Chapter Three: A Village Without Ears
303 Words
The mosque echoed with the imam’s voice that morning,
“Mercy is from God… and forgiveness is the path of the righteous.”
But no one in the crowd looked behind them—
No one asked about the empty girl who once played near the well with bare feet and innocent laughter.
Her name was not on their tongues.
Only the lie remained.
And her father?
He sat at the front row, face like stone,
But his hands… trembled.
They still carried the warmth of her skin.
They still remembered how her blood whispered “why?” as it touched his knuckles.
At noon, silence hung like smoke over their home.
He didn’t eat.
He didn’t move.
He only stared at the scarf she once wore—the same one that wrapped her in death.
Then came the knock.
Not the soft knock of a daughter.
But heavy. Measured. Unforgiving.
An old woman from the edge of the village stood there.
Eyes gray like storm clouds.
She said nothing.
Only held out a piece of cloth, soaked in dried blood.
“She came to me that night,” the old woman finally spoke,
“Asking for a place to sleep. She was afraid of you… but still called you Baba.”
The father’s breath stopped.
“She left before dawn. Said she wanted to go home… to explain, to be forgiven.”
Then silence.
Like the earth itself paused.
And in that silence, the truth cracked open.
She had never sinned.
She had never run.
She had simply returned… to a place that had already buried her with its cruelty.
Her father fell to his knees.
Not in prayer.
But in the crushing collapse of a man who realized—
He had killed the only soul who still believed he could be good.
- Writer
