Ray of Hope
By: Syeda Madiha A.
Tags: Writing, Creative Writing, Life Lessons, Life, Writers Block

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

She was lost in her thoughts. Walking towards that shabby and depressed looking building, which was nothing like other buildings in that neighborhood, she kept clicking her ball pen. This was one of her odd habits besides continuously shaking her one leg and scratching her head. She only did this while thinking. While shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other, she looked around and stopped for a few seconds. Weather was pleasant, the way it was in Lahore at this time of the year. It had just rained and the roads were wet. She noticed squirrels running after one another. She was tired and wanted to sit but the building was just a few steps away. The weight of the bag was slowing her. She again shifted the bag.

“I wish it was Sunday”, she thought.

All she wanted was to sit in her comfy chair beside the window that opened in the beautifully manicured lawn of hers and slowly sip morning coffee.

“Why am I here?” She asked herself.

“Why this place out of all the places on the earth?”

She turned and ran towards the main road which was a few feet away. She almost forgot how heavy her bag was. She reached the main road and stopped. Her heart was racing. She threw the bag on the bench along the roadside and fell on the bench. It took her a while to catch her breath.

The road was empty. She sat there with her head resting on the back of the bench and started looking at the sky which was full of grey clouds.

“It will rain again today”, she talked to herself.

She closed her eyes and started to think about past few days. How her husband got into that fateful accident which turned their life upside down.

She got married ten years ago and had two beautiful children. Life was perfect until that unfortunate day. They were going on their long awaited vacations to northern areas of Pakistan, the place they call heaven on earth. The kids were very excited. They had already packed their bags but everything changed with a phone call from her husband’s office. The holidays were cancelled because of emergent need of soldiers on the border. He had to go no matter what. He went and never returned. They said that a bomb along the roadside killed her husband and four of his companions. She was devastated. How could this happen? She didn’t come out of her room for a week. Her mother took care of the children and the home. How long could she stay in a room, her children needed her more now than ever before.

The same house looked strange to her. She lost interest in everything. Nothing made her happy anymore. She would sit for hours in her chair and stared outside the window. Her eyes kept looking for her husband who wasn’t there anymore.

She opened her eyes as the rain drops fell on her face. It started to rain again. She looked for a shelter which was nowhere to be seen.

“I think I should go back home”, she started walking towards the bus stop. The bus came as soon as she reached the stop. She hopped on the bus. The bus was mostly empty.

“No one gets out of the home in this weather”.

Her home was at ten minutes’ drive. She reached home and took a quick shower and changed into dry clothes.

She made herself a cup of hot coffee, and sat in her chair. She loved this weather. The rain had washed the whole city. The garden looked like a perfect landscape painted on canvas.

She opened the drawer of her desk and took out the brown leather diary. She was writing a novel before her husb……….. She couldn’t think ahead.

I have to compose myself, she thought. She took the pen out of the drawer and started clicking it. The story was going good and was at the climax but what now? She couldn’t think of giving it a good ending. Life isn’t perfect, she thought. How can it be perfect in stories?

She could not concentrate and put the diary and pen on the table and started scratching her head. I cannot do it. I should have gone inside; this is why I went there. They claimed to have a solution for my problem. “I will definitely go tomorrow”, she promised herself.

She put the diary and pen back in the drawer and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner for children. She cooked pasta and set the table for dinner. Children were playing in their room. She went to their room and called them for dinner. They came down silently following her. There was an awkward silence. She had not properly talked to her children for so many days. They all sat around the table, she filled their plates and started eating. “How was your day?” she asked them while filling her spoon with pasta. “Good”, they both said in chorus. “I cooked pasta, I know you guys love pasta”, she started a conversation. “We will go to the market tomorrow and buy whatever you need”, she announced while finishing her plate. The kids looked at her face in astonishment. She could not look them in the eyes. No one talked after that and they finished their dinner in silence. They picked their plates and put them on counter and went straight into their room. She got up and took her plate to the sink. After washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen she put off the lights and went into her bedroom.

“Tomorrow will be a new start for me and my children”, she made this promise to herself for nearly a thousand times before going to sleep.

She was again standing in front of that building which was giving her eerie feeling. “I am here for my children”, she told herself decisively.