The Elahim Brothers

Beautifully Unfair

"it looked good"

"Huh? " I came back to my senses.

"The dress looked good on you Miss" Mrs Kasheefa repeated the sentence.

"oh thank you. You have a fine choice " I thanked her for the dress.

She plainly nodded.

"Should I chop the onions? " I asked.

"Oh yes if you can"

I chopped the onions, the naked layer of syn-propanethial-S-oxide releasing, stimulating my eyes, the tears releasing from my eyes, slipping from the high of the cheek to the edge of the jaw and in the depth of my neck however the onions in the basket ended,the knife over the board hovered lone but the dripping salty water of my neck did not end. Endlessly it damped the neckline of the black dress. It wasn't the irritant oil, it was grief.

I washed my face under the running tap with icy cold water in the garden.
I breathed in. Closed my eyes. Recited

للّهُـمَّ رَحْمَتَـكَ أَرْجـوفَلا تَكِلـني إِلى نَفْـسي طَـرْفَةَ عَـيْن، وَأَصْلِـحْ لي شَأْنـي كُلَّـه لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أنْـت
"O Allah, I hope for Your mercy. Do not leave me to myself even for the blinking of an eye (i.e. a moment). Correct all of my affairs for me. There is none worthy of worship but You."

Fateh taught me this dua; he was taught by Al-Souffian.

I closed my eyes and breathed out. When I opened my eyes I saw Al-Hassan standing in front of my sight, with his hands folded behind his back. Him looking curious.

"Miss Falaq-Naaz are you occupied? " he asked.

"No. I... " I didn't know what to say.

"Are you avoiding me Miss Falaq-Naaz? " he bluntly asked.

"No! No! " I bluntly lied.

"I feel like you are. Why would avoid me? "

I was caught off-guard.

"Al-Hassan I was just so busy off recently "

"No, no you weren't "

"I was"

"Do you not like my company? "

"No... I mean yes I do like your company,I just had other things"

"You offend me Falaq-Naaz " he stated creasing the lines on his forehead.

"I meant no offense"

"But I am offended! " he suddenly picked the pitch.

I soften under his innocence filled accusation

"Then I apologize "

He fell silent. Then his blue eyes moved around. His shoulders rise and fall with his respiration. I moved forward for him.

"Shall we walk? " I asked.

He agreed by putting his hands behind his back. Faintly embarrassed of himself.

Now somebody had fill the silver silence,the sound of breathing, the heartbeats.

He wasn't speaking, so I had to.

"You're a great brother" I said recalling Al-Wais's praise about him.

"I am not your brother " he distanced himself from me.

I laughed. The innocence.

"Al-Wais brags about you" I said smiling .

"Oh, brother is far more remarkable and amiable. He brings out respect from people, he has earned every once of what he deserves "
He spoke about Al-Wais truly.

I nodded my head and looked at him
"he is the best man I've ever seen"

"He is" Al-Hassan agreed.

After a long while, he tossed over and confronted me "I apologize for what happened moments ago, I realize it was childish "

"it's okay" I said tucking back my loose hair strand.

"Why do you avoid me? " his rage comes back again, I laugh.

I shook my head "I shall never avoid you again, Ever"

He smiled, his gorgeous smile.

"Do you understand how beautiful you are? " I asked involuntarily. I did not mean to frame those words but it came naturally out.

"I do not Falaq-Naaz  and that is exactly why I need  someone to make me understand how beautiful I am?
We all need someone to make us understand how beautiful we are, because it takes at least two to believe in one thing"

I stopped and heard him carefully.

"Then I hope Al-hassan that you find the right person to make you understand that you are not handsome but beautiful ,soulfully beautiful "

"You flatter me Miss Falaq-Naaz. I am convinced  that I am nothing but ordinary in both character and appereance"

"And how many does it take to convict that you are not beautiful ?"

"One"

"It has to be the most unfair thing"

"The Universe is decorated with Unfair things Falaq-Naaz "

"What makes you say that? "

"You see beautiful things are dangerous "

"Is it unfair to be beautiful? "

"Apparently it is"

" You are jumping on conclusions "

"I have lived these conclusions "

"Simplify it for me" I demanded. He laughed.

"Don't think Falaq-Naaz that the one who sees me first is deceived by my beauty then received by me. I never had a chance to meet someone before they have entirely judged me thoroughly. What's a meeting where eyes meet first and not souls? "

I inhaled the bitter reality in his words.

"I have always been a prey to judgement before being justified that I am more... I more than blue eyes, blues eyes, peach skin. I am more...beyond the blue eyes.... I am Al-Hassan. Who likes books not women. Who is not arrogant like the head on his shoulders, I bow, I bow to my Lord. I do not like the cigars, I like the small sips of tea not wine. If I am beautiful do I have to be entitled to these white papers that say I am this before I am that? "

"I do not think the way about"

"That is why we walk together "

"oh I now get the real reason " I laugh.

"That is not the entire reason but a part"

"what is the entire reason? "

He did not answer or rather I say he did not elaborate, because in fragments surrounding his face, it did say something and people like me and people like him speak less in language of verbal politics and speak more in a language of hearts. The language of looms, the flowers, the breeze and spring, the white clouds and purple foxgloves, language of grey walls and grey clouds, clouds made of sighs,of smokes of cigarettes, cigars of Al-Souffian, warmth of Al-Wildan and the sharpness if Al-Shizad, if people with same faces but who differ in differences too. Of men who sit on throne and worry like a King, who are named after the governor King, not brave not cowards, kind and scared..... He can speak in the language of poetry of abandoned hearts, barren, sullen, full,half hearts.......

"Good night Falaq-Naaz " he said leaving me at my doorstep I wasn't aware at standing on.

"Good Night Al-Hassan " I said smiling.

He did not smile back.