As I lost my sleep...

 

The mosquito buzzed through the room as I lost my sleep to its unwanted company. I had drawn the sheets over my body and covered my face with what was left. I threw my hands across my ears and over my head but she kept returning like an over-domesticated cat. I couldn’t stand her company anymore so I got off the bed and switched on the light. I sat looking around for her. She had absconded, the creepy little blood sucker.

The fajr adhaan resonated through the neighbourhood - my day, technically, had already started. I had to wake my father up for the prayer as usual- the old man couldn’t trust the white man’s toy to wake him up. “When I was growing up, the fear of our mother’s water wetting our faces forced us up for fajr” he’d say whenever I insisted he get himself an alarm or at least allow me get him one.  

It was dark, and the moon had cast its light on the compound after the electricity company took its break. I walked towards his door and knocked gently, not wanting to wake the scornful neighbours up. I yawned as I rubbed my sore eyes from the terrible sleep I was forced out of. I walked off to perform ablution before my father got out to join me.

I returned to his door, surprised that he still hadn’t woken up. His room was dead quiet. I knocked slightly harder and I couldn’t hear the usual grunts he makes when he wakes up. I mentioned his name through the window sill. Still dead silence... What could have happened to him?

Thoughts of how my father found my mother dead flooded my mind. I knocked harder at the door and called his name out loud. The neighbours began waking up. I couldn’t be bothered. The door had to be broken down. Even if he wasn’t dead yet, I felt I could at least save him. I forced open the trap door. The neighbours were awake now but too scared to come out because of the darkness and rate of crime in the neighbourhood. I wasn’t going to let my old man die without me.

As I raised my foot to break his door open, someone spoke to me, “Dela, nukeyjor?” I turned around to see my father looking at me, bewildered by the intended action. I sighed. Mixed feelings of anger and happiness made a cocktail out of my reaction. He could have at least told me he was going to spend the night in the mosque.