Ant

Tiny black specks inside the bedside drawer. Crawling insects, sprawling dead. Tiny black specks all around the floor, by the side table, trapped in cobwebs on the bathroom wall. 

She played back the phone call in her mind. Of course her lover was going back to her family. To her marriage. To her children.
It made sense. 
Doomed from the first, kiss. It ate at them.  Consumed them. Regurgitated their love and spilled it spoiled, stained blood on the dirt floor. 

The world did not exist where they withstood the whispers and talks. Self shamed and shunned self. 

Her Imam minced only in his walk, enthralled by his zeal to save souls. Save this soul with a hard on. 
Sister,
You sin!
What you do, disgusts Allah. Can you not see the impurity you bring to your religion?
You damn your soul. 
Your father is shamed. He walks into the mosque with his chest caved. 
He is the pariah with the ummah.
Your mother. 
He shook his head as if in sorrow. 
For your mother, change your ways. 
It is not too late. Allah subuhana wata'Ala does not want this for you.
He thought he advised her on it.  Revealed to her what she could never self reveal. 
What could he have ever said to her that she had not, to herself.
She was torn from her soul. Her burning skin. Nothing. 
It was her mind. It screamed. It wailed. 
It was something she had been praying and fasting about. She was a good muslim. At least she tried to be. 

They hadn't been found out.  Like fugitives except there were none in this space. An emotional regression, an equation to submission. 
Small mercies, they hadn't been publicly shamed. 
Not yet.  
The whispers stung, tiny whips on tender skin. 
This was her chance to get out. To keep her sheets, clean sheets, even though the rumples bore witness to the tumbles they had shared. 
Her psyche split, cell fighting cell. 
Her thoughts, drifting smoke. 

A tale of her mother, told of earlier times. Women have power. 
Grandmother's of the town walking barefoot. Cleansing the earth after great turmoils had occurred to the land. Calling on their ancestors for intercession on their behalf .
For the powerless, call onto your ancestors to aid you. 
Less they mistake your silence as welcoming to the carnage. Call on your ancestors less they forsake you to your helpless plight. 

You are not the first of you. You are not the last of you. You exist in multitudes. You exist in ones. You exist. You are as they are. 

With thick chunks of white clay and bottles of libation, grandmothers blow horns in the late night sky until the dawn breaks the day. 
Thumbing the noises at our colonial masters'  indoctrinations. 
In times of crisis, call on your ancestors. The antecedents, those who came before you. 
Those on this earth. With living bodies and those without. 

She tossed the on her rumpled bed. Glanced
at the phone. 1:41 am. 
Where is she? Is she OK?
Am I ok? 
Will I ever be ok?

Who could intercede on their behalf, which ancestor could she call on if she believed in such. 
There has always been women like her, she had no proof but knew this. 
Made pariah. Outcast. Dismissed. 
Women who loved and made love to other women in this land.
Here and far away. 
Their histories lost. Who knew of them.  Not one lucky Anne Lister among them. All still wiped from the collective consciousness. 

This is not only a "western" disease as much as her custodians of customs would wish all to believe. As much as the Imam and the umma would like to believe. As much as we secretly believe of ourselves. Right there, under our skins closer to the bones of our truth. 

Could she invoke on them, her ancestors? And ask them what? To give her strength? And soothe away the turmoil, to name this shame with light and dismember it.
She smiled at her tearful reflection. 
Which ancestor would answer her? Of the multitudes misogyny and homophobia, drew no gender. 

She was not a revolutionary, the thought of protest and public fights frightened her.
She just wanted to love and be loved. 
She was, a passive follower, a non rocker of unknown boats. She did not want to take the journey. At least not alone.

There was bravery there but none she wished to draw on. She felt too old. Revolution is for the young and idealist, for those with nothing to lose or too much to gain. She was neither. 

She excused herself. If I were in love, if you chose me I would go to the ends of earth proclaiming our love. Such big gestures revelling in romantic grand notions. 

We are who we were brought up to become, not something we care to acknowledge for ourselves. From those who fight their nurture only save a few knew peace. Real peace. 

In here, pointing to her skull. Speaking it aloud. To find peace in here!

What was being asked of her? Nothing. She was being told to battle alone as this comrade wanted no part of the work.

No matter how sweet she tasted or how clear her laughter, how seen and accepted she felt she was. It would only last in the shadows a while. Too fragile to face the truth, the light.  

Must all outcast and downtrodden face their demons themselves to breathe? 
The irony was not lost to her as she switched off the air conditioning in her cosy apartment. 

We come in and shapes and sizes and comforts.

Duniya walked to the closet and took out an old noisy vacuum cleaner.  She pulled out the used sheets and pillow cases from the bed and dumped it on the floor. 

She switched on the heater and starred for a while at the red light thinking it needs a while to heat up. Red lights blurred into images of flesh and passion. 

She left the dead ants where they were, she needed company and they were as good as any. She heard the iPhone's ringtone as if in the distance. 

Let it ring. It would not be her. The only thing she cared about. That mattered.