Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

The year is 1977.

The pen has been lifted. The ink has been dried.

A new chapter has been engraved in the book when the plane lands from Islamabad, Pakistan to Montreal, Canada.

You are no longer comforted by the bosoms of the hot thick air, and the dirt streets.

The cold, crisp wintery air confronts you, then caresses your cheeks, and blows through your thick, black tresses, announcing it is not a foe.

Your eyes are wide open as you try to process the new life that you will be making of. New country. New school. New friends. New language.

Unfortunately, distress shall be your guardian for the time being.

Dusty heavy clouds of agony, and anguish surround you whilst you remain unaware.

The illusion of the whims, and fantasies a new life has to offer is shattered in to pieces.

The shards of glass pierce through the curtain as reality appears, unmasking itself, and corners the weakling in to a wall.

You sit alone in the cafeteria, eating lunch, surrounded by hazing abuses hurled at you.

Day by day, a new battle is inscribed as weapons of mustering courage are handed down to you, while the enemies handpick their own.

Food.

Cuss words.

Sometimes hands.

Each word veiled beneath a sharp-edged sword thrown at you as the hungry vultures prey on you in the hallways.

Push.

Shove.

Another wound.

Each day, foreign bodies pass by, gawking, glaring at your dusky alien skin, refusing to grace a broken soul with a smile or a kind word.

"Rugged land", they sneer.

It is a daily reminder that you are a stranger in an unfamiliar territory.

This land solely belongs to this flock.

You do not belong here.

However, the empty school ceilings, the white walls, recognize the state of seclusion.

A mirror of desolation.

They are not blind.

The crowded hallways, carrying echoes of laughter in its womb, hear the loud gaps your silent lips scream of.

They are not deaf.

They wince, and weep as they see your solitude grasping you, clinging to you, befriending you on lonely evenings as you struggle to complete your homework in a language that had not extended its welcome yet.

Misery continues to cling to you as your eyesight forsakes you.

Nani's obstinance of refusing to get you glasses leaves you at her mercy.

Until one day, the teachers call, complaining of you squinting, and grappling to see what the black chalkboard taunts you of.

But it is too late. Blindness has deprived you of academic achievements.

Oh how I yearn to be there!

Comforting you.

Befriending you.

Teaching you!

My time has not come yet, but it has been decided that I shall be there very soon!

Sincerely,

Daniya ( Your future daughter)