Heart Echoes | ✔︎

(18) Distant yet United

It wasn't a day that you could call 'good'. It might have seemed like a day you would rather shade a different color, grey, but not precisely grey. Because it wasn't grey at first.

It was blue.

Sky, deep blue as if an ocean waved and crashed on the shore across the sky, mirroring that of the sea crashing on Karachi's shore.

Karachi is a lot busier. Much busier than Islamabad, and double that of Murree. I like Islamabad and Murree more because it kind-of shows off arching mountains with greenery, and that is so much more soulful a thought than Karachi can ever be.

But Karachi has it's own muses, of course. Luxurious type of muses. Golden and fancy-looking on the outside type of luxuries given to yours truly, Junaid Hashim, my Uncle- while his inner self remained shallow and cold.

He'd meet businessmen on top of businessmen, dragging his sons along so that he can teach them as well how to be 'decent' in the eyes of society. If the sons are dragged along, wouldn't the nephew, be too?

Also, because I am sure he didn't trust leaving me in his own private guesthouse, because I had a tendency to get into trouble without even meaning it. Ironic, right?

Every once and a while I would be thrown remarks of how my father dismissed these great opportunities and ran away from everything that could have made him useful for this world.

Ran away from money, notch women, business deals, and international offers, etc. I don't know why my father ran away from these things, but they say it was because he was an airhead like me.

Now, how would you feel when you're just twelve and people tell you all sorts of things from the minute you're completely vaporized with the life held simple and sweet, to a ugly-stick environment of clashing virtues, and double-crossed two-faced maniacs.

Yep.

Though I must agree, what my Uncle and cousins got in years of hard work and pleasant relations to society's highlights, my father did not even get anything compared to their lifestyle, even though, what little I remember of him is that he was nice.

Nice.

That's it.

I guess that's all I'll ever remember of him. That he was nice.

Where did that lead him to be?

Alone.

Sending me away somewhere where the sky turns blue from the morning, unlike the green line shades over the mountains, till it dips in grey, giving you a certainty that you're not leaving this nightmare for long.

Excuse my dark-talk.

I'll give a forewarning: It doesn't get lighter from here if anything.

~~~

Pursing her lips tightly, Zara looked over towards Dawood, "I'll go inside, you guys stay here... if anything, Musa probably won't give it- or, would, I have no idea. That boy completely escapes me."

There was a certain tense look shaded on Zara's features, as she held the car handle reciting a few duas, before pulling the car door open she stepped out, wrapped immediately by the feverish wind.

Her mind raced with every step she took forward towards the step of the mansion, it's orange lights giving out a warm glow from the windows till it fell on her feet, on this dark, succumbing evening.

It so happened that the very reason Zara had to come back- exactly after a day of staying at the Islamabad guesthouse, was because Eshaal had finally confessed (quite irritably) that she was the one who had purposefully stolen Zara's story notes journal and gave it to Musa.