Beloved

12.

'Ayat? Hey, ...we heard about your father, sorry for your loss' Junaid, one of my classmate walked over to my desk.

'Thanks' I half smiled at him and he went away. Later, some other students came by and said the same thing along the lines. I could see they felt sorry for me, but I didn't want them too. It made me feel alone, separate from the rest. I opened my journal and started doodling random designs on the clean paper to kill time.

'Sorry I am late...I...' Mr.Hamza entered the room and stopped midway when he saw me. We looked at each other which felt like hours, thankfully one of the students walked up to him to discuss something with him so he looked away from me and walked to his desk.

'Today we are going to do something different...we are going to do a self-reflection. We have spent a lot of time learning the techniques and different concepts of leadership and now I want you guys to write a journal entry. It will be due at the end of the session. I want you guy to write about what you learned in the course, how it impacted in you, how are you going to imply your knowledge in the actual work environment and something that you wish to learn in the last month of the training' Mr.Hamza explained to the class. He showed some examples of the entries and then returned to his desk to let the students start on the assignment.

I took out some clean sheet of lined papers and wrote down the assignment question at the top. Minutes passed but the only thing that remained on the paper was the question. I had so many things to write but couldn't get myself to put into proper sentences.

'Can I submit this online by midnight tonight?' I went to Mr.Hamza and asked.

'No' He looked up and replied.

'I don't know what to write' I told him honestly.

'Figure it out' He fired back. He seemed cold, I wouldn't blame him, I acted rudely towards him earlier when I went to his house for lunch but still, we were in a professional setting, he could have been a little polite. Instead of arguing back, I went back to my desk and decided to give it another try. I managed to write a couple of sentences by the end of the class.

'That's it?' Mr.Hamza gave me a surprised look when I handed in my assignment.

'Yes,' I was about to walk out of the class when he stopped me.

'I want you to redo the assignment' He said to me.

'But I told you earlier...' I started but he told me to wait until the rest of the student's hand in their assignments.

'You are still standing there?' Mr.Hamza turned his head to the side towards me and asked.

'I'll hand in my assignment by tonight' I walked over to his desk to pick up my paper.

'I didn't say you can leave' He stopped me. What was he talking about?

'I want you to stay here and complete the assignment' He commanded.

'I already told you I don't know what to write' I tried to explain to him.

'What don't you understand? It's a simple assignment...have a seat and start over' He sat back on his chair and started working on his laptop.

'This is my submission paper, I want to submit this' I told him. I wasn't in the right frame of mind and wasn't comfortable to be in an empty classroom with him for that long. His presence alone was enough to make me lose my mind.

'I won't accept it' He said without looking away from the screen.

'Why are you doing this?' I demanded from him.

'Because I am your teacher' He said in an authoritative tone. He was really pushing the limits this time. He knew he was being unfair and still wasn't budging to change.