.

The heart attack almost took her away from us. As I keep my hand on her weak one, she snaps her eyes open in surprise and smiles when she sees me.

I graze her fingers and weep like a baby while she consoles me. She says that she is not gone yet and she is glad because her dream of seeing me married is yet to come true.

The week passes and her health keeps fluctuating. The next week at madrasa, I decide to ask the Imaam for a prayer request for mama and reach there way before the lecture-time.

As I move towards the Imaam's office, I see a man dressed in crisp white thobe -- his back to me -- talking to another person I recognise as my neighbour. I hear them chuckle as they mention something about MBBS.

Assuming the man in white to be the Imaam, I name him MBBS. (Don't ask me why though.)

MBBS turns around and my eyes clash with a pair of striking brown ones and instantly we both look away, him quicker than me.

I stutter my request with my gaze firmly on the floor.

"In shaa Allah," says that voice and with my heart thumping furiously, I look up only to see that he has disappeared.