The Screw-Up -- Ahmed Khan ♣

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THE UTTERLY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER!!! This chapter DOES have some strong language! I have not written out the entire word, just astericks. Some of Ahmed's comments ARE crude. You have been warned!

The Screw-Up

Ͼ Ahmed Khan Ͽ

Present-day

          “Ahmed, go pray!” My mom’s light Pakistani accent is obvious when she yells at me across the house to go pray Asr namaz.

          Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom. But whenever she gets on my case to go pray, I get really annoyed. I already go to the masjid almost every Friday with my dad. And the rest of the days of the week, I usually make one prayer out of the five on time. Isn’t that enough?

          “Fine, ma!” I yell back, stalking off to the bathroom to make wudhu. And another thing. Why the hell do I have to pray to thank Allah when He seems to forget about me?

          Let me explain my sucky life to you. I have four other siblings. Nauman is the oldest. He got into MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and my parents make sure that everyone knows what a great college he got into and how smart he is. He’s twenty-one, and the sun sets and rises on him in my parents’ eyes.

          Nasreen is a year and a half younger than Nauman. She’s not as smart as he is, but what she lacks in brains, she makes up for in personality and looks (even though Nauman always has girls after him). She got some internship in Maine, and she lives only an hour and a half away from Nauman, so they always come home together at the same time.

          After Nasreen it’s me. The screw-up. But let me explain how amazing my younger siblings are before I get into the reason why my parents are embarrassed of me.

          After me, it’s my little brother Naveed. He’s like a carbon copy of Nauman, right down the looks, personality and of course, smartness. He’s two years younger than me, and six years younger than Nauman, but him and Nauman are really close. Ever since I can remember, they’ve both wanted to study computers and start their own multi-million dollar computer company. Is it any surprise that they never let me in on their plans because I’m stupid and academically not as good as they are? Hell, Naveed doesn’t even go to the same school as me. He goes to Crest Academy, a computer science high school.

          And lastly, there is Naaz. She’s twelve, but she acts like she’s freaking twenty-five, all prim and proper and the “epitome of a graceful Pakistani lady” (my mother’s words).

          So in comparison to them, I’m nothing. When we were all younger, my parents always involved all of siblings in a bunch of different activities like sports, karate, academic programs, all that. But I didn’t learn to walk until I was three, and even then I had to use leg braces until I was six. On top of that, I have dyslexia, so it’s hard for me to learn.

          So while they’re all the f-ing angels that Allah sent down to my parents, I remain the one screw-up, the kid that everybody in my immediate and extended family looks at with pity.

          So can you really blame me for resenting Allah? Because he obviously forgot about giving me some good genes when we were all made, so what’s there to thank Him for?

          I pray just to make my mom happy and storm back to my room, angry to be thanking someone that has given me nothing.

          Dinner at my house is hell. For the rest of them, it’s like the highlight of the day, but I dread sitting with my family for an hour. It used to be worse when Nauman and Nasreen were home, because then I had four other siblings to compete against for my parents’ love and attention. Now it’s two, but it’s still hard.

Various One-Shots from 'Confessions of a Muslim Girl'Where stories live. Discover now