Aya Dane by Mhani Alaoui

Author:Mhani Alaoui
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Interlink Publishing Group Inc
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

twenty-one

A few days earlier, when Aya came home from school, she heard a sound like music or incantations coming from their room. For those of his family members who wished to see, as the door, for once, was wide open, Kareem was sitting on his bed, a rolled, half-smoked cigarette next to him on the desk as he held the Holy Qur’an upside down in his hands. The Qur’an was blasting from his computer: a long-bearded, grim-faced, self-proclaimed Imam hitting the faithful with his rough, harsh reading of the Book.

If only they had wished to see and had bothered to enter his room, they would have then seen Kareem holding the cigarette joint between his left index finger and his middle finger and burning the skin on his forearms with it. They would have seen older and deeper scars and burns crisscrossing his forearms, his thighs and his torso.

The ashes that had mingled with the singed skin fell on the open pages of the Book. Kareem did a peculiar thing. He let the reddish-gray ashes slip into the binding between the pages. Then he slammed the Book shut and opened it again. The ashes marked and seared the pages.

If they had come even closer to him, they would have seen the hollow despair in his eyes.

And if they had listened carefully, their heads close to his, perhaps they would have heard him whisper to himself, as he burned his forearms with the cigarette. “Death, death, death.”

If the parents had stepped through his wide-open door into the bedroom.

But they didn’t.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.