It was early morning on 28th of October 2014. Sahar’s mother was busy preparing breakfast in the kitchen while her father, Sakhi, was getting himself ready to go to work. He looked at his motorcycle in the backyard of the home, walked to it, checked the wheels and cleaned it up with a piece of cloth.
“Can you wake the children up?” his wife shouted out from the kitchen.
“OK,” Sakhi said and walked to the children’s room. He slowly pushed the door open and quietly popped his head through the door. All his daughters were in a deep sleep. Sahar, his youngest daughter who was seven was laying sleep beside her elder sisters. He gently knocked the door and called out “wake up children! Time to get ready for the school now!”
Anisa, the eldest ten years old daughter said “OK father,” then rubbing her eyes and nudging Sahar, who was laying sleep beside her on the floor, said “wake up.” Sahar woke up and asked “what time is it?” stretching her arms and legs.
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Category Archives: English Short Stories
Mother’s Day
It was 7am early morning, when I woke up. I picked my mobile which was lying underneath my pillow. I switched it on. It flashed with 11th of May 2014 on the screen. The next moment, I tapped on the Facebook to check the local news. It popped up with full of Mother’s Day posts, messages, songs and videos. I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes. Scrolled up and down and saw Mother’s Day posts again.
‘Am I watching the old posts?’ I asked myself. No, I wasn’t. I tapped on the twitter account, scrolled up to get the resent tweets than scrolled down slowly to read some posts. It was also filled with the Mother’s Day posts. I again couldn’t believe my eyes.
I left the bed, took a shower and came downstairs to the kitchen where my wife was preparing the breakfast.
The Car
It was approximately 2am and the temperature was about three degree Celsius accompanied by a pitch-dark chilly night. A black coloured two-seater pickup took a sharp turn and then drove slowly into a quiet, murky, dimly lit street.
The pick-up drove past the electric pole and pulled up near a house, where two men checked their guns and got out of the vehicle. One of them unloaded the pick-up’s boot while the other proceeded to climb up a 12 feet high electric pole which stood by the boundary wall of one of the houses. Upon reaching the top, the man took in the view of the house; it was a single story house with a little yard— with enough space to park a car— with maybe two rooms, a kitchen, a toilet and perhaps a bathroom.
The Train Journey
The moment I got on the train, it left the platform. It was full with passengers. I looked here and there to find an empty seat but I couldn’t find any. While passing through the seats, I spotted an empty seat where a man sitting. I rushed to it. Squeezed in my legs and slowly lowered myself down onto the seat. A lady was sitting in front of me. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
After making myself comfortable on the seat, I took a book from my bag to read. While flipping through the page, my eyes caught a glimpse of the lady. She was looking gorgeous with shiny straight dark-brown hair dangling over her shoulder. She smiled at me, when she found me peeping at her while reading. I smiled back but pretended to look busy reading. The man, sitting beside me was looking a gentleman. He was reading a newspaper and he was looking about my age.
“It’s a beautiful day,” the man said. I looked at him, thinking he was talking to me, but he was talking to the lady not me.
The Gift
“Are you okay?”
The question jolted Ahmed back to the present. He looked at his wife, Fatima who was looking at him in a concerned manner. She said,
“Hello… I’m talking to you.”
Ahmed sighed and replied,
“I’m worried about the business, it’s not doing so well. What about you?”
His wife took a deep breath before saying,
“The headmistress has asked me to resign because of the threats to the school. And all the staff members want me to leave as soon as possible.”
Ahmed nodded and said,
“Well it’s a difficult time for our community. Customers have been avoiding our shop and I don’t know how to get them back.” Continue reading