“Razia…Razia, wake up, sweetheart”
The frantic, urgent whispering of my mother woke me up from my deep slumber. There were tears streaming down her face and a bleeding gash across her right cheek. Slowly, as I reached thesurface of consciousness, I noticed that the house was in complete and utter darkness and piercing screams of agony could be heard from the street. The glass of the window of my room lay shattered on the floor and, as I sat up straighter, I could see fiery embers consume everything in sight.
Fear. When our hearts are instilled with certain forms of fear, an animal instinct takes over. We tend to thrash and claw and run, unmindful of whether we’re running from our worst nightmare or towards it. Our mind shuts down and our heart thunders out what could well be its last beats. Adrenaline courses through our veins and we can feel the most dreadful scream builds in our throats.
An eight year old may not be able to comprehend why one human would wish to harm another, but even the bubble of innocence that envelopes a child could not shut out the terror that now choked me. My lips parted to let out the most piercing scream, but before I could make a sound, my mother’s bleeding hand clamped my mouth shut. “No, Razia, no. Do not make a sound. There are people on the street hunting for us. They wish to hurt us. We must leave. We must run to save our lives. Do you understand me?” I nodded, but I could feel my eyes well up. I let out a whimper, then another, and when my mother removed her hand from my face, I had only one question for her- “Ammi, where’s Abba?” The agonized, shattered look in my mother’s eyes confirmed my worst dread, and I could slowly feel my soul start to fall to pieces.
This was no time to mourn the fallen, though. Men in saffron kurtas with swords in their hands pounded the door of our house, and it was apparent that the flimsy lock and the rusty chain wouldn’t hold much longer. Religious chants pierced the silence of the night, and a mere second before the angry mob broke down the front door, my mother and I stole out the back door.
My eyes opened wide in horror. The same street that I had played on less than 12 hours ago was lined with dead bodies and detached limbs. Blood was everywhere you looked and most houses were being lapped up by fire. My mother instructed me to run, and we jumped over hedges to reach the end of the street. My mother hesitated a moment and then quickly turned right. We moved slowly now. Taking shelter behind the vehicles and moving little more than a few steps every ten minutes. I took this as a sign that we were closer to the arms of danger now.
Both my mother and I were fully alert yet neither of us noticed three huge men who stole in like lurking shadows in a moonless night, and grabbed our arms from behind us, holding us captive. All three of them were wearing saffron kurtas and carrying blood stained swords, and had cruel smiles etched upon their faces. Their malicious laughter still lingers in my ears.
My mother was suddenly on her knees, begging those brutes for mercy, begging them to let me go. She made frantic attempts to trade her life for mine and her pleas were only met by more laughter. One man held her arms by her side to suppress her mindless thrashing and the second had me within his grasp. The third began chanting religious slogans. He cleaned his sword with the edge of his kurta, closed his eyes, and raised the sword high above his head. My mother let out one last agonized scream before he drove the sharp blade through her.
“Ammi”, I whispered, incapable of making any other sound. Somehow, I freed myself from the iron grasp of the gigantic monster that held me captive, to run to the woman who had brought me into the world, the woman who had endured countless sleepless nights to sing me a lullaby, whose warm embraces were something that could shield me from all my petty worries. I lifted her head to place it on my lap and begged her to stay with me, pleaded with Allah to not wrench her away from me. But I knew it was already too late. My mother’s loving eyes found my face and lingered there, with a sweet smile spreading across her face. I smiled back and whispered “I love you, Ammi”, however I was a split second too late. The light left my mother’s eyes to be replaced by a ghostly stillness.
I got back on my feet as the men closed in on me with their shiny swords. Their raving hunger for blood and violence was not yet satisfied and I knew I won’t have to live in the world as an orphan much longer. I closed my eyes in acceptance and said a silent prayer my father had taught me; one that he claimed would shield me from the monsters of the night. Accepting my fate, I smiled, eager to leave this world. How much longer would an eight year want to live in a world burning in the fire of hate?
