Offspring

Edie woke up at 4.30 am as usual, in the holy time before the sun rose, when the thread of light appeared in the universe. After shubuh she pulled out her special recipe book out of the drawer in the kitchen and rushed to the living room. Outside, the intimate contact between the angelical and material world was happening. Wind breezed and birds chirped on tall trees. Neighbors were awake and lights were on from inside houses in the complex. The streets were peacefully quiet even though some old people were in front of their houses doing their morning rituals: some doing tai chi, some warming up cars, and some meditating on their terraces.

This complex was not the same anymore. It had been years since elder was major group here. The rose-apple trees in front of Mr. Shahid’s and Mr. Abdul’s houses were no longer climbed by naughty kids. No more bunches of kids making noise or seen passing by after collective shubuh and Koran reading at the mosque. The street was so peaceful. Quiet.

Edie stared at her front yard through the inner layer of the curtain. She examined carefully every evanescent on the tip of each wide-leaved grass. They were so many, as many as the children that she never saw again. They were clear and pure as her children and many others of the neighbors’ had used to be. But they’d grown up and gone. She felt she missed those children, her children, especially, and a clear drop of tear fell from both her eyes onto the recipe book on her embrace.

*

(to be continued .....)