REMARKABLE

39

Armineh's forehead puckered when she turned her head to look at him standing beside her, he seemed to be gathering his words, achingly calm but tormened.

It wasn't easy.

It hadn't been easy.

He stared ahead at the white walls of his sanctuary, his eyes unblinking as if he could see it happening right before his eyes for the second time in his miserable life,"It's been a day since we had last seen them. Anaam has always been the happiest among us but that day, he had also felt the void of their absence. He had slept clutching a picture frame of Bilal and Munizeh to his chest while his fingers were knotted into his dad's blue chequered shirt, wrapped up in her mom's duppatta. I had cried with them, I slept between them, Anaaya pressed to one side as both of them lay on the other. She was little, she was very little, Armineh. He hadn't been able to calm them as if they understood the loss, they had suffered but I think, he didn't want to. He didn't have to put up a show, anymore. It had ended. Everything ended, that day."

Armineh didn't know what to do so she did, what she seemed to do best, she stayed quiet, just listening to him as he stretched a leg infront while bent the other, putting an arm over it, his eyes busy tracing the intricate patterns on the carpet but his mind, elsewhere. Lost in the happenings of his bitter past.

"It hadn't been the first time, they had left us like that under his supervision. For five years, Rasheed had worked for Bilal Raza. So innocent on the outside but ruthless inside. A wolf in sheep's clothing. He had never given them any reason to be suspicious but I spent time with him, being the oldest I had suffered things, no child should ever have to go through. Bilal had no inkling neither had Munizeh ever suspected anything as Rasheed nurtured his cruelty right under their noses. They were so clueless, so fucking clueless right till their very end." His achingly cruel laughter reverberated in the room.

The prelude had begun long before the children had stepped into Pir Khizan.

Rasheed held the phone to his ear as he saw Yahya Firas walk out of his room with his tear stained cheeks.

He was a boy with steel backbone, he'd prove it.

"Ji ji saab g. Ki? Bachan noo lay aawan? Sahi. Sahi. Khuda Hafiz." (Yes, yes, saab. what? Should I bring the kids? Okay. Okay. Take care.)Yahya Firas's face brightened like a sun on a glorious morning as he heard Rasheed.

The trap has been set.

His eyes shining and wide,"Dad is calling us?"

"Ohi mennu dasya aa unaan ne." (This is what he has told me.) Rasheed said with a smile. A child wouldn't know the difference between a sincere and an insincere smile, Yahya Firas nodded.

"When?"

"For two hours, we ran around the house, finding bags, putting clothes, gathering necessary things, stuffing them into the bags and hauling them to the door all the while brimming with excitement. It was only a few hours. I didn't know that only a few hours would turn our lives, upside down, right and left." Yahya Firas said, plainly.

"We had never travelled by bus, before. What do I know, we find ourselves on the bus station and we were bursting with joy. You have seen Sarah, you know, an innocent child's happiness. It's all the little things that matter to us. Our first ever bus ride. Our first time travelling without Munizeh or Bilal, we were thrilled. Our driver took us to the bus station, dropped us, left us in the hands of the devil. You see, I was all but an innocent child when I met evil and I didn't know until later. We munched on the crisps, gazing out of the windows while music played on the loud speakers as it still is when the scene changed. Anaaya was asleep with her head on Amaan's shoulder. Anaam on mine."