Find Her, Fix Him

22 | Green of soldiers, red of blood

22 | Green of soldiers, red of blood

~KHAN~

First, I see colours. Then I see lines.

I'm moving, I know that- or rather, I'm in something that is moving. The ground is juddering beneath my back. Beneath my back. I'm lying down. I can't move my arms or my legs. For some reason, I'm expecting to feel pain, but I don't. I don't feel anything other than extreme numbness. My face feels like it isn't even there. I am tired.

So...so...tired...

I remember that there was someone next to me. There was someone leaning over me, because I could smell her perfume. Her hair was hanging in my face. She isn't here now. She isn't here. She had golden hair. And there was someone else. I don't remember who. I remember how she made me feel, though. She made me feel as if I never wanted her to leave.

She's left. She isn't here.

Why do people always leave me? I want her to come back.

I want my father to come back too, but something inside me tells me that I'm clinging onto hopeless dreams that are slipping out of my fingers like smoke.

Padar.

I want to climb into his lap like I used to when I was a little boy.

"Khanat!"

"Yes, Paa?" I am sitting in the sandy dirt that is outside our home. Nesta and I are using sticks to draw in it. She is drawing a cat. Nesta is good at drawing. Her cat really looks like the scrawny, wiry creatures that slip in through the windows of the houses in the village and steal our beans and our bread. My drawing doesn't really look like anything. I told this to Nesta, but she told me to have more faith in myself. My sister Nesta is the nicest girl in the world. I don't like the other girls in the village because they're boring, but Nesta isn't like them. She's clever, and funny.

"Come inside for a minute, Khanat. There is something I want to give you."

My father is standing in the doorway of our home, one arm leaning against the frame, the other hanging by his side. I always think that Padar is the safest person in the world. I can't remember a time when I have felt scared when he is there with me.

I don't admit to being scared if I am, though. I am eight years old, and eight year old boys aren't scared of anything. Not even when the wind at night makes the window-panes rattle, and I can hear the shrieking of the owls from the darkness outside.

I drop my stick in an instant, running into the house. I do whatever Paa tells me, as soon as he tells me to do it. I love him more than anyone else in the world.

I skid past the poster of David Beckham that hangs in the hallway. My uncle Hafiz bought it back with him when he returned from his holiday in England with auntie Anoushka. He showed me a video of Manchester united playing on his mobile phone. It was much bigger than the games I play with the boys from the village. Much more cool. I told uncle Hafiz that I was going to play like David Beckham someday, and he smiled and ruffled my hair, and told me that he didn't doubt that one bit.

"In the front room," says Padar, following me and closing the door. Our village doesn't have electric lights, so it gets really dark when he closes the door and there is no more daylight. I'm not scared though. I can hear Padar's footsteps right behind me.

We sit down at opposite ends of the rickety wooden table. I can hear the sound of Maadar singing to herself as she tends to the plants in our scraggy backyard. People don't really own land in our village, but Maa fenced off a section of the wasteland behind our house and planted flowers and herbs there. My mother singing is one of my favourite sounds in the world. It is up there with the sound of a leather ball deflecting off of my foot as I kick it into a net.