Lightness of Being…

“So what are you guys up to this weekend?” Angie asked, blowing small concentric circles of smoke.

“Nothing much” Andy answered listlessly.

“I don’t know…you know we never do anything worth bragging about” Sophia  (formerly known as Soraya) answered melodramatically.

Angie rolled her eyes and started laughing.

“We might be going to New York for the weekend. Y’all wanna come with us?” She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.

Angie was a natural beauty, marred perhaps (or enhanced depending on your taste) by her love for everything gothic. She was dressed in a short black skirt, with fishnet stockings, a long black jacket with dark lipstick, dark panda eyes, and short spiky hair highlighted purple this week. Her dark look was accentuated by lots of piercing: Her eyebrow, lower lip, a whole ear, and her belly button.

She looked and acted her part as the Drama club president. Her disdain for anything conformist camouflaged a really artistic and beautiful heart.

Andy grunted a maybe. He was almost too clean cut next to her. Sporting big baggy jeans, a name brand T-shirt, and open laced tennis shoes.

Sophia kept tentatively quiet. She was perhaps the most unremarkable of the lot; wearing old faded jeans, a small pink shirt, with her long black hair overwhelming her small face and frame. She wore a small nose piercing, and an intricate butterfly tattoo firmly hidden (from family’s view) on her lower back: her only visible token of rebellion.

They were sitting on the school roof top, passing the evening hours in languor.

“I don’t know what it is about sunsets that depress me” Angie sighed.

“Everything depresses you man” Andy countered.

“I can’t help being deep” she laughed.

“Sure thing” he responded sarcastically.

“umm…guys I have to run now” Sophia interrupted. She went in her bag and took out a clumsily wrapped package.

“This is for you Angie, belated birthday. Sorry I couldn’t come to your party”

“It’s okay man. There was like ONE other person there” Angie joked opening the gift.

Her eyes widened with surprise and joy.

“Wow! I have always wanted this necklace!” It was a luminous green beaded necklace with a skull pendant.

“Yeah, I figured” Sophia answered sheepishly.

They hugged tightly.

“You are the sweetest girl I know” Angie remarked sincerely.

“I am the ONLY girl you know” Sophia always made fun of her friend’s contempt for other girls.

“Fine, see ya guys, I really gotta run now”

“Yeah me too”

They finally parted ways and headed to their respective homes and for their own unique reasons each heart grew a little heavier with each step taken.

{-}

Sophia stood at her door and started arranging her face into an appropriately insolent and bored look. She opened the door, and almost collided into her dad.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” He roared.

“Out”

“OUT! OUT! WHERE OUT?”

“I had a group project to do” Defensively.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU ASK MY PERMISSION?”

“I told mom yesterday” She folded her arms, threw her hair on one side, and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“FIRST OF ALL, I TOLD YOU, DON’T ASK HER ANYMORE! IT IS MY HOUSE AND YOU WILL DO WHAT I SAY”   

“Yeah sure”

The words were barely out of her mouth when a forceful slap landed on her face.

“WHAT WAS THAT FOR?” She protested.

“FOR BEING RUDE, AND LATE, AND STUPID”

“I AM NOT STUPID, YOU ARE!”

A rain of blows and kicks started descending on her.

“HOW-MANY-TIMES-DO-I-TELL-YOU-NOT-TO-TALK-BACK! I-AM-YOUR-FATHER-YOU-WILL-RESPECT-ME”

She crouched down, her head protectively encased in her arms, hot tears cascading down her face.

When he relented a little, to take a breath presumably, she got up and started fleeing to her room

“I HATE YOU AND YOU ARE NOT MY FATHER! I HATE YOU! I HOPE YOU DIE”

He reached over and grabbed a fistful of her hair, swinging her back to his reach. She sobbed and started kicking him back. He brought her face close to his enraged eyes, and she actually felt a little scared.

He is crazy!

“If you talk to me like that again, I will kill you, do you understand?” He spoke with a soft threatening voice.

She nodded and perhaps it was the flicker of genuine fear in her eyes, which made him subside considerably.

“Okay just go” he dismissed her gruffly.

Her three younger siblings continued watching TV unfazed.

She went to the bedroom, where her older sister, Maria (formerly known as Maryam), was studying. Maria looked at her with a mixture of pity and exasperation.

“Don’t you ever learn?”

“Shut up, just leave me alone okay?” Sophia flung herself on her mattress, letting her self pitying tears course down her cheeks, staring numbly at the ceiling.

Her mom didn’t come till much later that night when she finally wrapped up her shift at Wally-Mart. She made herself a dinner plate while exhaustedly listening to her husband carp about Sophia- again.

“I’ll talk to her.” She muttered in Pashto their native tongue.

“Talk, Talk, this is why these kids are rotten! All you do is talk” 

She raised a pair of fatigued eyes to him.

“What do you want me to do?” She struggled to keep her voice neutral; the last thing she needed was a fight.

“Maybe we should take them back to Afghanistan. This is just too much. It is not working here.”

“They have been here 10 years. You can’t expect them to go back. And do what? There is no future there. Afghanistan is history” 

“We will make a future. There are millions of people living. Life is much better than here!” he exaggerated typically.

“It’s late let’s talk about this tomorrow.” She laid a thin hand on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze. He relaxed a little, and a flash of vulnerability struck his wide eyes for a brief moment.

“It’s just we don’t have control here. I am afraid of what will happen to these kids” 

“There in Allah’s hands. Don’t you believe that everything is written? We do our best and let Him take care of us. We can’t fight what’s maktoob (written)”

Sonya (who mercifully kept her name), knew a lot about defeat. Her whole life centered on resignedly accepting what fate benevolently bestowed unto her.

They sat in silence a little while longer before she gracefully excused herself. Her shoulders ached, her leg muscles were cramped, and she felt a deep foreboding for her husband, maybe it really wasn’t a good idea for him to come.

{-}

Sonya and her family had been relatively insulated from the rest of the war ravaged country as they lived in the rural mountain ranges on the North West Frontier province of Afghanistan, subsisting on their own wheat, barley, corn, and rice. She was a very sheltered girl who had never left her Kala (walled compound) except under strict supervision of her parents or relatives.  

At 16 her father agreed to arrange her marriage to a fellow tribesman’s son.Hamza, her husband to be, was a tall, handsome Pashtun, who had a daring adventurer’s soul tempered by a poetic sentiment.

He was only 23 when his dad broached the topic of marriage. When Sonya’s parents refused to let him see her before their wedding date, he immediately packed up his bags. He swore to his dad, that if Sonya was not beautiful, he would take one look at her and run away that same night, even if the wedding ceremony had already taken place.

When the numerous festivities had ended, and they eventually took Hamza to his bride, he lifted her veil and was mesmerized by the virginal beauty sitting demurely in front of him. Hamza got on his knee and started reciting a long Persian Love poem, on eyes that glowed like moonlight arresting his soul, and succulent lips that brought memories of luscious valleys to mind. He concluded the poem with fervent promises that he would never leave her side- unless fate was to tear them apart limb by limb.

Sonya was highly embarrassed and confused by her husband’s vociferous recitations.

Great, I got married to the first crazy guy that came to propose! 

{-}

They barely had time to get over their honeymoon before their whole area was canvassed by a conglomeration of fighters and Mullahs urging real men to join the Jihad against the Godless Communist Soviets. Hamza was the first to sign up. His region joined the fighting really late in the game; the Soviets had been in war for a decade, and fledgling signs of defeat were already self evident.

All of Sonya’s appeals fell to deaf ears.

“It is a matter of honor my Naawee (bride). I have to”  

Two weeks after he left, Sonya found out she was pregnant with their first child.

{-}

Sonya lived on the edge waiting for word from her young brash warrior poet. He came when he could, always forced to lie low, and rushing to go off to another region where the worst embroils were taking place.The instability of their relationship was the fire that fed its frenzy into their long embraces and passionate kisses. He recited long poems for her from memory, that she listened to with patient indulgence. She was more interested in tracing the structure of his face, down to the nape of his neck, deep into the muscular ridges of his chest.

She nibbled his ears and giggled with amusement when he would forget his lines and start over again, because it was important that she understands just how deep his love for her resides.

“How deep?” She would tease as they reveled in the aftermath of their passion.

 “It lies deeper than the secrets held by midnight” he would murmur.

Sonya got successively pregnant every time she saw him; contraceptives really had no meaning in their culture.

She bore him two girls and three boys; and he summoned the heavens to bear witness that her soles were made of pure golden dust gathered from Firdaws; the highest paradise.

{-}