Tum Hi Aana | A Short Story

Tum Aaoge Mujhe Milne, Khabar Ye Bhi Tum Hi Lana

Humein poocho, kya hota hai,

bina dil ke jiye jaana...

One Month Later

The clogged traffic of the busy Karachi road was like a thick, dense marshland which you never thought you'd escape from. Shahrah-e-Faisal, one of the busiest roads in the metropolis was jammed as far as the eye could see, and as the driver of the gleaming black Mercedes tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, he looked up at the rear-view mirror and addressed his master.

"Khan, yahan to kam se kam bees, pachees minute lag jayein ge."

The passenger at the back continued to look out of the window at the hustle on the side of the busy road. His eyes narrowed in that way indicative of tiredness and his forehead creased in the same distressed way, he just hummed an acknowledgement. He sat in his usual regal glory, clad in a navy blue shalwar-kameez and a double breasted blazer on top, the colours as dark as the night sky, and as dark as his mood and demeanor. The shadows under his eyes were nearly as dark and so were the shadows in his eyes, vacant and and seemingly mulling over something deeply painful.

Murtasim Khan watched the same the spot he had been looking at for the past ten minutes. There were several small shops on the side of the road and in front of them, other vendors had set up little stalls on the wide service road. It was stall dried fruits and nuts, and there was a huddle of people in in front of it, their fronts to Murtasim as they faced the vendor. Murtasim watched as people leaned forward and picked up the nuts, filling their bags, paying and then going on their way.

How deceptively simple it all seemed; that life. Work, earn, spend on life's necessities and then go home to your family. How deceptively simple it seemed; having a family.

His hadn't been blessed with that. The family he'd wanted, a little one just for himself which really only had consisted of Meerab had been destroyed. And the one he had been left with wasn't done stabbing him in the back even after he'd become a shell of a man. It was like having snake up your sleeve, no matter how much you hid it, loved it or placated it, it always emerged and bit you for its own gains.

The girl he had thought of as a ward, a dependent was exactly that. He had cared for Haya, almost brought her up, made sure she never felt the absence of family, money or care. He had made it his duty because what kind of heartless person overlooked or neglected an orphan? It was the one thing which had repeatedly stopped him from cutting her out of his life. That she or the world would think he had done it because she wasn't his own like Mariyam. If Mariyam had been in her place, Murtasim knew he would be pained to cut his sister off. And so he had always tried to do his best by Haya. Allah was his witness that he had never, ever thought of her as anything other than a cousin-sister and a dependent.

Their relationship for the past few months had been limited to seeing her around the house which Murtasim wasn't much at anyway. It was the reason he hadn't sent her to the gaon haveli. He hardly came home and when he did it was brief. He usually spent more time at the gaon. It had less painful memories and the memories it did have were sweeter, even the angry ones. But for the last three days, Murtasim didn't think even the earth was big enough for him to co-exist with Haya.

He swallowed wave of pain and anger. It had started with rage; all consuming rage. So strong he had thought he would kill her. And he probably would've had his mother not intervened. She had stood there defiant, spouting vile filth even in the face of her recently discovered sin and Murtasim had thought nothing and no one could be so filthy. So black inside.

'Ye jhooth bol rahi hai! Isme jhooth likha hai!'

'Ek ladke ke saath bhaagi hai! Rohail naam hai uska, Murtasim sab jaanta hai!'