A Romantic Vision

Homely

My final abode was the small window with white plain steel frame. The English house of the misanthropic young man. Red roses and freesia beautifully welled up the garden. The house plastered with uneven white elements. The old blue turkceramics with antique designs.
There was furniture only of wood and small lights usually tilleul in hue.
I would stare at them day in and day out. There was not silence but calmness. I was at peace...finally. Timur made everything comfortable, he not would talk a lot, never enter the room unless he really needed something and Anne, I have not known a kind soul like her.
For three weeks I stayed in. When I eventually came out; Anne and Timur open heartily welcomed me, there was no disappointment no malice. There was a gentle glimpse that soothed me, from that moment I made a decision to return to the heart that values me.

Anne said "I wanted to come to see you every day you were in that room but Timur did not allow me, he said you had to come out yourself, what happened darling? look at you... I no longer can recognise you...Laraib you miss them...your grandparents?"

"I never forget them" I replied. She kissed my forehead and handed me sweet dough "make your signature cookies. You and Timur used to mess my kitchen so often when you both were little, ah I wish to see back those old days"

Only if I could, I would.

Anne became the companion I was looking for. We ate all meals jointly and walked the neighbourhood in the evening, we went to buy groceries to the market and she shared her nostalgia with me, her grace and storytelling immersed me into her world.
We made food together for community service and all the essential catering for religious lectures was at our hands.

Timur is away on work trips assigned to him by father. I apologized to Anne about the Haq-Mahr, I thought it wasn't humble to accept it, the house belongs to her, she sighed " yours and mine are one. Your parents have done so much for us and Timur" she spoke staring at her late husband's portrait. She returned her sight to me "Timur is like their own son and you like my own daughter, I cannot recollect these lines that separate us anymore, I was so glad to hear your father make this decision"

I smiled.

We both bathed in memories of the past, feeling all the beautiful emotions of our childhood. Watching carefully the photographs of little boy and girl turn into faded youngsters and from then on presently Anne adds the picture of our Nikah to that, it feels so strange to watch the particular photograph with last ones. Something dramatically changed in the new one.

We looked so sad in the picture, guilty...

I heard the doorbell.
The tiny blue door had Timur's return.
"Salaam" I greeted. He slightly smiled and took his route of ritual to home.
Anne and I cooked a special dinner, we three ate together and then returned to our rooms, this time Timur joined me in his cave.

" your obsession with white sheets have not altered," I said folding the pink prayer mat.

He sighed.

"How was your trip?" I asked as he dropped half on the bed, his legs hanging.

"it was Alright Raib. How do you find things here?" he moved to make a little space for me, I sat close by "homely, I feel like I have returned home" I spoke smiling.

"well I am glad you chose to quit the isolation, Anne was extremely worried" he added.

I was leaving the room when he caught my hand "where are you going?" My heart froze.

"sleep here" he resigns his place "Raib, I do not think we should do this anymore, it worries Anne"

It was a single small bed, a tiny wooden marvel. He had spare beddings which he arranged on the floor and he rested therein quietly.

I was on the bed, the night was calm and I knew these things were complex to register, even so, close by but yet distant. I was yet to forget Awan a little and yet to recollect the love of Timur which I somehow lost in the field that day when I narrated my love tale to Awan...far away.

I could slumber well...Timur had a small lamp placed on the floor which was lit the entire night, he was reading and hence I could not sleep.
Little did I know this was going to be my routine for every night.

Timur was insomniac, he never slept. When somebody does not sleep in the same room as I, this annoying habit that I have formulated vexes me. I cannot sleep till they sleep!

I would doze off and then get up and check on him, I would rarely find his eyes close, usually, he had them wide open like an owl at night.
The sleepless nights would leave me exhausted all day, I would sleep in the afternoon or even snooze after breakfast, for all the wrong reasons it would put a smile on Anne's face and make her grin mischievously.

Four months passed by, the fifth on it's coming, I merged into the house. Timur's room became our room. Our cupboard combined our clothes and the white sheets we're changed for the floral ones, I planted daisies in the garden, they represent innocence which I found to be Timur's most authentic quality.

Timur was hardly a month home, with his trips and usual hours at the office. I missed him when he was gone but did not know how to tell him the same.

I read the books he read in his absence and wondered why he read numerous misanthropic publications or what about alchemy interested him so much. I would take his cassette of old jazz music and listen to them in the noon and even at times write notes on the way they would feel.

"Did you have a look at the garden?" I asked him leaning towards the floor from my bed.

"you added daisies, that is critical " his sight tied to the book.

"It is cold today " I articulated, he was concealed in his covers.

"Timur you can come up and sleep, we don't have to do this" I sat on the bed, he closed his book "but there is no space"

I rolled and wholly glue myself to the wall on the side of the bed "look so much space " , he laughed.

"that's a single bed Raib. I asked Anne if we could exchange this for a double bed and she is persistent she would rather have us tortured but not let this bed expand" we both laughed at how deviant Anne can be at times.

"She really likes you Raib" he added, I nodded.

"Now go back to sleep it is 3 in the morning already and don't you have to go see Aunt today?" he prompts.

"Oh! It slipped my mind. Is she Nice? I recall her not being relatively fond of me"
I spoke. Timur opened his book "well you weren't much likeable as a teenage girl Raib, we both would not deny that"

I snatched his bookend glared at him.
He raised his brows "you were a brat until the spiritual guidance from the angels hit your head" he spoke glaring me back and I took his book.

I shuddered my shoulders well I cannot deny that.
He twisted and was deluded from this world back into his misanthropy. I curled into sleep feeling the soul the fifteen-year-old Laraib returning back into me perhaps for just a night but it was resilient to see her after all these years.