z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

a wandering mother

by fatimagilani


Every time when we speak of a mother, we picture a lady working in the kitchen, looking after her family and working endlessly till late night to keep her family happy. But Aisha Begum is different from all the mothers of the world.

Aisha Begum, a skinny woman with tan face, dry lips, creased hands and swollen legs lives in the mountains. Every day she walks miles and miles in search of something very close to her heart and returns home late night with the hope that tomorrow she will find the drifting part of her heart.

Like every girl, Aisha also lived in the world of fantasies. She dreamt about a nice home, a loving husband and a happy family. When she was 18 years of age, she got married to the most charming boy of the village. Aisha and her husband Karim loved each other very much and with the passing time, they fell in a deep love with each other. Karim worked in a wood factory and Aisha was a homemaker. They lived happily like the two love birds in a small nest. As the years passed on, Aisha gave birth to the two beautiful twins, a girl and a boy.

The family was living a good life till the day when a huge storm of army blew up Aisha’s nest. Karim was killed by an army officer because Karim’s cousin brother was a terrorist and the army officers suspected that Karim was also the part of terrorist organization. Aisha couldn’t believe that Karim was dead and he was wrong. Tears were falling down from her eyes and her heart was in a pain, her body was paralyzed with the shock and her soul was already gone with Karim. The children were calling their father but he was gone very far from them. Aisha had never thought that Karim would never come back from the work. She wanted to scream that MY HUSBAND WAS NOT A TERRORIST. She wanted to ask the army officials why did you kill my husband? But she couldn’t speak a word as if her voice was also killed with Karim.

The village where once Aisha lived with honor and dignity also labelled her entire family as terrorist. No one believed in Karim that he was not a terrorist. But Aisha had an extreme trust on his husband as Karim was not a violence loving person. He believed in peace and love and that day when Karim left for work, he told Aisha that he was going to meet his cousin brother to counsel him to leave the wrong path. But Aisha had no proof of his husband’s innocence and so she had to leave the village because the villagers didn’t want to live with Karim’s family anymore.

Aisha went to another village with her children where nobody knew about her. She worked in the fields at the time of day and at night she used to do needle work on the shirts, gowns and skirts. Soon her days of darkness faded away and once again the sun smiled on her. Her son Khalid and daughter Maryam completed their graduation. Khalid decided to open a shop in his village and help his mother in earning. Maryam decided to join a business school and later on open her own small industry. The family was on a joyful track and Aisha was happy again. The part of the heart that was in pain from the past fifteen years was healing. Aisha found Karim’s soul in Khalid’s body and Khalid was exactly like his father, the most charming boy of the village.

Maryam got the admission in business school and went to the city for further studies, Khalid worked hard and opened a shop in his village. Aisha took a retirement from the field work and started to dream about the weddings of her children. She wanted to gift every happiness to her children. She dreamt about Maryam’s industry and about her wedding. She wanted to see her children successful so that she could die in peace. The dreams that she and Karim used to knit were completing their trails step by step.

One day when Khalid went to his work, he told his mother that he will come home late as he was going to the city to buy a car of his own. On the same day, a terrorist attack killed two army officers and ten civilians. Aisha was worried about Khalid because she didn’t want to lose another person close to her heart. She waited for Khalid at the door as tears were falling from her eyes. Soon the sun went behind the mountains and the color of the sky changed from blue to black, but Khalid didn’t return. Aisha went in search for him, screaming and crying. She searched for him in every bus that came from the city but he didn’t came back. Aisha went her home, crying and screaming. The horror of that night paralyzed her. She remembered the day when Karim was killed in a fake encounter. At three o clock in the midnight, someone knocked the door and Aisha was terrified. But when she came to know that it was Khalid, she quickly opened the door and gave him a tight hug. She kissed his hands, face and forehead and held her hand tightly. Khalid never saw her mother so much worried about him.

Khalid was back with a brand new car and after he comforted her mother, he told her that he was stuck in the traffic as the roads were blocked by army. Early in the morning Khalid gave his mother a ride in his car and told her that he will never leave her alone. Aisha who had completely forgotten the death incidence of Karim now remembered every moment of that day and it terrified her. She used to wait for Khalid in the evening and used to accompany him to his shop early morning. The sight of fear took away her dreams. She was becoming weak day by day and her health was also deteriorating. Khalid wanted to take her to the doctor but her mother didn’t want to leave her home.

As the summer faded and autumn was on its way, Khalid went to the city to consult a doctor without informing his mother. When the sunlight went off, Aisha went to Khalid’s shop but she saw the shop closed. She was worried about her son. She waited and waited for her son but he didn’t return and after that day he never returned back to his village. Nobody knows where he went and when will he come back? There were many boys in the village that never came back. The disappeared people were assumed that either they were killed by an army or they have joined terrorist organization.

Maryam left her studies after the disappearance of Khalid and worked in a shop of his brother. She took a great care of her mother. After Khalid‘s disappearance, Maryam handled all the responsibilities and she used to miss his brother endlessly. Every time, everywhere, she used to recall his brother’s laughter and his love for her. Every night, Maryam used to move into his room and remember every moment that she spent with his brother. The pictures hanging on the wall, the clothes in the closet, the perfume on the shelf and the worn out sports shoes had a sweet memory of his brother and seeing all this used to bring tears in her eyes.

Maryam searched everywhere for his brother, in army camps, hospitals, police stations but she couldn’t find him. She also checked the list pasted in the police station which revealed the names of those people who joined terrorist groups, but his name was also vanished like him. After five years, Aisha was out of the depression. Maryam and Aisha lived for each other but they never stopped enquiring about Khalid. Maryam was planning to join the business school again after her marriage.

Maryam’s marriage proposal was the reason that Aisha came out of the mental sickness. Maryam was going to marry Khalid’s childhood friend Zayn. Zayn worked as a computer operator in Dubai and after their marriage Maryam was going to join the business school again to complete her studies.

After Maryam’s marriage, Aisha and Zayn’s mother Raffia lived together and Maryam went to business school. Happiness was spreading through the fields and the laughter was brightening the dull faces. As the summer converted into autumn and into winter and finally spring, new buds bloomed and brought happiness. Maryam completed her studies and was back to village living with her mother and mother in law. Maryam was going to Dubai with her husband and establishing her industry in Dubai.

When Maryam left for Dubai, she told her mother that she will take her to Dubai forever. In the evening, when two ladies were having tea, a news came flying through the air that an airplane going to Dubai crashed and all the passengers were dead. Hearing this news Raffia died of heart attack and Aisha didn’t believe that her daughter is no more. Mental sickness regained her and she believed that happiness was never meant for her. The sickness made her remember all the sorrows, pain, and fear of losing everyone. Every morning Aisha goes in search of Karim, Khalid, Maryam and Zayn. She walks miles till her feet puff up. Whenever Aisha see a young boy and a girl, she asks them about Khalid and Maryam. The dream of having happy family touched the dust slowly and softly. Aisha Begum is going to find her family till the last breath of her life and may be one day in the after world she will meet her family. 


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Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:55 pm
elizabethmarieg wrote a review...



I read this story and I absolutely fell in love with it. I almost felt like having a heart attack (emotionally) when reading this! The story line is beautiful, and I highly recommend making some chapters explaining these life events, because I'll definitely be one of those people keeping in tact with these kinds of series. The only advice I'd give in the story is to add more details and description about the characters. You explained the appearance of Aisha in the beginning, but I think adding some character traits will add more to the story. Not only for Aisha, but doing this for other characters will develop the story as well. This will help readers build up some connections with the characters as they read the passages. There were some minor corrections that has to do with grammar throughout the story, but everything else is just right in my book. Thank you for sharing this with us. It means a lot! :D




fatimagilani says...


Thanks.... :)



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Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:19 am
Holysocks wrote a review...



Hello! Care for a review? c:

I really like the feel you got going on in this piece. When I first started reading I thought this was going to be more like a fantasy type story, with the word-choice like villages, and the way the story was told in kind of a "long long ago" sort of way. And then throughout the story we slowly got fed more and more modern information that made us realize this was actually taking place in our society, which I thought was pretty interesting. It gave the story a really unique feel, in any case! ^_^

Karim’s cousin brother was a terrorist and the army officers suspected that Karim was also the part of terrorist organization.


This felt very abrupt to me. The story started out very smooth and simple, and then suddenly there's an army and we get this information dropped in our laps that there was a relative that was a terrorist, and just because of that suddenly the love interest was killed? It just felt very strange to me. Like maybe if there was a bit more background before hand about there being this history in the family of the cousin brother (not sure what a cousin brother is to be honest- what do you mean by that?) being a terrorist, that way it wouldn't be so surprising when the army comes and kills the love interest.

Khalid worked hard and opened a shop in his village.


I feel like you could do a lot more with this piece when it comes to detail. It's interesting to have this whole time-line of this woman's life, but at the same time why do we need to know ALL of this? I feel like there's a lot of information that's not that necessary for the story, and I feel like that extra information has caused details of the story to be left out that really enrich a story, and complete it. I kind of went slightly off-topic of what the quote there was about, but anyway. In the quote above it's mentioned that Khalid opened a shop, but it doesn't say what kind of shop he opened! This is kind of important because it gives us a better picture- otherwise we just have this blank idea of a shop being there, and we have no idea what to put in it. Plus it makes me wonder: is it really that important to mention the shop if it's not important what the shop is for? These are questions that are great to ask yourself as well. Does the reader really need to know about this shop?

Another thing I wanted to mention is because of the combination of present tense and third person narration, the story becomes very distanced from the reader. We're being told this lady's life, we're not a part of the story. We don't feel her pain, we don't worry alongside her. It makes it very hard for us to get to know her because we're being told only the bare minimum of details about who she is and what her life's like. Sure, we know that she's had a really hard life, but we don't really know who she is. We don't know what makes her her and we're missing that connection that allows us to truly fall in love with a character. Bring us into the story; show us Aisha trembling as the military takes her husband away, and barely staying strong for her children. Don't tell us she had depression, show us that she can't get out of bed in the morning for even the simplest tasks like brushing her hair or getting dressed. What keeps her going? How does she survive all this pain?

At three o clock in the midnight


"Midnight" is actually twelve o'clock in the morning- not three. This sentence should be: At three o'clock in the morning.

Khalid never saw her mother so much worried about him.


I noticed a switch in pronouns throughout the piece when referring to either the brother or sister. For females, pronouns are "she" "hers" and "her". For males they're "he" "his" and "him". So for the sentence above, it should be: Khalid never saw his mother so much worried about him. The sentence is referring to Khalid, so any pronouns referring to him would be male pronouns.

she used to miss his brother endlessly.


Here's another really good example of that. By putting the pronoun "his" in there, it actually changes the meaning of the sentence, and so we would think that you're saying Maryam misses a guy's brother, and not her own. AKA it means "Maryam misses Bob's brother." So it's important to use the right pronouns. The sentence should be: she used to miss her brother.

Khalid went to the city to consult a doctor without informing his mother.


I found it kind of strange that one minute he's going off to consult a doctor, the next he's just gone. It didn't really fit well with itself because we have no idea what happened. I'm not sure why we'd need to know he's going to consult the doctor if he's just going to disappear, and then if we were told he was going to consult the doctor, I feel like we should maybe have had a follow-up as to what actually happened to him, since we had the inside scoop on him going to the doctor.

After five years, Aisha was out of the depression.


I was listening to the radio the other day, and they were interviewing family members (mothers, brothers, etc) of family's who's loved one's had been taken, and never returned. The family members, even after twenty-some years were still... depressed, for lack of a better word; you never really recover from that. So I found it kind of odd that it says after five years Aisha was out of her depression. I mean I get that she might have been a bit happy again because her daughter was getting married so that would definitely be exciting, but it sounded like she was "cured" of her depression. And I don't think it's very easy to be cured of something like that, especially after all that had happened to her!

Anyway, that's just my thoughts! Other than that I thought this was a very interesting tale! I especially liked the sort of mysterious, dark ending where the Aisha wanders around looking for her lost loved ones; it reminds me of ghost stories, which I secretly love! Keep it up my friend!

-Socks




fatimagilani says...


thanks for correcting me. it means a lot



Holysocks says...


You're welcome c:



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Mon Nov 28, 2016 7:00 pm
AmyMedek wrote a review...



Nice way to start the story. I like the differing comparisons between being a domestic wife and being an adventurer. As for descriptions, I give you a thumbs up. Swollen legs are nothing I'd ever think of to add in a story, but you pulled it off quite well. Poor Aisha. I hate that she was so traumatised, but it gives the story such an interesting way to keep it going. As for the good life, I'm kinda curious if you compare the good life more to the present? I mean, sure you've got some in there, but I feel like you could expand it. Just for more emphasis, I guess. But then again... I really like the story the way it is, and since the good life wasn't the main point of the story, I guess that it could also take away from the main idea. Anyways... good job there!




fatimagilani says...


thanks for appreciating my work.....




It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
— Mark Twain