16th December 2014, Peshawar

With my Closed eyes I Guess I don’t need my glasses anymore , not that if I needed them I could get them. I remember losing them somewhere, somewhere in the hallways.

I remember I couldn’t see anymore. Only hear. I remember what I had to hear was not something my mom would approve of. Perhaps hearing my teacher scream at me in class I would’ve preferred to hear her scream because of death. I remember while we were running, nay, moving ourselves out of reach as fast as we could I passed the board, the board the school put up the pictures. And just once did I get get be put up there. Now no one would see.

I thought of all the times my mom had asked me to look  over my sister in school. The brat who kept taking my things and drawing in my notebooks. I never gave her a side glance after we reached school, kept out of her way whenever I could , besides I’ll see her everyday for the rest of my life peeking through the crack in the door watching how I do my hair. I remember how frantic I was before I closed my eyes, how I was screaming , how she was screaming, it didn’t seem to end. And just this once I prayed, I prayed to Allah that I  find her. I prayed that I could catch her doodling in my notebook one last time. I prayed that I get to teach her how to do her hair better than mine.

I would’ve kept screaming her name and praying , but I felt it pierce my thigh, I felt the agony I had only seen on TV screens.I now remember how the actors did the pain no justice. I remember how  I couldn’t move only scream and then I remember seeing the face I had been screaming for , I saw her worried scared face light up, I saw a teardrop fall off her cheek because of her momentary smile. I prayed she’d run away and hide I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop screaming. She was running, running in the wrong way. No you idiot for just this once don’t think about me. Just go! but I couldn't tell her and she wouldn't even if I did . I wonder if she saw anything that was going on the room except me and my bullet pierced thigh I saw scores of emotion flash through her face while ran to me. She didn't run away.

And I remember. I remember how her body fell. How her tiny body fell. How she lay flat  on my body. I remember when she was a baby we used play this game , where she lays flat on my body and I would lift her  with my calf and she, with her arms wide out would  scream superman! I remember her cheeks flushed, eyes shining and heartbeat thudding against my leg , Faster as I lifted her higher. And now I remember her falling on me, the way she used to sleep  on my mom. I felt heat creep up my body and had a second of momentary confusion. And then I remember how, right before she fell I heart the gunshot, nay the series of gunshots and how it hit her chest , the chest she would one day be asked to cover with the beautiful scarf I had bought for her birthday next week. And I remember right before she fell the green sweater was staining itself. Dark as it is when we lift it from the washing machine. And now I remember I could hear her heartbeat the once that used to race dimming away on my body. I could feel it falter and then with a final beat how it stopped. I remember.

I remember how my mom kissed her forehead this morning and told her she would be praying for the alphabet test she had today. I remember how she asked me to help her on they way to school. I wonder if she ever took that test. I wish I had helped her instead of writhing away her hand as soon as we were out of the sight of our home. I wish I had told her that I knew she had kept a munch on my desk and pretended she didn't know anything about it. I wish I could tell her I knew. I knew she loved me and I wish I could tell her I did too.

The Fault In Our Shelves

Too Often we find ourselves drowning in a world that doesn't exist.In love with a person that breathes only on pages. Crying over a death that has never happened and never will. Waiting for two people who fight endlessly to fall in love when they've never had a thought of their own.

Too often we've loved the stories that we read more than our own. We forget most often that we are living in a real live tale, be it fairy or not. It is sad isn't it how it is most probable that all the books we've read , all the stories  always said that a heart was meant to share, Joys not found in things such as necklaces and rings but in love that’s always there, that’s the truth beyond compare. Well its actually quite amusing how all of this never happens in real life and we ACTUALLY thrive on all this fiction, me included!

Books have always, since the time of my birth ( or my 1st grade), been this major part of my life. I’d never been into lullabies but then its later on in life that I realized a lullaby doesn't necessarily have to be a song ,tune or a hum. It could be a book. There went not a day when I slept without a book under my pillow . I guess in some ways I  was my own tooth fairy, keeping things under my pillow.

Being a Miss Dashwood or a Tris Prior or an Everdeen or a Mrs Cullen or a Hazel Grace is what we expect and really want from ourselves. To be selfless , brave , funny and what not.

Too often we forget that we are   all that and more. Its the fact that we set the sky as our limit that is creating a problem. The kind of books we read defines what kind of a person we become , and this isn't a cliche point  (I hate the word cliche and am strictly against it, I’m going to have to dedicate an entire article on that) that I’m trying to make across here. We've been influenced by the media  and by people that we've limited ourselves to only certain kinds of books! The essence of reading a book is entirely poisoned.

All this crap we’re filling our heads with must cease and every book must be given a chance to be read. To me books are like humans. They have their rights and we have our duty towards them.

On a different note, but something on the same page we often accustom ourselves to certain kind of writing or we have this prior intuition that a writer is good only if he/she writes in a certain way which shuns any opportunity of a new style of writing to be accepted. The books we have in our shelves shouldn't be put in because of something someone said.

Reading is an occupation in itself.We’re passionate about and we love. And we read not because she said so.

What She Said

The hullabaloo over the first post on my umpteenth blog is not felt for some absurd nonsensical reason. And by umpteenth i refer to the two other blogs i started but eventually forgot the password, obviously STM is something that runs through my veins, literally.

I've never had a ‘thing’ for blogs except for the ones I read now and then but I guess this venture that I hope will remain persistent ( at least this once). I really don’t want to get into the MY FIRST POST ON MY BLOG lecture, so I’m just going to get to it, whatever it is.

‘She’ does not really refer to anyone in particular in the blog but ‘she’ is a real person and I’m not going claim her to be a perfect or anything but this blog has been initiated because of something this particular ‘She’ said.

Something i learned today is that there is no such thing as a special moment or perfect sunset or whatever for the tree to be planted, technically

But then yes, this blog was started because she said so.