chapter 13
331 Words
Home was quiet.
Not heavy.
Not sad.
Just... quiet.
No one talked about him.
No “Do you remember when.....”
No “He used to love this.”
Nothing.
It was like he’d been packed into a box and sealed away.
Or maybe everyone was like me pretending silence was strength.
My siblings played football like they always did.
Screaming. Laughing. Running barefoot across the compound.
And then there was my youngest brother the one who looked just like him.
Same round face. Same wide eyes. Same birthmark on his arm.
I watched him play with sand under the tree.
Building nothing.
Smiling at everything.
I picked him up.
Held him close.
Tried not to cry.
If you looked too closely, it felt like holding a ghost in daylight.
That night, I heard voices.
My mother. Then my father’s.
“…he didn’t just die. They killed him before his time.”
I froze.
My father, the man of faith the man who clutched the Qur’an and whispered prayers into the air like armor now saying it was witchcraft.
“He saw stars in his dream,” he said. “That means wealth. Greatness. Someone didn’t want him to reach it.”
The words didn’t make sense… but they felt like they did.
Like something deep inside me was nodding.
That week, the rules changed.
We were banned from going outside.
If you were caught past the gate, you’d be punished.
No arguments.
Because death wasn’t just death anymore.
It was war.
Spiritual. Silent.
And close to home.
I counted the days until school resumed.
Not because I missed the stress or the noise but because I needed distance from a house that looked the same… but wasn’t.
When I returned to school, I dressed like I had moved on.
Lip gloss. Clean hair. Neat clothes.
Smiles like folded napkins.
And no one knew the girl who looked put together had been brushing up against death and ghosts all holiday long.
- Writer
