First Time Ever

First Question

Chapter-1

First Question

Something was wrong, I knew it before I entered the house. You know sometimes when something bad is going to happen and you get kind of a premonition or when you are walking down a street and feel eyes on you and when you turn around, you find that the stranger was indeed staring at you, it was that kind of feeling and I didn’t like it, not one bit.

“Azaan!” I called out, hanging the keys and putting down the box of chocolates I bought for him, “Azaan!” where was he? It never took him this long to come running down the stairs when I called his name.

Something was wrong, I could feel it.

“Son?” I tried again, walking up the stairs. No response. Now I was a person who enjoyed silence but there was something bad about this silence and I found myself hating it. And before I knew I was running towards his room.

“Azaan?” throwing open his door I searched the entire room and then the house. He was not there and my heart dropped.

“Okay it’s not as bad as it looks, maybe he went to one of his friend’s and forgot to tell me”, over the next two hours I called every single one of his friends, his classmates and even his teammates from the school cricket team but he was nowhere. Tears stung the side of my eyes, fear gripped my heart and a thousand bad thoughts crossed my head.

“Where are you son!” my voice came out shrill, broken. This was not good, it was just not good. Where else could he go? He never went anywhere without me.

I didn’t even want to think of the possibilities of something bad happening to him, it would kill me. He was the entire world to me, if something ever happened to him, I’d die.

“Azaan……”the sobs that were held at bay for the last two hours were breaking the dam now, almost reaching my throat.

Only one thing could be done now, things were out of hand now and I couldn’t waste anymore time. I have to call the police now, that was my only option. I know it had only been two hours but I could not wait anymore, couldn’t wait for something to happen to him.

Running to the drawing room I picked up my phone and dialed 100. The bell rang three times before somebody picked up and a gruff voice answered, “Police Station!”

“Hello sir”, willing my voice to stay focused I continued, “ My name is Haya and my son has gone missing.”

He was silent for a while, then said, “Madam you have to come to the police station and file an F.I.R.”

“Okay”, he could’ve asked me to come to north pole now and I would’ve willingly gone.

It was eleven in the night and the traffic on the road of Vikasnagar was negligible which gave me easy access. I wasn’t complaining, it was a good thing. My driving wasn’t at its best right now, neither was I.

It took me ten minutes to reach there and trust me those were the most critical ten minutes of my life. Without even bothering to park correctly, I ran inside to the first person I saw sitting on a desk, “I want to file a F.I.R”

The man looked to be in his forty, had a blackish-grayish moustache and was bulky. He yawned and looked at me, “About?”

“My son! He has gone missing.”

He looked skeptically at me and yawned again, “Go there”, he pointed to his right at a man who looked around fifty and malnourished, “I don’t do that work, he does.”

Without giving him another glance, I rushed to the man he pointed at, “I have to file an F.I.R.”

“Sit down madam,” he told me gently.

I wasn’t there to sit, I was there to ask for their help in finding my son. God damn it! Why can’t these people just start looking already? But I was not in the position to argue so I slumped down.

“What is it about?”

“My son has gone missing!” how many times was I to repeat the same thing?

“Name,” he asked opening a dusty file overflowing with half torn papers.

“Azaan Malik.”

“Age?” he wrote down what I just told him.

“Six years.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” now that was the question I had been scared about, knowing all too well that it would be asked but I was hoping and praying that they would forget it, just this time.

“Two hours before”, I replied, gulping audibly.

He sighed and then shut the file close, “Sorry madam but we can’t file that F.I.R. You know the procedure, a missing person report is only filed after 24 hours.”

“But you have to help me! I looked everywhere!”

“Sorry madam but I can’t do anything.”

“Please sir!” I was almost hysterical at that point.

“Didn’t you hear him madam ji? Go home and try to find him on your own. Maybe he’s hiding under the bed”, the bulky officer screamed from his chair.

I looked at him and then at the hawaldaar sitting in front of me. He gave me an apologetic smile.

“Do you have children officer?” I asked the bulky one.

“Yes and I know how to keep them in line. Now stop wasting our time.”

Defeated I stood up from the chair and walked out of there and to my car.

I felt helpless, hopeless, desperate but there was nothing I could do to find my own son, It hurt, it really did so sitting down right there on the road in the middle of the night I finally allowed myself to cry and I cried like a baby. Remembering the last time I had cried like that, I felt even more desperate and more tears followed.

I remembered the night when I lay on the stone floor, broken with rain outside the window and cried. There was nothing I could do that time and nothing I could do now. I had given up then but no way in hell was I about to quit now. My son was on the line here and I would leave no stone unturned to find him, even if nobody was willing to help.

“f**k those people!” wiping away the tears, I marched back to the car and drove home.

Walking into the house I was met with deadly silence and my heart immediately sank. It was never like this when I came home. There would always be stupid music booming in the apartment or the sound of video games or of pans and vessels smacking on each other, on rare occasions when he decided to ‘cook’. My little kid running around, gliding down the staircase to run to me and demand a tight hug.

I could still see his eyes glittering with mischief, his lips turned up at the corners and almost reaching halfway his chubby cheeks, his voice echoing all around, “Mama, Mama!”

It was then that it hit me how lonely this house was without him, how utterly lonely I was without him and this loneliness began to eat me from within, feeding on my vitals, crawling under my skin making me sick, making me want to vomit.

Loneliness like this has only made its way into my life once before, it was because I had Azaan that I survived it. It was because of him that I found the strength to live, to move on, to forget my past and build a good future, for both of us.

I couldn’t lose him, I just couldn’t. But what if I did?

The thought arose a new found fear in my heart and it started building, growing fast and paralyzing me. I needed a way to let it out, it was suffocating me. I had to get it out of me.

So I screamed until my lungs hurt and I could feel my voice no more and then I ran to the terrace taking two stairs at a time, in desperate need of fresh air, open space and an escape.

Throwing open the terrace door, I rushed out and bending over took deep breaths, letting the cool night air fill my lungs and calm me. Looking up I saw the stars shining down at me so I closed my eyes and prayed, prayed with all my heart that I find my son, soon.

It was then that I noticed a figure in the far corner, it was mostly hidden due to the shadow of the boundary but nothing in the world could hide her child from a mother.

Moving closer carefully so that I don’t wake him up, I saw that he was curled in a ball and was fast asleep with his knees bend and touching his chest and his arms wrapped around the torso. A wave of relief hit me like a fresh breeze in hot summer, it was as if a long excruciating pain has just disappeared. Thanking the Gods above, I lifted him in my arms.

He was cold, his temperature sub normal against my skin. He let out an irritated grumble but didn’t wake up, only snuggled closer to me.

Holding him protectively, I brought him down the stairs and into my room. Setting him down on the bed, I could see the tear stains on his face and I knew he cried himself to sleep.

Caressing his cheek lightly, I suddenly remembered the times he had asked me, “Mama, why am I like this?”

I looked at him, his jet black hair fell perfectly over his forehead, his eyebrows were perfect black and looked striking against his pale skin, his nose was perfect, his jaw set strong. There was not a single fault in him, people would give anything for features like his, for a face like that. He was beautiful, handsome in every sense of the world, even at an age of six.

Then why would he regret being this way? There was nothing abnormal about him, nothing wrong.

Yes he was pale, his complexion paler than most but that didn’t make him abnormal, yes his hair were finer than most but that couldn’t be the reason either, yes his accent was a little unusual but that wasn’t the case either.

He woke up somewhere in the middle of my thoughts and his eyes shone with unshed tears.

It was what made him stand apart, his eyes. They were the brightest of blue I have never seen, the color of clear sky, the color of untainted water. His eyes which were the most beautiful feature of his entire being had become a curse for him.

People would taunt him, mock him and he would come home and stand in front of a mirror for hours analyzing himself with a frown on his face, never understanding that people were jealous of him, jealous of how he looked, how they couldn’t help but stare at him. Jealous because he, a child without father was doing so well in life. He would ask me questions I couldn’t answer and then he would go back to him room, disappointed.

Today he didn’t go to his room. I was sure somebody must’ve called him a name and it made him so upset that he ran upstairs and hid, not answering when I called him, scaring the daylights out of me.

“Mama?” he looked at me with such sad eyes that I felt bad for him. He didn’t deserve to suffer like this, none of this was his fault, he shouldn’t be punished for the crimes he hadn’t committed.

“Yes?” I asked, wiping the corner of his eyes.

“I want to know about my father”, and my world crumbled.