Maryam

The delicious taste danced on her tongue. It was always a privilege to eat something so good. But the joy soon faded as guilt crept into her mind reminding her that she had left a child back home who was finding it difficult to get three meals daily while she even had enough to treat herself to a nice meal. With that thought, she dropped the plate on the floor beside her mattress.

The call for prayers blasted through the streets and with a heavy sigh she made her way to the bathroom to perform ablution. Her prayer was a long one; she prayed for her son and her late husband, she prayed that she would make enough money to send her son back to school the next year. She had begged her employer to give her only weekly pocket money instead of her entire salary. The rest of her salary was being saved. She was grateful for having the opportunity to work even though her employer was…

“Maryam,” a loud voice interrupted her prayer session. She quickly folded her mat and ran to the very angry woman in the kitchen. “Are you mad?” the woman inquired in her thick Arab accent. Her dark hair falling on her shoulders.

“I am sorry.” Maryam apologised. She had honestly forgotten that she had been cooking.

“Sorry, sorry? I told you I was going to have guest in a few hours. Are you so much of an illiterate that your brain cannot comprehend simple instructions?”

Maryam opened her mouth to apologise again but a slap arrested the words. Her hand immediately went to her face as the tears stung her eyelids. She looked at the young woman who was around her age, standing in front of her, eyes burning with hatred. Her eyes went to the knife stand behind the woman but her son’s face flashed before her- what would become of him? She swallowed her anger and looked away, fixing her eyes on the kitchen floor.

“I am talking to you.” The woman demanded but Maryam’s eyes refused to move away from the dark green tiles. She was finding patterns on the floor, anything to stop her from acting on the thoughts that were crossing her mind. This wasn’t the first time she was being hit.

The woman angrily pushed her; she felt herself falling and her head hit the kitchen slab. Pain coursed through her whole being as she fell on the floor. She couldn’t move her body as some warm liquid began to pool around her. Tears slid down her face as thoughts of her son ran through her mind. Who will pay his school fees? What will happen to his future?

And all she heard before everything went blank was a piercing scream.