The Essence of Noah (Muslim story)

Boxes

It slowly became a 'thing'. Walking down the cement apartment building stairs, Noah would be checking his ever flooded mailbox, then greetings would be exchanged and we would walk together. I say a 'thing' but this happened probably only twice a week, when our timetables would clash and we'd be up early to make it to our separate lectures. Other days we didn't see or speak to each other. Those days, we were just neighbours, and on the two days when we did happen to meet, we became almost friends; almost.

Today though I didn't have an early morning lecture. I loved these days because it meant after praying fajr I could return back to mattress and rest for a few hours more. Though summer can be unbearable, daylight savings is something I looked forward too, specifically because it meant fajr was an hour later at five fifteen and not four thirty in the morning. Back home, Baba would take it upon himself to wake me up every day. He'd start by knocking on my bedroom door, then switching the light on; and if I still didn't budge, he'd tap the side of my face gently with his wadu wet hands. That irritated me in my earlier years, and when I got older it become a mission to will myself out of bed before he switched the light on.

Now though, I've had to become independent, actually setting an alarm at five minute intervals, to make sure I don't miss the prayer. Although, I'm aware that my practice in religion is a bit grungy and the only aspects of it I've held constant are my scarf, prayers and occasional Quran reading, fajr prayer is one of the very little important things to me. Baba said to me once that if I put in the effort to wake up and pray, then everything in my day following that prayer would pan out smoothly. I think I was thirteen then and I took his words as a kind of promise; I decided to test his 'theory' out for myself. Now, I'm not saying that I had doubts in my faith, but I wanted to know if praying fajr at five AM instead of two hours later at seven, really would make a difference in my day – and to be honest, it did.

I mean, my day wasn't brilliant, I didn't suddenly become an insane genius or the most popular person at school, I didn't not get any homework, and Baba didn't suddenly become accepting of Evan, but my day was good. It was as though I was cathartic, and it may have been all in my head, a coincidence, or a stroke of luck, but I chose to believe it was because I prayed fajr, two hours earlier. Since then, I've stuck to praying fajr at its proper time, in hopes that all my days would resemble that one in year eight, and that I would constantly be cathartic.

My alarm sounds for the fifth time next to the fan, and I'm quick to hit the snooze. My skin feels clammy from the heat, but the only part of my body that's hit by the fan, is my face. I stand and tug on my shorts as I switch on all the apartment lights, making my way to the bathroom. Looking at my face in the mirror, I play around with a few stray curls, and pull at my skin to inspect any new freckles or blemishes. I have the tiniest one on my chin, that once I notice it, starts to stick out like a sore thumb. Internally I groan as my body slumps. I was actually having a 'clear skin summer', but I guess it was inevitable that I was going to breakout eventually.

I do my wadu and pad barefoot out of the bathroom, leaving wet foot prints in my wake. Baba bought me a prayer rug before I left- it wasn't anything fancy or custom made, but it was a necessity. Though mum doesn't pray, she loves the patterns on the prayer mats, she thinks and I quote, 'they're so decorative and funky'. She actually uses them for yoga when Baba's at work, knowing full well he'd never allow them to be used for that kind of recreational activity. I spread the mat towards the qibla, facing my balcony doors, as I wrap myself in a long prayer thobe. I don't use the thobe often. When I'm dressed for the day, I pray in what I'm wearing.

I pray and linger on my mat as I stare out the double doors. From down here, I can only see the sky, and the strokes on pink and yellow hazes peeking out from beneath the horizon. It's still dark out, but not the type of dark that's threatening and ominous, but rather the type of dark that repeats itself at sunset- when the breeze becomes somewhat cool and everything thing is slowing down to a calm buzz and the day is slowly excusing itself as night takes its shift.