"Entangled Sparrow" by Hina Ashique

Beads of sweat slithered down fifteen year old Sabah’s neck as the illuminating sun emanated heaps of heat, threatening to scorch her brown skin. Dragging a sack of wheat, her eyes landed on a young man with a white shirt, wrinkles and a blue backpack. With envious eyes, she desired the life of that man, so free, so content, yet there she was, hauling the sack of wheat she would never get to eat. 

Knocking on the familiar gate of her employer, she waited patiently, at first, then violently banged her fists on the gate. Noumi never took more than a minute to open the door, she thought as blood started ooze from her hands. Without warning, the gate flung open, startling her, pushing her back like a lamb in line for slaughter. 

In the door stood an old frail man, with a long beard and agitated eyes. His flesh hung on his bones as if it were made of silk, but stood with the support of an unjustified pride. As he narrowed his almond like eyes and scrunched his pointy nose, the lines on his face deepened as the skin folded and molded his face into an enraged expression 

“Enter,” he commanded, horrifying Sabah down to her bones. 

Nodding quickly, Sabah sprang up, sprinting inside wiping off the blood down her nose. She could feel Noumi following behind her, eagerly and quickly, her heartbeat rose. Noticing his unusual gait behind her, she stopped, turned and hit her nose on his heaving chest. 

‘Why were you late?’ His tone reeked of distrust. 

Feeling the heat rise, Sabah, stuttered, nervously, ‘The..sack, was, umm...he-eavy.’ 

‘You are lying to me.’ His body seemed to grow as he stepped closer, looming over her as if trying to prove his dominance, ‘aren’t you?’ 

‘No, sahib, I swear-’ she paused for a moment, feeling if it was okay to continue. ‘It was..hea-heavy-’ 

Her voice cut off, like a rope being cut as his thick hand met her left cheek, sending her left cheek down to kiss the floor. She raised her eyes to find Noumi returning from the kitchen with a blazing hot iron stick. Sabah’s body began to quiver, colossally. Her screech was heard throughout the room. Sabah, howled, groaned pleadingly, yet Noumi knew of no mercy. 

“Do not talk back to me ever again’ He sneered. ‘Women stay in their lane, that is how it is.’ 

Once Noumi felt he had proven himself a man, Sabah glanced towards the gate, it was open. But it did not matter, even if she were to escape, the world did not see tainted women, such as her as equal. She was yet another woman, another sacrificial goat in a sea. Her mind spun in circles, she did not when or how her limp body stood up, but it did and slowly walked away from the gate and in to the kitchen, where Noumi kept his knives. As she reached for the one he used every Eid on his animal, she thought of her brother, her father and every man who had used her as a brick in his own pursuit. The father who sold her off, used the slave money of his daughter to fund his only son’s education. Hollow, that is how her mother had looked, and a bit relieved as Sabah had been given away. Hollow, because her daughter would suffer the fate she had feared for herself, relieved because the burden of a daughter was lifted off of her. 

Sabah wondered, as she drew the knife to her neck, when it all started. When did women become the stairs for manly success? When had killing a woman’s dream become the only way for a man to succeed? No one could tell, only speculate, and she knew, that in that moment all the other moments that she had lived, Sabah would not speculate, she would leave. 

With one swift gesture, her neck was slit and her lanky body fell to the floor. No one was to care that she died, or that Noumi threw her body to the dogs. For in this world, such stories go untold. Only the heroic women are seen as something valuable, Sabah was yet another sacrifice, depressing and too hard to comprehend. Maybe that is why, their rights are compromised and their dreams are crushed. 

Maybe it is not just the men, but those who just watch too.