"~The Quite Before Storm~"
558 Words
The calendar on the wall still showed the previous month. No one had flipped the page yet, but they all knew — Eid was near.
The girls should have been excited. Planning bangles, mehndi, the smell of new clothes. But instead, the air in the house was heavy. Not loud. Not violent. Just... heavy.
Too quiet.
Farah noticed it first — the way Baba had stopped shouting. The way he walked. The way he looked at things longer — the cupboard, the shelves, the corner of the room. And Amma noticed too. She didn’t say anything.
But she started hiding things.
Original certificates. Identity cards. Birth documents. A little bit of emergency money wrapped in an old scarf and placed under the bed mattress.
“Just in case,” she whispered to Tayyba.”
“Last time, he tried to burn Farah’s Degree. I’m not risking it again.”
Meanwhile, Baba had developed a bad stomach issue. Nothing serious, but it left him tired, groaning, sleeping more often. Amma didn’t ignore it. No matter how much he had done… he was still her husband. The girls' father. She made him chicken soup with cumin and salt.
Even the girls — Farah, Tayyba, and Maryam — watched him with worried eyes.
Hurt didn’t erase love. He was still Father.
“The same man who used to hold Maryams hand on the way to morning walk.
The same man who used to call Tayyba his brave lion.
The same man who had taught Farah Math with his own hands” —
before he started breaking it all down.
The plan was made gently.
Eid would be spent at Mamu’s house. Not far, just two hours journey to the town. The four of them would go a day early to help Mami prepare. It wasn’t a new tradition, but this time it felt different. Like they needed to go.
Baba knew.
He didn’t say much.That evening, as he sipped the soup Amma placed by his side, he looked at her and said:
“Don’t worry about me. Just go.”
There was something in his tone.
Not kindness. Not anger.
Just... distance. Like he was thinking ahead of them.
Like he knew something they didn’t.
That evening, as the last azaan echoed through the neighbourhood and the house settled into its dim, fanless quiet, Amma began to fold the girls’ clothes into one large bag.
They would leave for Mamu’s house and in the morning. Farah helped quietly, checking the pockets of bag and neatly folding her kameez. Tayyba rolled her bangles into a handkerchief.
Maryam, the smallest, packed her new hairband and a half-used sketchbook she wanted to show Mamu.
For a moment — just a brief, quiet moment — the air felt lighter.
Not because things were better.
But because they were getting out — if only for a few days.
A break from the stares.
From the silence.
From the walking-on-eggshells kind of life.”
The four of them sat on the bed together, legs crossed, the packed bag resting by the door.
Amma gently brushed Tayyba’s hair as she hummed a lullaby under her breath. Farah leaned her head on Amma’s shoulder.
Tayyba giggled at something silly Maryam whispered.
For once, it almost felt like a normal night.
A little happy. A little lighter. A little free.
- Writer
