Noorah.

In the silence, I await my destiny. I look around. Of course, it is not there. The clock. Sun is casting its spell at the fullest but there is the warmth rather than the heat. Around 3:30 PM, I thought. An hour more.

The month of August had always been busy for my family. My father and brothers got occupied with threshing and selling the bags of crops in the town’s whole sale market. I, my mother and younger sisters would help them separating hay and storing rice and spices to last for the year. Last August, there were no rains. The crops dried and the family’s food supply was cut by half. It was a difficult time. I, a widow aged 32 living at my father’s house, was an added mouth to feed. Then that day..

Jemal, the youngest of the siblings had wandered to the other side of the river in search of Jamuns. The Jamun trees were across the river that separated the two villages. Three days after this incident, a huge party of blood thirsty villagers came from the other side to the Chaupal. My father and brothers were called by Sherwan. 

After my husband died, I had stayed with my parents for the last 20 years until Jemal was accused of stealing Jamuns by the Pathans on that rainless August morning. Revenge meant blood. For a dozen Jamuns they were ready to kill him. But Jemal was to live and see the next August.

A useless widow of no value saved her brother’s life in a flesh trade between the respected families of both the villages. I sit here awaiting my rape which my family had forced me to accept and hence save the younger son’s life. 

The smell of alcohol, several red eyes and Pan stained teeth are now approaching their prey.