“The hardest thing I’ve done is to send the son of a man who fights for people to not be in prison, to prison.”
That dead child lying lifeless in her mother’s arms coming back to life, seven bullets in the head and not one in the brain, all blown into pieces but a shadow of a crawling lad emerging from the scene, twenty-three stabs in the neck and living old enough to see the powerful accused in pain.
Not many months ago, I wrote about the girl with dimples. The pale colored petite body who bathed in the color of her school’s ribbon. Today is the day she will take off the scarf that hides her wounds. Tonight is the night the four layers of wool on her bed won’t make chills run down her spine because, on this very day the man who fights for people to not be behind bars has a criminal son behind them and because, on this very night, the man who plunged a dagger into innocent flesh will not get a good night’s sleep.
March, 2016
Back when I was twelve, I dropped apple juice on the backseat of my car. I watched the leather turn a light shade of yellow before my school bottle’s water washed it away. No matter how much water I poured, the crimson color of blood stained the leather as if it had come with the coral star patches.
April, 2016
The neighbor’s daughter questioned her mother in the most fascinating way. “Ama jaan, why does Khadija apa wear a scarf even when she bathes?”
September 2016
There’s indeed a God up there. My God.
