Every morning, just before the break of dawn, before the blood curdling howls for Fajr, before the incessant buzzing of flies, before the ruwa vendors spread out like unclenched fists through the streets of the caliphate city, before the rustic smell of the heat fill my nostrils, and before everything else begins, I hear it. I hear him.
I don’t know if he's aware, but it’s the same sound I hear when I stir out of a fitful sleep. Always the same. It’s barely audible. It is the sound of Isa, my room mate, humming a tune—no, a prayer.
It begins: a slow drag of his caged voice rippling through different riffs, a slight pause to gasp for air, and it continues again in a monotone.
Isa is a Mullah, his face the striking semblance of a man who has seen quite enough to identify the ills of the world, the lines around his eyes and the creasing on his forehead hollow, the result from his afternoon broodings.
Isa would hum this prayer for a couple of minutes before getting down from the top bunk, rummage in search of his plastic kettle. He would find it after sometime, and he would fill it up with ruwa from my jerry can—our jerry can—all the while making sure not to distort my 'sleeping' form. He would slowly make his way outside to carry out his ablution rites. Seconds later, I would hear Isa’s voice rifting through the speakers of the mosque nearby, his voice a stark difference from the monotonous drone earlier: he would scream at the top of his lungs, like a wolf howling for its pack, pelting words in Arabic, praising the all-powerful and all-knowing Allah.
Isa somewhat reminds me of the life I've left behind, but ever apparent like a lightbulb sticking to the mind after it has been put off. I was this priestly kid who loved doing the work of God. I remember days when Father would nudge me to lead the family—which just consists of himself and Mom—to the place of worship, then praise, then the word. Since Father left, I have always shied out of that responsibility. To step up and grapple the reins, to be the head my father had been grooming me to become.
I can't remember the last time I bent my knees and gave thanks in the morning or night since I came to this place of regulated comfort, of women adorning thickly fabricated hijabs brushing their feet, of men with black spots on their foreheads, and stillness in their eyes, of kids running amok, chasing after whirlwinds in the savannah.
But there's something about this morning; it will be different.
Before Fajr, Isa will wake up, hum his prayer, climb down the rickety brace of our bunk only to find my stiff frame at the foot of the bunk, on my bended kness, making hushed utterances. To Someone I've drifted away from.
Today, I will be a Mullah.
