by Ayse Hafiza
Fear of abandonment ran through her body, hot tears trickled over her face falling downwards and landing on the concrete slab that she was stuck to. When she woke from her nightmare, the same tears had run horizontally not vertically. She turned her head side to side to dry her eyes against the pillow.
She felt scared and alone, even though Laila her older sister slept in the same bed, she was still a foot away, and that was not enough to comfort her. Saima didn’t feel safe. Sitting up she rubbed her eyes.
The old lady standing at the foot of her bed became a wisp of black that slowly disappeared, but Saima pretended she hadn’t seen her. The old lady was always in their bedroom, always watching her.
She continued to rub her eyes. Saima needed comfort so she slowly got out of her bed, and opened their bedroom door, the doorknob was high up for her little hands to reach, but she managed with quite a bit of effort. Bleary-eyed she looked out on the hallway, it was lit by moonlight flooding in from the window at the top of the stairs. It was always cold in the hall. Saima glanced at the ceiling, she knew where the coolness in the house came from. . .the attic. When she felt the coast was clear Saima darted into her parent’s bedroom, at the end of their bed she stuck her foot between the mattress and the divan and used it to climb onto their bed. Settling herself under the bedsheets and between them, she started to feel safe. Between the body heat of both her parents, she finally felt the relief of safety, relief she craved. Her little heart pounded less and while listening to the rhythmic breathing of her parents, Saima fell into a deep sleep. Once she had made sure that her parents loved her and didn’t leave her stuck to a paving stone in the road. Saima was finally able to relax and fall back to sleep.
When she woke up she was alone in her parent’s bedroom, only this time it was okay because she reached out with her mind and knew she wasn’t being watched. The sun was up, and it was morning. Saima closed her eyes, using the warmth of the sheets to stay cozy, then she heard the toilet flush. She knew her mom would come back into the room and send her to wash her face. Saima needed to listen, it was a school day and she would have to get ready soon. Her mom ran the house like a ship making sure everyone, and everything was ready for the day ahead. She didn’t want to move; her feet were warm. So when her mom came back in Saima slowed her breathing and closed her eyes. She knew if she pretended she was still sleeping she would be able to get another few delicious minutes inside the warm bed.
“Come on darling it’s 7.00 am. If you don’t move now you’ll be late for school,” said her mom coaxing her out of bed tugging at the sheets.
Saima wasn’t fooling anyone.
She turned her head and moved her position.
“Saima, get up,” said her mom in a firmer tone.
“Idris! Idris. . .” called her mom.
Saima groaned, “Come and get your sister out of bed. I need to make breakfast for everyone.”
Saima shifted slightly, Idris her older brother, would come and be a pain. He was only a year older than her, but he always loved to pretend that gave him special rights. Idris, who was a morning person, came running into the bedroom and jumped on the bed. Saima preferred her mom’s gentler methods.
Idris bounced and Saima groaned.
“Okay, Okay, I’m up. . .is the bathroom free?” asked Saima.
Idris pumped his fists in the air knowing he had done what mom had asked and left the room to check.
“Dad’s in there.”
Saima groaned, no one liked using the bathroom after Dad. Although that meant that Dad’s next stop was the bedroom and Saima needed to get out, she already knew that meant he wanted his privacy and Dad, when he was rushing to get to the office, wasn’t much fun.
She kicked the covers off her legs, and Idris grabbed one.
“Get off, get off. . .” she screamed, almost crying.
“Get up, Mom told me to wake you up.”
Idris pulled her onto the floor, and she fell with a thud.
“You two stop fighting,” said their eldest sister Laila as she came in to check on them both. “You know Mom gets annoyed if we make her late for work, you two need to stop it!”
Idris immediately calmed down, and Saima opened her eyes, she hated it when Idris manhandled her. Laying on the floor she could feel the warm pile of the carpet against her arms and legs, but she couldn’t pull the sheets over herself and curl up no matter how much she wanted to.
Laila left the room, and Idris waited until he saw Saima standing on her own feet. Soon enough she did and their father came into the room, he needed to get dressed and leave.
“Breakfast is ready kids,” their mom called from downstairs.
Saima dragged her feet.
“Why were you sleeping in there?” inquired Idris.
Saima hadn’t quite forgiven him yet for the rude awakening, so she shrugged her shoulders.
“Was it the dream?” he asked, not letting it go.
She nodded.
Saima had confided in Idris about her nightmare before. He did what any big brother should do and put his arm around his little sister.
“Don’t worry, I’ll always protect you.”
In the warm light of day, Saima felt safe. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. The toothpaste tube was squeezed in the middle and she slowly managed to put a blob on the end of her brush. Her feet felt cold because she had left her slippers in her bedroom, so she didn’t notice when the temperature dropped.
Saima was already missing the warmth of the bedsheets. She reached down to open the hot tap, and her small fingers were still a few inches from it when the tap opened itself and water gushed from it. If her eyes had been closed before, they were wide open now. The tap had come on by itself. Saima stepped away not believing her eyes, not sure if she could fathom how it happened. Then she felt a cold breath feather over her head and she could feel the presence of the old lady. She was in the bathroom with her. Saima ran forward and twisted the tap shut, then closed her eyes and said a little prayer. When she opened them, the woman was gone, and the tap was normal. Her little heart beat so fast she spat the toothpaste out and ran into the hallway, pausing briefly to glance up at the attic door, then she ran downstairs to join her family. She quietly ate breakfast, then waited to follow her older brother upstairs so they could get changed into their school uniforms.
Once she was out of the house Saima felt herself start to relax. Nothing ever happened at school she would be fine there. While she was in the math class she allowed her mind to wander. How was the tap able to come on by itself? It must have been left on by dad, it was just because she was half asleep that she hadn’t noticed before.
Saima then wondered about being in the same room as the old woman. She clenched her eyes shut, the old woman wasn’t real, she didn’t exist. It was all just because of the nightmare, that was why she did not see correctly. She convinced herself she was still partly asleep and that she had been dreaming.
The rest of the day Saima worked hard, during recess she played hopscotch and jumping rope with her friends. Saima wanted to be as good as her older sister Laila at it, and when she was Laila would let her play with her.
They ran home from school, her and Idris in front of their mom running ahead, and then stopping to give their mom a chance to catch up. They went first to the sweet shop where mom gave them some change to buy sweets and then they ate them as they walked home together. Saima made sure she didn’t step on the paving stone that was in her dream, although she couldn’t take her eyes off it as they walked past.
Idris knew what she was looking at, she didn’t need to explain.
“It’s that one isn’t it?” asked Idris.
She nodded her head.
“Idris no!” she yelled as Idris jumped up and down on the spot to punish the paving stone.
Anyone watching them both would think he was just a little boy jumping up and down on the spot, not a little boy trying to punish a paving slab that was tormenting his sister. She
laughed as she watched him jump, and that was what he had intended, to make his little sister smile. Only he understood her tension.
“Come on kids,” called their mom as she walked past. They ran together until they stopped at the gate of their house. Saima was glad that she had him, Idris was a good older brother, he understood.
They slipped past their mom as they entered the house and rushed to the dining table to get started on their homework. Their mom’s rule was that in order for them to be allowed to turn on the television they had to finish their homework.
As they did math homework, Saima wondered if she should confide in Idris about the older woman who shared the house with them and the old man that lived in the garage. She thought one day maybe when she felt braver she might just tell him. Then maybe Idris would punch the air to punish the old woman who always kept an eye on her. Her older brother could be relied on to help. In him, Saima felt she finally had an ally.
13
In The Garage
Friday evenings television shows were interrupted by the flickering of electricity. When the lights flicked on and off, Saima moved from sitting on the carpet with Idris up to her mom’s lap, clasping her arms around mom neck.
Her mom knew she was scared, but she needed to find the torch.
“I’ll fix it tomorrow when I can get the tools and check it in the daylight,” promised Rashid.
So they gave up and everyone went to bed, but Saima could feel it, and she wondered if her family could feel it too. A growing sense of the darker corners encroaching on their space, starting to take over. She was only six, but she knew the taps coming on and the electricity flickering was linked. She clung to her older sister as she slept that night, not willing to be separated from a member of her family. Saima hoped and prayed that the old woman wouldn’t appear, she hadn’t seen her for a few days and she was starting to hope that she had just been a figment of her imagination. Besides, Saima knew that her father’s older brother, Uncle Waleed, was coming from Pakistan on his way to America, when he came they needed the house to be free of odd happenings. How would they explain taps coming on or the electricity flickering? She was a little girl, but she had worries too.
Saima had a restless sleep, but at least she slept some. When she woke she played with her brother after they’d watched cartoons in the morning.
Their dad checked the fuse box again after breakfast, he was always trying to do work himself even though his mom wanted him to call an electrician, but Dad didn’t have the money for one. Frustrated that he couldn’t find the right screwdriver, Dad stepped into the garage and rooted around behind the children old bikes and toys to find the tools that had been left there. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to find what he needed. He picked out tools in his hand, and then put them back in the box. The man who left them behind left an assortment of different tools, and Rashid wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with half of them.
The temperature dropped, but because the garage only had one window, it was perpetually in darkness so being cool was to be expected. It was just a prefabricated garage with a corrugated metal roof, not a particularly fancy garage. He pulled out a metal rule and held it in his hands as he wondered if there were any more screwdrivers lower down in the endless metal toolbox. He was particularly focused on finding a slim flathead.
He was so focused he didn’t notice the garage door slowly close itself nor did he notice how his breath turned icy as he continued rummaging among the tools. Had he let someone, maybe a neighbor, borrow his screwdriver set? He was sure he hadn't and that it should be in the box where he had seen it last.
Rashid hadn't been aware of the presence of George until he heard the sounds which made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. A subtle undertone of raspy breathing that he only caught when he wasn't concentrating on finding the screwdriver. When Rashid noticed his body froze, and he stopped looking to listen for it, and that’s when he felt a cold sweat start to bead on his forehead. The sound of breathing was as unmistakable as Rashid's own pounding heartbeat, which sounded clearly like a backing sound to the breaths that were close to his ear. It was at that moment that Rashid became aware that he was not alone in the garage.
The time was 10.35 am, and it was the time at which George Blades had taken his last breath in the same garage years before.
The sound of air being exhaled was ragged and in unregulated patterns. It scared Rashid. Tuning his ear to the sound, Rashid found his inner courage and lifted the metal ruler in his hand, to see if its metal surface would reflect whatever was in the garage with him. His frosted breath hung in the air, as he gazed into the metal rule. At first, he saw nothing, but as he willed his eye to relax it reflected a shadow that moved quickly from left to right. Rashid's eye caught it, undeniably he knew he was not alone. He fought the instinct to scream, because the children were playing outside.
The air was heavy with tension. Rashid said a silent prayer until the sound moved away and the air temperature warmed once more, the sound of the strange breathing faded away and the garage door squeaked back open half an inch. Rashid didn't know what had happened, but he knew he didn't like it. He left the garage quickly locking the door behind himself. Trying to calm himself he stood outside for a moment and watched the children playing on the grass.
“Kids you aren’t allowed to go into the garage alone,” desperately trying to mask the fear in his voice.
They looked at him and nodded, although he could see the eternal question they asked on their minds the unspoken why.
He spoke to them again, “Daddy keeps his sharp tools in there, and I don’t want to take you to the hospital for a silly accident.”
He was glad that he could think clearly. When he stepped into the kitchen, Kawser was clearing away dishes from lunch.
“I’ve just told the kids I don’t want them going into the garage by themselves.”
Kawser looked at him, she knew her husband.
“There’s a lot of old rusty tools in there, I don’t want the kids playing in there from now on. Just to be on the safe side.”
“The kids don’t go into the garage,” said Kawser, wondering how much she could ask.
He walked past her back toward the fuse box in the house. He wanted to compose himself and have the space to go through what happened again in his mind.
“They think it’s creepy,” she added.
Rashid froze, but because he had his back to her she couldn’t see the blood drain from his face.
The pace her dad had walked away from the garage told Saima that he knew about the old man, that he had seen him. The old man wasn’t as scary as the old woman with black sockets for eyes. If Dad knew of the entity there, then maybe Saima wasn’t the only one who could see things. She wasn’t happy that Dad had the same experiences, but after witnessing his reaction, it told her that she was not strange or odd that maybe she belonged in this family. If Dad could see the types of things that she could see then maybe she wasn’t the only one with the ability.
Saima glanced over at Idris, could he see her? Could he see the old lady, but he chose not to say anything? It made Saima wonder. Idris had walked through her before, Saima had seen her face fade away, and her body displace into the black wisp when it happened. She couldn’t see her easily, only when she was between sleep and being awake. That was when her third sight was the most open when she was the most susceptible to her. So far the old lady had left her alone, so Saima did the same. She moved around the same space without trying to disturb her, until she disappeared herself like an image on the CRT television when you turned it off. The image stayed on the glass and slowly faded to black until it was indistinguishable, so Saima thought the same of the old woman, that at some point she would fade to black.
The next day, Uncle Waleed arrived from Pakistan. He was a different uncle to the ones who lived locally, the ones the kids had been used to. He wore a strange hairy hat that the children were told was called a Jinnah hat. I
t had been made famous by the founder of Pakistan, and it was worn with a slight slant to it, Laila whispered that it was the fashion. Saima thought it looked like a dead animal on his head but kept her opinions to herself. He wore a white shalwar, which was baggy trousers with a string for a belt and a kameez which was a long shirt that covered him from the neck down to his knees. Uncle Waleed was their dad’s older brother, and Dad was excited to show him the house because Uncle Waleed had never visited London before. He was a person that Dad spoke to regularly on the phone.
Saima was intrigued by Uncle Waleed, she wondered when her dad got older if he would look like him too. With bristles for a beard and thick black framed glasses that seemed to slide down his nose. The kids were intrigued by Uncle Waleed, and that was because he brought them gifts. Little traditional Indian suits for the children, all of them were sent upstairs to try them on. The scratchy material ignored for the five minutes in which they let Uncle Waleed tell them they had a new suit to wear for the next Eid celebration, Eid being a festival when the community came together and the kids got extra pocket money. She watched him, Uncle Waleed, he appeared distracted by the dark corners of the house too. Saima no longer wanted to acknowledge them, but she was worrying that the next thing they would do would be to force her to recognize their existence. Even for being a little girl she knew it wasn’t natural, the things that she saw. None of it was natural.
When her parents were alone with Uncle Waleed drinking their final cup of tea before bed, the children had been sent upstairs. But, Saima sat on the top step in her nighty listening. She needed to hear the adult conversation and what Uncle Waleed wanted to share.
“Rashid, you have a lovely home here,” started Waleed. Even Saima could tell another word was going to follow.