The glare of my cell phone lit up the dark car. I grinned to myself as I saw a particularly funny meme. We had made a stop on our way back from dinner at Nani Ama’s. It was Eid, probably the most awaited event of the year, bound to be vibrant with promises of eidee, dinners, uplifted by unadulterated joy. Then something happened, marring Eid of the year 2015. It changed my life, that mere knock on my father’s window.
“Phone dou, warna mein nai goli mar deni hai.”
My blood ran cold. I froze, halting my ministrations, his nasally voice ringing in my ears, as he promised blood, if my father didn’t obey. Forcing myself to look up, I saw a sight I’ll never forget. Ever. The glow of my father’s Blackberry, the frozen picture of him and my sister beaming set as the background, finding its way out the window, towards the pair of hands, one curled around a black revolver, the other’s greedy fingers reaching towards the window. In that moment, it felt like such a disgusting betrayal of our family’s privacy, clenching my gut. I registered my father’s tense stance, shoulders set; alert. Seeing the ever assertive man helpless at the hands of a scrawny 20 year old brandishing a revolver, tilted my world in its axis.
A thousand pictures played on a reel in my mind, of blood and gore, and a belligerent wave of emotion crashed: despair. I sat immobile, only aware of the horrifying scene unfolding before my eyes.
“Ye wala nai, wou wala.” He drawled, cracking the deadly silence.
My father obeyed, his hand reaching for my mother’s smartphone, following the same route, handing it to the wretched mugger. He revved away, leaving our lives changed. And it was all in matter of minutes.
Silence enveloped us, my father started driving, and we went on as nothing major had happened. As my sister broke the silence, I hushed her harshly, disbelieving of the events that had unfolded. Something clutched my stomach, coiling and crawling up my throat. Fear. I saw glistening tear tracks adorn my sister’s face, as the gravity of what had happened found home in me. Travelling outside at night was never scary. It was the ultimate symbol of fun, the glamour and glitz of Lahore, the pulse of the traffic and the veins of the infrastructure, rising out majestically was a relief from the quiet suburbs of Nishat Mills. It’s sickening really, now as I sit in my car, my stomach rolls as the light fades into the dark and few stars dot the sky. A thousand ‘What Ifs’ gnaw my mind, ‘What if it happens again?’, ‘What if it’s worse?’ Uninvited, poisonous, they chip away at my peace of mind. To me, every Tom, Dick or Harry on a motorbike, is the mugger, his shady profile, unkempt hair, plaid shirt, burned into my mind’s eye. My throat itches with anxiety, the lump becomes hard to swallow done, even with the incident shoved into the recesses of my mind, it encompasses every pore of my being, like a tea stain on a white dress.
I miss being carefree. I miss not having to look over my shoulder, suspicious of every figure hunched, straddling a motorbike. I miss not knowing. Not knowing how it feels when your insides are frozen and you’re utterly and truly helpless. Not knowing what actual fear is, - nothing compared to the one when your parents say, ‘I need to talk to you,’ or when you watch a particularly good horror film. I miss being able to use my phone in my car without the jagged thought of it repeated all over again slicing my peace of mind. Above all, I miss innocence, the one I had even when I knew this world was a crumbling mess turning into ashes, burned by humans with ice cold souls.