Invaluable – Short Story Cycle

Searching.

The girl in the green hoodie strode out of the airport, waving down a passing taxi in the gleaming sun of the afternoon.

“Can you take me into town?” The wind swept her hair and jostled her trackies as she climbed into the dusty warm cab with her modest luggage.

“Sure thing Signorina.” The large man replied in accented English. He looked back at her a few times in the rear-view mirror as he deftly navigated the maze of tight roads in which he was familiar. “Why you look in such a hurry young lady, is a young man waiting for you in town eh?”

“Oh I wish…” The young lady let the words escape her mouth in exasperation, but making eye contact with the driver once more, realised she had said more than she intended. “Oh um it can be hard to find someone… sometimes when they’re… not… Look never mind I’m not meeting anyone just drive.”

“Sweetheart there is no shame in chasing a boy, if he is something unique and precious then you chase that boy, eh?” The driver noticed her complexion and the scarf around her neck. “Your face is that of a Muslim woman, but your head is not covered?” Her surprise at his insight was evident in her expression, but her voice gave no such information away.

“Oh, well I was a Muslim. Now I’m…” She stared across the ornate streets, over the distant rooftops into the rolling clouds. “Now I’m searching.”

“You’ve come to the best country in the world to find God then eh? Off to see Michelangelo’s handiwork for some revelation of faith?” The old man nodded his head in consideration, tossing the hefty subject around in his mind.

“No, I’m not looking for a god, I’m looking for someone real,” she said curtly, “can you stop outside the library?” She gripped the door and her seatbelt having finally seen where she wanted to stop, keen to leave his questions, and maybe some of hers, unanswered.

 

Finding.

The waiter watched as a young dark-skinned girl finished her glass of lemonade, looking wistfully somewhere past the glass, perhaps at the sky out the window. Her eyes were a picture of longing, of concern, but of hope. She held two coasters in her hand, and when she turned her attention to them the waiter thought she looked at them like they were covered in information, full of answers. He found himself leaning over to get a better look at the simple wooden squares he had himself seen every day for the last how many years? He couldn’t remember.

Curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“Excuse me, young lady,” he said as he approached her table, “is there something wrong with that coaster?”

“No, not at all, there’s no problem.” She answered quickly, then after a pregnant pause added, with stressed affability, “I uh, don’t suppose you remember a young man who worked here a few months ago?” She was paying him full attention, clearly the answer to this question was important to her, and he could tell, so he really tried to remember.

“I’ve actually only just come back a couple of nights ago, I was visiting family overseas. I left… would’ve been nearly a month ago now. There were a few young men doing work experience here though just at that time…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t know anything else.

A young man in cargo pants and a loose shirt further down the whitewashed street was collapsing some folding furniture into a moving van. He looked back at a small square at the distant other end of the street, looking backward in more senses than one at the building – at the memories – as he closed the doors to the moving van.

He saw a small figure clad in a green jacket leave the bar where he’d worked, and sit on the bench outside. He once knew someone who looked like her, and the similarity brought on nostalgia. He wondered how she was. His reverie was broken when she seemed to stand up all of a sudden. He must have been staring at the lady because he noticed she was staring back; staring back and waving.

 

Leaving.

“I don’t feel the same here.” The girl cast her eyes down to her coffee, knowing full well they said more than she would mean to with her mouth.

“What do you mean ‘the same here’? You’ve always been here… You’ve lived here your whole life in case you don’t remember.” Her friend that she said morning prayers with had always been there to hear her problems. Even the ones about her father. The real ones.

“I mean I don’t know how I can go on living this way, like, I’m still Aisha, your best friend and I don’t want that to change but…” she trailed off, unsure not only of where the sentence headed but what was to become of her. “Ever since David-”

Her friend cut her off.

“Ever since he what? Since David did what, Aisha? He’s just come out of nowhere now you talk like he’s your knight in shining armour here to liberate you from your evil dad. Have you ever considered how blindly you’re running into this?”

Aisha stared out the window, her jaw set as if restraining her from a reply that would cause yet another rift. Her friend was now staring into her coffee with pursed lips and gave off the look of a parent with a desire to protect, but an imperative to stand aside.

“You mean a lot to me you know. Like, I don’t want to lose you. But I just, I just right now need someone to help me do this – or decide if I should do this.”

“Honey I’ll tell you what you want to hear, I’ll even help you pack, but I’m not driving you to the airport. I value my life too you know. Your dad wants what’s best for you. Even if it isn’t, he believes it is, and it’s really important to him that you, you know, follow that. You’re going to have to decide for yourself where your heart lies Aisha. What’s important to you? Is some boy or the chance of more or whatever you want to call him worth leaving the things you’ve always known and valued? Could you really close your Qur’an for the last time? That’s not your dad, that’s part of who you are!” Her friend’s voice had grown more frantic near the end, and Aisha started to freak out.

“NO. Stop. Stop alright. Enough about my dad. You can show yourself out. I’m going to think about what you’ve said, I do really value your input, but I just need some alone time now.”

Just as she said that, a man entered the dining room in which they’d been sitting.

“Kicking your best friend out of the house now??” her Dad’s neck muscles were a rigid podium on which his livid face sat. “Look what I found on the floor in the laundry huh! This is the first scripture I gave you as a child. How dare you disrespect this? You’d better get your act in line soon young lady, and start realising what’s important.”

He stormed off a moment too abruptly to hear her say

“You’re right dad. I realise now.” She picked up her phone, and a few moments later, could be heard saying “Yes. Hello. Yes, next flight to Italy. One way.”

 

Meeting.

“Aisha, come on we’re ready to go,” the taller of two sisters said as they waited for their cousin to get her shoes on, “in two minutes we’re leaving without you.” The girl – Zabreen – was the older of Aisha’s two cousins living overseas, and she was staying with Zabreen and her sister Tamara.

They went to Tamara’s favourite bistro, and by the end of the night it was buzzing with customers and Aisha found herself alone at the bar, ordering some more drinks for the three of them. She’d been doodling away on a napkin drawing a girl in shackles when a man bumped into her and spilled a little of his beer on her leg.

“Oh my I’m so sorry, here-” he reached for the nearest napkin – the one she’d been using – in an attempt to clean up some of the mess but he stopped when he saw the image.

“Wow. This is really good, did you do this?” The couple of drops didn’t bother her quite as much with the newfound attention. A sidelong glance told her that Zabreen and Tamara could see the conversation, so she decided to play it up for reputation’s sake.

“Yeah, it’s ok I suppose.” Aisha said with forced disinterest.

“It’s…. great.”

“Well some are born great.” She smirked, tilting her head coyly.

“And others achieve greatness, but I don’t see you cross-gartered with yellow stockings.” Aisha stood there, mouth agape. “You think you’re the only one who can quote Shakespeare?” the guy winked and was on his way back to his table.

When Aisha returned to her table she was greeted with silence but two ridiculous grins belonging to both of her slightly intoxicated cousins.

“So, did you get his number?” Tamara quipped, winking at Aisha before having another sip of her drink.

“No, we just talked.” Aisha replied with mock annoyance at the fuss over such a small matter, but secretly enjoyed the attention.

She saw a darts board over past the counter, and having played darts a lot growing up, challenged her cousins to a game. Aisha thrashed them, which wasn’t much of an achievement considering they barely hit the board three times between the two of them, but she was perplexed when she saw the bar’s hall of fame scoreboard.

Her score was second to only that of a previous competitor marked down as ‘David’, and she was only second by the slimmest margin.

“Who’s David?” Aisha asked into thin air, unheard she thought by the other customers.

“You called?” Caught off guard, Aisha spun to face a casually held and coolly confident man. Zabreen and Tamara gasped and giggled. It was him.

 

Threatening.

Her father and mother had left the house – finally. She’d been waiting all afternoon to listen to a song David had sent her as a CD from overseas. She really liked the songs he sent. They were funny, quite often a bit rebellious saying things like ‘I kissed a girl and I liked it’. Part of her knew that was wrong, but when she asked herself why she could not justify it.

Regardless, this new track was called ‘Break the rules’ by Charlie XCX. What sort of name is XCX? Her line of thought was punctured by the sudden realisation that someone had left the stereo system on full – which was made painfully apparent by “I don’t wanna go to school/ I just wanna break the rules” blasting at such a volume she thought the house might collapse.

A scrambling of limbs, prodding of remotes and silencing of speakers later, the house was silent again and she brought the volume of the paused track down from 55 (she could not recall ever daring to attempt such volume) to a modest 20. Her cat Muezza looked at her as if to say, “Really, Aisha?” before slinking off, clearly disturbed from sleep by the racket.

Those were becoming happy times for Aisha, who felt she was being invited to a whole new world of refreshing and invigorating ideas. Later that day when she was hanging out the washing to ‘Uptown Funk’ all of that changed.

“Aisha what is this devil music!?” her father had come home, and she’d carelessly left her music on too loud. She backed up fearfully, seeing full well the impertinent rage in his eyes. She began to stitch together an answer.

“Father… I … I’m.. I mean it’s not –“

“Shut your mouth girl,” his expression was a myriad of concern, confusion and fear, “Listen. This music is bad Aisha. I did not raise you up in this household for your mind to be poisoned by American music. I want what’s best for you, you have to trust that I know better. Give me the music.” He meant what he was saying, and he fully believed it too. The genuine nature of his words made hers catch in her throat.

“No. I’m sorry if it’s not your thing, but I like this music and David will just send me –“

“David?! Who’s David?” Her father’s phone went off. “I have to take this. I don’t want to hear another word about this boy, or another second of that music. If it’s not gone soon, you’re out.”