Alnihayya

e p i l o g u e

E P I L O G U E

[Ten years later]

Zeyara

"Your evil plans will never succeed!"
Maira has her arms wrapped around my neck and a leg over my belly. She's laughing when I clutch on to her tighter, protecting her from our enemy.
The enemy attacks once again and this time she's successful in pulling off our warm blanket.
"Stop being a kid and go take a bath Zeyara!" Zawjati says.

"Don't force me to become violent zawjati! I love my sleep more than you."
Now it wasn't just about sleep, it was also about my scary wife forcing me to take a bath in mid December of icy Manchester! I regret teaching her how to fight. Humble advice to my brothers; Make sure the girl you marry can't punch akhi.

"Go and take a bath Zeyara! Now!" She peels Maira off of me and puts her on the carpeted floor. "My daughter is catching your laziness!"
Other kids of her age crawl, walk, play but Maira likes to stay where she is unless me or Mashal pick her up. Initially Mashal got concerned and took her to the hospital but all the tests only indicated one problem with her, "laziness." She motivated me to come up with my own first law of babies inspired by Newton; 'A baby at rest will remain at rest and a baby in motion will continue moving unless acted upon by her parents.'

"Firstly, all those other kids are silly! My Maira is a genius! She conserves her energy. Secondly, its not called 'laziness' darling, its called 'talent'." I say, mimicking a very offended tone of voice.

Mashal ignores me completely and starts pulling my legs. "You smell worse than Maira's poo! Go take a bath right now! We can't go like this!"

"I thought you loved me zawjati!" I say as she manages to pull me off the bed and drag me to the bathroom. "Do you want me to freeze and become a human flavoured ice cream?"

She thinks for a second, "Actually yes that would be amazing! I love ice cream."
She pushes me into the bathroom and I can already feel myself freezing. "M-Mashal" I gulp, "please don't do this to me. My daughter needs a father."

She makes an 'are you serious?' face, "Its. Just. A. Bath! And remember the time when you said you're hotter than the sun? Go use your hotness to survive."
Maira seems to think zawjati is trying to kill me for real and she starts wailing, "Baa! Baaa!" Her lame attempts at saying 'abba' are another thing Mashal is jealous of because Maira said baa before maa. Well, I don't really blame baby Maira for saying baa first since her father is so spectacularly amazing who saved the whole world from the super evil Konstantin but of course, Mashal thinks otherwise. We have probably had a dozen fights on who saved the world from Konstantin. She argues that it was her but you all know it was me. Right?

"Don't worry my daughter! Evil will nev-"
Zawjati shuts the bathroom door on my face before I can complete my sentence.

*

When I come back out dressed up and not smelling 'worse than Maira's poo' anymore, I see my baby in a pink dress with bunny ears on her head, sitting on the bed sucking her toes. She gets over excited to see me alive. I open my arms hoping she would run up to me but the lazy bum just stays there and opens her arms instead as if saying, 'Why should I do the work? You walk!'

"Ya Allah!" zawjati exclaims walking in the room. "We're going to be late and I won't be able to sit in the front row and I won't be able to take Marwa's pictures for her instagram and she won't be able to tag me and-"

"And did you fart?" I say drawing her closer to me in her golden dress. "Cause you blew me away."
"Hey!" she shrieks, "what sort of compliment is that?"

"The sort you get when you look so breathtakingly beautiful." I whisper, leaning in closer until our foreheads touch and her breath fans my face. She flushes red and looks down shyly. I stifle a grin at how she still acts like a shy bride after ten years of our marriage.
"We-we're getting late" She says in a meek voice. "Put on your coat and tie and let's go!"