A Single Lifetime | Novella

YESTERDAY’S GAME HAD GONE ON SO long that they ended up having dinner there too.

The second Fajr walked into her house, she regretted staying out all day. Despite the productive morning she had, she felt disoriented. Her weekend routine had been spoiled. She was supposed to come home before maghrib and do homework, maybe watch a movie, then sleep.

Being punctual means being routinely. And if Fajr didn’t follow a schedule, her brain didn’t cooperate with her. She would be flustered and jittery for the rest of the night.

I came home late yesterday as well, she thought as something in her stomach twisted.

You’re twenty-two years old, and it’s not like your mother’s waiting for you at home, Sura would say but it only made Fajr tense.

It’s not about that, it’s just that...I live alone and...people can take advantage of that, she would answer.

This is Asali, nothing bad has happened here for centuries, she would reply, nudging her in the chest. It’s a fact, we learned it in history, remember?

Fajr would nod her head because she did remember but she needed an answer that didn’t make Sura feel like Fajr didn’t want to be spending time with her.

If you’re in desperate need to use your power, that means you have wasted time, her mother would say.

That means I waste time quite often, Fajr thought, staring at a place on the floor. Even though I try not to.

“Really couldn’t resist, could I?” she said as her voice echoed. Fajr locked the door behind her and slid out of her shoes. Just like that, she was in infinity. “That should buy me some time.”

To help settle her nerves, she focused on the locked door and the closed windows, draped with dusty pink curtains. The silence of the house with her cats asleep and the sound of her steady breathing.

A downside was that she was able to hear her feet move on the wooden floor, and she could hear the air conditioner...and she could hear the synchronized ticking of clocks.

Despite the clocks being slowed down, Fajr thought she could hear all of them pounding in her ears all at once…

“Shhhh!” she said to herself, pressing her eyes shut. “It’s okay. It’s all in your head. You’ll be fine, you have plenty of time.”

“Sit down, I’ll make more coffee,” Fajr said and Sura twirled on the kitchen stool.

“I want to live in this kind of house, when I’m older,” Sira said, giggling as she got dizzy.

Fajr snorted, slightly raising a brow. “We’re the same age.”“No. you’re three days younger than me,” Sura pointed out as she stopped spinning. “Which means I’m seventy-two hours older.”

“Fascinating,” Fajr said, not noticing Sura’s triumphant smile. “Did I miss something?”

“Oh, so when I’m thorough about time it’s not cool?” Sura crossed her arms and pouted, eyes glistening with forced tears.

“One, you weren’t being specific because we have different times.”

“Meaning?”

“You were born at a different time of day, or night, than me. So, you’re not exactly seventy-two hours older. Give or take a few hours. I can do the math, if you remember what time you were born…”“Maybe at night,” Sura said with a thoughtful look. “Would that be why I’m a night owl?”

“Possibly.”

“Like how you were born right after your mom prayed in the morning, that’s why you’re named Fajr?”

“I’m certain that not all babies born at night aren’t night owls. For you, it could just be a coincidence,” she explained, leaning against the kitchen counter. “And, naming me Fajr was meaningful and perhaps even convenient for Amma. Now, wipe those faux tears, you’re supposed to be the older one, you big baby.”

“Do the math, we’ll find out exactly how many hours. I was probably born at midnight or something…”

“Probably? No, no. I want to know exactly what time it was. The calculations have to be correct.”

Sura rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Scientist’s offspring.”

“Hey, I’m not as smart as Amma,” Fajr denied, tapping her fingers on the marble.

“Please, you’re studying mathematics, literature and biology.

“You forgot Physics and Chemistry,” Fajr couldn’t resist saying. She chose sciences because she wanted to figure out what gave the Husnai women this ability. Research more like her mother. Literature was something she enjoyed as she was addicted to books and storytelling.

“And your other interests...how do you get time for all of it?”

“If you truly love something, you make time for it,” she said, quoting her mother.

“I know you want to calculate our age difference...I can see the wheels spinning in your head. I know it from the thoughtful look in your eye…”Fajr groaned and walked away to fill up the cats’ food bowls.

“Err, Fajr…” Sura said, toying with the end of her cream colored hijab. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but when was the last time you cleaned?”“What do you mean?” Fajr said, taking a look around the main entrance as her heart started pounding as fast as the second hand on the clock. “Oh no…”Shoes were collected underneath the coat hanger which could tip over at any minute.

“If all your coats are here, what’s in your closet?”

Fajr basically ran out to the back of the house, to the cats’ room.

“What a mess,” Fajr said with a groan. “And it’ll take even longer to clean up.”“Er...you sound like your Amma,” Sura said, leaning against the door frame with Aurora sleeping in her arms. “Hey, if two cats are too much for you, I can take one. This one.”

“Like your parents would allow that. Aren’t you and your sisters enough?”

“All this one does is sleep, they’d hardly notice,” she replied nonetheless.

The cats had forgotten which one was the litter box and which one was the water bowl and Fajr felt her breakfast come up to her throat at the sight of the room. The odor pierced her nostrils and she wrinkled her nose.

“Sura, go sit down.”

“But, I thought we were going to go to one of your antique shops–”“We will, we will,” she promised, shutting her eyes before glancing at the cat-shaped clock on the wall.

9:59

I just need half an hour, she said internally and froze time once the minute hand landed on 10.

Fajr turned on her heel to find Sura trying to walk back, away from the hazardous room.

She started with the entrance and ended up picking mundane things from places where they were amiss. Like, the spoon wedged between the cushions or the ball of yarn half wet in the kitchen sink.

“How did this even get in here?” she said and realized that Sura had moved a couple steps from where she had been moments ago.

“Crap,” Fajr said under her breath, remembering the cats’ mess. Standing in the living room, her eyes fell on one of the many hourglasses she owned. The one sitting on the coffee table was silver with grey sand.

It measure’s one hour.

She had memorized how much each one measured.

Wait. Something tightened in her stomach. How long has it been?

Fajr hadn’t been keeping track. The clock above the main door said 10:04.

That meant two minutes to her. I’ve been in infinity for two minutes. That’s not so bad…

Next came the cat’s room, which took up so much time that Fajr lost count of the seconds and minutes.

“What is that sound?” she said as she heard some noise coming from the living room. “Oh no…” she said, realizing in an instant what it was. That was what happened when people tried to talk to Fajr when she was in infinity.

It’s like that scene in a movie when you slow down the video too much until the characters start speaking at a slower pace and it’s like listening to sloths trying to talk. That’s how her mother had described it to her when she was teaching Fajr about this superability they possessed.

“Sometimes, I pity the people who know me,” she said to Lorelai, who was slowly licking her fresh water bowl. “They have no idea that I...put them on hold and get distracted by all this other stuff…”But I just want to get it out of the way...

She exhaled, getting to her feet. She still had to pick up the scattered cat food and wash some dishes...maybe clean the kitchen…

And take a quick body shower.

“I smell worse than the litter box,” she said to herself. Something tightened in her chest as she thought of how much time she had wasted talking to slow motion Lorelai and herself.

Where’s the damn pocket watch…

At last, she found it under her bed. She had a scare that it was broken but the glass wasn’t just ordinary glass. There were two of these pocket watches. Fajr had a silver one and her mother’s was gold.

10:08

I keep wasting time…

Fajr’s knees buckled and she collapsed beside her bed. If I faint right now and someone finds me...there will be nothing they can do...not in time, anyway.

A loud groan escaped her as she looked at her unmade bed and at her overflowing closet.

“Just. Stop.” Speaking the words through her teeth with both hands over her ears to cancel out the nonexistent sound of ticking, she unintentionally made time go even slower…and she knew because she had felt it.

Something deep inside her tugged at something on the outside. But she didn’t just pull at it. She let herself reach outwards and grab hold of time.

Fajr glanced at the pink watch at her wrist–a regular watch that read 10:08 now, but the second hand moved even slower.

She pulled it off and laid it on her bed, juxtaposing her mother’s special pocket watch.

Her regular watch read 10 hours, 8 minutes and 56 seconds. The pocket watch–which showed how much was really passing read 10 hours, 14 minutes and...14 seconds.

“That should be 28 seconds,” she said and realized what she had done...

Don’t forget the seconds, Fajr recalled reading that in one of her mother’s journals. The one she kept while experimenting with her power.

Fajr had been eleven years old at the time...she was just starting to use her power, she didn’t understand any of the stuff her mother scribbled on and on.

And, I still don’t understand why she circled places on maps with question marks…

“I need to tell her what I did,” Fajr decided as she peeled off her clothes and stepped into the shower.

Fajr didn’t break out of it until she had dried up, fed the cats and written an email to her mother.

The only problem was dealing with Sura’s suspicion. Her eyes widened as she scanned the house.

“How did–”

“Should we go now?” Fajr cut her off.

The entire time they were at the shop Fajr’s mom owned–Zareen’s Antiques. Her mother had people find trinkets from the olden days. One of a kind, each and everything, of course. If she couldn’t help her mother with her research then she would help out with the shop. When she was younger, she studied every piece and daydreamed about it’s previous owner.

She didn’t buy anything, but Sura got a large painting of a mosque for her parents’ living room.

“Why don’t you get those?” she asked, pointing at a keyholder in the shape of an evil eye.

“Not really my kind of thing,” Fajr said with a shrug. She didn’t believe in any of that stuff. The evil eye. Not many people in Asali did, they mostly relied on religion.

“Now, tell me how you cleaned the house so fast,” she said, putting her arm on Fajr’s shoulders as they got into the car with the painting in the back. “You drive.”

“It’s your car,” she pointed out.

“Technically, it’s my mother’s car. And, I don’t like getting in the car, much less driving it. It’s a small town, one could walk anywhere...besides the damned university, of course.”Fajr softened her expression as she started the car. “You–”

Her friend slouched but tried to smile. “It’s okay, Fajr. I don’t like getting into enclosed spaces. I like the outdoors, or a room with an atypically high ceiling. I skipped the bonfire last year because of...well, fire. I can barely cook because cooking is done above a stove. A freaking stove...with freaking fire…”

Fajr pulled up on the side of the road. “And–” Sura stopped herself when she noticed the car had come to a halt. “Why are we stopping?”

“Because you need to rant and come down,” she said. “And, that’s okay because ranting makes you feel better…”

“You know, the cream I apply to my burn scars?” Fajr nodded, loosening her friend’s seatbelt. “I dropped it last night and it rolled underneath the bed…”“Oh, Sura…” Fajr said, hanging her head. “You didn’t…”“What? Get under the bed to grab it? No way. I called for Mama to get it…”

“It’s okay, Sura.”“I know it is, actually,” she said with an unamused chuckle. “I’ve learned to accept that even the emotional scars, the ones you can’t see, will sometimes stay there forever and...I can live with that.”

Fajr started the car and they drove back in silence. Sura got quiet and feeble around this time of year. The anniversary of the notorious fire, that’s what she called it. She even wrote a short fantasy story where the antagonist was literal fire.

“What kind of a kid hides underneath the bed, when half her bedroom is burning down?” she said, tears pooling between her thick lashes.

“You were seven. Cut yourself some slack.”

“I was an idiot. I should have rushed out...not hid under the bed.” Fajr caught a glimpse of the scars on Sura’s hand–she had started reciting chapters of the Quran under her breath. “When did you do that?”

Sura ran her fingers over the mehndi design on her scars. She did that all over her body–or, at least she tried too. Drawing patterns on herself helped her focus and calm her nerves. When it came to applying mehndi, Sura was ambidextrous. The cone of henna was a pen in either of her hands and she drew on herself to distract from the scars.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of them, she had said and Fajr knew she meant it. She always knew what she meant. Sometimes, they bring back unwelcome memories.

Therapy hadn’t worked. I’ve accepted it. But I’ve been trying to erase that part of my life, the struggles after that too. I just have to cry about it and feel better. Crying is cathardic.

“Tell me something,” Sura said, sitting up as she dabbed her eyes. When she was done, her makeup was slightly smudged and her glasses had drops of tears on them. “Your secrets, preferably.”

“What secret?”

“You need a name.”

“Um...I’m Fajr Husani Akbar. Who you have known for the past decade. Nice to meet you.” Her friend wrinkled her nose at Akbar–Fajr’s father’s last name. She took names from both parents, but chose to go by just Fajr Husani.“No, I mean like mutant names…”

“Why in the world would I need a mutant name?”

“Because, you’re like Quicksilver. You rushed across the house and the place was clean within seconds...how do you do it?”

“Time management,” Fajr answered and burst into laughter, which made Sura raise a suspicious eyebrow at her. Or, perhaps she was finally starting to get annoyed.

This is why we don’t use a stopwatch in front of other people, her mother would scold her if she was here. Use a stopwatch. One of her codes for using your power.

“Just imagine, if you were in X-Men, what would your mutant name be?” Fajr found herself thinking about it for a moment, tapping her fingers on the wheel. She chuckled and spat, “Chronos.”

“That one doesn’t even make sense,” Sura said, spraying on some expensive perfume. “And, it sounds too much like Thanos. And we all know what he did…”

“Yes, he killed Iron Man, the love of your life…”

“And Vision.” Sura sniffed dramatically. “We might be the only two people who watch those movies…”

“Not exactly true. They might be over two hundred years old, but who doesn’t still love Marvel?”

“Idiots,” Sura answered. Sura could go on for hours debating on how she felt about Marvel characters. She claimed that Thanos made a lot of sense but he killed all the fictional loves of her life.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Fajr blurted, glancing at Sura who was primping in the mirror.

“Anything you need to do to avoid spilling your secrets,” she answered, smearing some lipgloss on.

“When I was...rushing around, what did I...look like...to you?” Sura made a face and her eyes blinked slowly, as if she was waiting to realize that it was a genuine question. “Gee, you looked like you were running for your life. As if, you were…”

“Running out of time,” Fajr finished.

“I was standing in the door frame, then you rushed out and I felt like I was...in a dream.” Fajr’s eyebrows shot upwards and her stomach started churning. Why did that happen when she was nervous? She hated the feeling. It felt like she was about to throw up.

“You know, when you’re in a dream and you try to walk but no matter how hard you try you just walk slowly?”

“Oh…”“It felt like that. And, as if you were in your own zone.”

“I guess, I was. Sorry, it bothered you.”

“It bothers me when you don’t tell me how you did it,” she shot back. “What do you put in your coffee each morning?”

“Sugar and creamer.”

“You successfully did that?” Amma said on the other line. Fajr had just prayed, it was early morning and her mother had called after getting her email.

“Did you know we could do that?”

“Of course, I did,” Amma answered as if it was no big deal. “What do you think I do in my free time? I experiment with it. If we focus enough, we can slow down time as much or as little as we want.”

“And, when were you going to tell me this?”

“You know very well that I want you to discover and learn on your own,” her mother said in a solid voice. She always had a solid voice, at least that’s how Fajr liked to describe it. “And, if I told you, you’d always be in infinity.”

“Hey, I experiment with it too...and I help you,” she said, desperately wanting to change the subject. She would use it more now, as much as she hated to admit it. “I came up with the term infinity and all those codes that we use.”

“We shouldn’t have to use them because we shouldn’t be using it with other people around, or talking about it in public.”

“I know, I know. But I was desperate.”

“And undenying urge to clean the house?” her mother said, repeating what Fajr had told her moments ago. “I think it was an undenying urge to use your power.”

“It was,” she admitted and pictured her mother shaking her head in disappointment. “But I found out something new about it.”

“I suppose you have a point.”

“I always do…”They talked for a while longer, catching up. Fajr had classes in a few hours, but she could spare a few minutes for her mother.

“I’m thinking of coming home for a few days, but I don’t know when I can get some time off.”

“You can get as much time as you want, you do know that right?”

Her mother sucked in air. “Why did I ever tell you about your power?”

“Because it would have been futile hiding it from me, because I would have found out eventually.”

“That’s not true,” Amma denied.

“Really?”

“Yes. Tell me, if you were in a situation where you needed to defend yourself, and you had a gun in your bag, but you didn’t know it: how would you use it? You can’t use something that you didn’t know was right with you.”

“Good point, Amma,” Fajr said into her phone, nodding.

“Hey, promise me you won’t use your power that much…”Fajr’s heart sank and she stepped off the prayer mat and undid her scarf. “I’ll certainly try.”

“Allah hafiz,” she said. Under God’s protection, it meant in the old tongue.

“Allah hafiz,” Fajr replied and the call ended instantly. She looked around her. At the frozen time around her…

“Time to start the day,” she said to herself and pulled herself out of infinity.