Chapter 44

With shaky hands I reached into the pocket where I could clearly feel something. And I took out this black watch and a neatly folded note. I didn't want to read it and I thought maybe I didn't have to. Maybe I could keep it for another time when I wasn't being pulled down, weighed by boulders on my back. 

And I held onto it for two minutes before realizing that there was a chance I wouldn't get to read it again. 

So with trembling hands I unfolded it, straining to see past the tears welled up in my eyes. They fell on his blazer, the only piece of him I had other than the new watch and the unread note.

At first I couldn't even see the words, I had to focus my vision for them to become clear.

" He wrote it in such haste, feared father might show up and find us together. " Aliyah said without turning towards me. 

I brought it closer to my eyes and began to read it. He was crushing me with each word.

      " J.R....  

 I'm afraid you'll have to bear with my use of metaphors for one last time. But in my personal view, you are the hour hand, and that naturally makes me the minute hand in this case. Most of the time you'll prefer to stay put, but I'll frequently be moving. And I'm certain that more than once we shall cross paths. Otherwise time will stop. And without time there is no measure to life. So I'll move, I'll search for you with everything I've got. It might not be soon but trust me I will. I'll wait for the seconds to end so I can move again. It's you J.R, and till the end of time it will ALWAYS be you! 

Written with nothing but love and ashen wishes.

Calen Silverstein. "

When I looked up again it was to stare at the open gates of Seville while the car was passing through them. 

Now that was true pain.

                           💮🌼💮🌼💮🌼

The drive to the airstrip, the long flight back home, the uncomfortable silence throughout the way and the millions of questions being thrown out way once we got home. 

I recalled none of that. We had arrived in Rabdah two days ago. At least I thought it was two days, I couldn't be sure. 

My mother had rn towards us on hearing about our arrival, she had looked concerned but also quite happy, and all she had wanted was to embrace me.

But my father had forbid her from doing so, he had forbid everyone from laying a hand on me. He said I was sick, that some communicable disease had erupted back at school and that whoever touched me was likely to be infected as well.

Aliyah had looked at him with hidden anger and shock, I had seen her roll her eyes before she proceeded to hug my mom and went ahead to search for her own. But she had looked back and shot me a look that told me not to worry.

My mother had been terrified. She still worried about me, she would knock on the door just to confirm that I was okay. And I had heard her arguing with my father about why he was keeping me locked up in my room, why no one other than him was allowed to see me. 

He was blowing things out of proportion, but in my father's eyes what I had done was the greatest sin to exist.

" You're impure, and for that reason you shall stay here until I find someone trustworthy enough to both cleanse you and keep your fuilthy secret, " 

Cleanse.

He was searching for someone to cleanse me, my spirit and my soul and my physical form which he believed were all tainted with sin. 

He had told me so himself. 

He'd come over to my room two times a day and he'd leave me a tray of food on my table and walk out without saying a thing. Apart from this particular morning when he asked me to hand over my phone, then he had walked over to my desktop and literally cut the cords connecting it to the power. He couldn't risk carrying the whole thing out and having anyone ask him why he was doing so.

Because as far as anyone knew, I was sick and in the process of healing so I was better left undisturbed.

When I watched him walk out with my phone I had lost any sort of hope I had. 

Calen and I had neither called nor texted each other,but having the phone had been a link to him. I knew that the second I called he would have immediately answered, and that he didn't communicate since he was afraid of getting me into more trouble. 

I couldn't leave my room and no one could come in, the curtains were always drawn and I had no way to communicate with anyone. 

But I wasn't grounded, this was worse. It was worse because I was awaiting a fate that even I was unaware of. 

There had never been a similar case in the empire that I had ever heard of, so I was clueless when it came to the form of punishment I was to receive.

That evening, I was lying on the sheets staring at the ceiling, and my mind went back to the midterm break. Easily the best days of my life. Yesterday I had spent most of the day just scrolling through my phone, looking at pictures I had never quite looked at before. I hadn't been lying when I told Calen that the memories would be my refuge. I recalled one particular afternoon when we had been walking through a narrow path in the woods. 

" Oh look, a sparrow, " Calen had said as he pointed at a nearby branch while taking out his phone to either record the bird or snap a picture of it. A habit he had just developed. I turned towards the branch and looked at the bird, then I scoffed and shook my head 

" That's not a sparrow, it's a Dunnock. " 

They looked a little alike I suppose, but Calen was so sure that he was right we just ended up bickering about it. 

" Are you questioning my knowledge on birds J.R?" 

" The only reason we're even arguing is because you don't have any knowledge on birds, " 

" God help me! That is clearly a sparrow!"

" You're holding a phone, instead of recording some very wrong information, why don't you Google it instead?" 

He had refused. Walking past me to a nearby bush where some wild fruits were growing. 

" It's a Dunnock, "

" Sparrow you mean. "

I watched him as he plucked one of the bright orange berries and narrowed his gaze at it. Then I took out my phone and googled sparrows, smiling on noticing that he had been wrong.

" You see? I told you so, " 

With a bored roll of his eyes he had shrugged the matter aside and asked me whether the fruit was edible. 

" I know as little about wild fruits as you know about birds, it does look rather succulent though, you ought to take a bite, "

" And die of poisoning? I think I'll pass. "

Plucking one for myself, I sniffed it. It smelled nice, and it looked tempting enough to eat. 

I had been about to bite it when suddenly Calen laughed, I turned to find him on his phone, he turned the screen towards me, the broad satisfied smile still intact.

" It's an Alpine Accentor...never heard of them but apparently you were wrong as well. "

The fact had really amused him, he wouldn't shut up about it. Choosing to let him bask in his glory by himself, I popped the berry in my mouth. He had stopped to observe me as I did so. Looking on expectantly.

" Yuck! " I shouted as I spit it out. That was definitely not edible. One of the most bitter and wrong flavors I had ever tasted. 

" Why did I even do that?"

I proceeded to try and rub the bitterness from my tongue, and all the while everything in the woods seemed to had gone quiet... except Calen Silverstein's wild laugh.

It was a happy memory, one that had me smiling to myself and chuckling a couple of times. But afterwards I realized something.

The happiest ones left the deepest hollow in my chest. 

🌼💮🌼💮🌼💮

The next morning I woke up early, I looked at the treasured watch on my wrist and realized it wasn't even five yet. Switching off the bedside lamp, I lived in the darkness. And a few minutes later I was almost back to sleep, but then I heard footsteps approaching..Then I heard my door being unlocked and the lights were switched on. Squinting my eyes, I gazed at the blank face of my father, then at the old eyes of the man standing beside him. His hair a pure white and an introspective look on his aged features. Dressed in all black...the clothes familiar yet rare. 

And if my guess was correct, he was a sort of spiritual leader.