CHAPTER FIVE:DIFFERENT LIVES
Ayesha had started leaving the house earlier than usual, because being out being busy felt easier than sitting with thoughts that had begun to turn on her without warning, circling back to things she couldnât undo and questions she couldnât answer, so when Ulfat mentioned the charity visits, the camps, the outreach work in the outskirts, she said yes without thinking too much, almost like she needed somewhere to put all that restlessness.
The drive out of the city always felt longer than it was, the roads thinning out, the buildings giving way to uneven land and scattered homes that looked like they had been standing there for years without ever really changing, and by the time they reached the first cluster of people waiting near the makeshift camp, Ayesha felt that strange shift again the one where her own problems didnât disappear, but seemed⌠quieter in the presence of something more immediate.
Running barefoot, laughing in ways that didnât match the conditions around them, their energy untouched by the things that should have limited it, and yet, as the team began setting up, as the boxes were opened and lists were checked, that energy started to look different, because one child stumbled oddly, another dragged a leg behind him like it didnât fully belong to him, and suddenly what had looked like play began to feel like something else entirely.
âPolio cases,â Ulfat said beside her, almost casually, like this was something she had learned to say without letting it affect her tone too much. âAbhi bhi aate hain yahan.â
(You still find cases here.)
Ayesha didnât respond immediately.
She was watching a boy trying to keep up with the others, his movements uneven, determined but strained, and there was something about the effort in his body that made her chest tighten unexpectedly, because he wasnât complaining, he wasnât even slowing down properly, he was just⌠adjusting, like this was normal for him.
âIski vaccines to aajkal har jagah ho gyi hai na?â Ayesha asked quietly.
"Haan,lekin vo vaccines in baccho tak nahi pahuchne dete. Sirf, Afghanistan aur Pakistan mein hi polio aaj bhi bacha hai. The people who control that area, even shoot down the volunteers who try to help them"
(Yes, but those vaccines don't reach the children. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only Asian countries which still have polio. )
Ulfat said, already moving toward the volunteers.
Ayesha followed slowly, her steps less certain now, her eyes moving from one child to another, noticing things she hadnât been trained to notice before the slight stiffness, the imbalance, the way some mothers held their children a little tighter, a little more carefully, like they were used to protecting something fragile that shouldnât have been fragile in the first place.
There was a woman sitting on the ground, a child in her lap, trying to soothe him while he cried, not loudly, just persistently, and when one of the workers approached her, she gave him some money and begged him to give the vaccine to her kid, but the worker kindly told her that it had been too late and her child already has polio, the vaccine won't work on him. The child would need specialized care for the rest of his life.
Ayesha stood there, watching the exchange, something unsettled moving through her chest, because the something
Distance from information, from access, from systems that were supposed to reach here but didnât fully, not consistently, not enough.
At the uneven ground beneath them.
Back in the city, loss had felt personal, contained within walls and memories and relationships, but here, it was differentit was spread out, visible, almost normalized in a way that made it harder to process, because no one here was asking why me, they were just⌠continuing.
âKitne cases hote hain?â Ayesha asked after a while, her voice lower now.
(How many cases are there?)
Ulfat glanced at her briefly.
âExact number koi nahi bata saktaâ she said. âPar enough hain ke ignore nahi kar sakte.â
(No one gives an exact number. But there are enough that you canât ignore them.)
That word stayed with her.
Enough to be preventable and still happening.
Ayesha moved closer to the camp, her hands unconsciously clasping together as she watched another child receive the drops, a small, simple act that carried more weight than it should have, because it wasnât just medicine it was a chance, something that should have been guaranteed, something that shouldnât depend on whether a team managed to reach here on time.
Her mind flickered, uninvited, to something else.
To something she had lost.
And for a brief, disorienting moment, the two things overlapped not in a logical way, not in a way she could explain, but in a feeling, a quiet, uncomfortable awareness that some losses come from absence, from things not being there when they should have been, from moments that slip past without intervention.
She inhaled slowly, steadying herself.
âHum aur camps kar sakte hain?â she asked suddenly.
Ulfat looked at her, slightly surprised.
âKar sakte hain,â she said.
Ayesha nodded, her gaze still fixed ahead.
âTheek hai,â she said quietly.
There was something different in her tone now.
Because for the first time in days, maybe weeks, her thoughts had moved outward instead of inward, not erasing what she carried, but giving it somewhere else to go, somewhere it could exist without consuming her entirely.
And as the camp continued around her, as children cried and then quieted, as names were noted down and boxes slowly emptied, Ayesha stood there in the middle of it all, carrying her own silent grief alongside a hundred visible ones, realizing in a way she hadnât before that pain didnât cancel pain it just coexisted, in different forms, in different places, waiting for someone to notice it.
Malaysia had stopped feeling new, but it hadnât started feeling like home either, and that in-between space was the hardest to sit in, because nothing here hurt sharply enough to break her, but nothing comforted her enough to heal her either, so most days Meerab moved through it quietly, doing what needed to be done, speaking when required, and saving the rest of herself for the hours when she was alone.
The apartment was small, neat in a way that didnât come from habit but from control, because when everything inside felt uncertain, order became something she could hold onto, even if it was just in how things were placed, how the lights were switched off, how silence was allowed to settle without interruption.
She had learned the routes now, the office, the sites, the short walk back, the corner shop where the man didnât ask questions, just nodded, and it should have felt like progress, like something building slowly, but instead it often felt like she was just⌠continuing, like her life hadnât restarted, it had just shifted location.
That morning, the hospital smelled the same as every hospital did, clean in a way that never quite hid the tension underneath, and as she sat there, her fingers loosely wrapped around the edge of her dupatta, she found herself counting things againâthe seconds between footsteps, the flicker of the light, the soft murmur of voices behind closed doors anything to keep her mind from running ahead of her.
When her name was called, she stood up immediately, almost too quickly, like she had been waiting for it without realizing.
The doctor greeted her with a practiced calm, the kind that doesnât promise anything but doesnât alarm you immediately either, and for a few minutes, everything was routine questions, small observations, the steady rhythm of medical conversation that feels normal until it doesnât.
Then the doctorâs tone shifted.
âMeerab,â she said, her voice slower now, more deliberate, âWe have some concernsâ
ââŚWhat?â she asked, her voice quieter than she intended.
The doctor glanced briefly at the reports, then back at her, choosing her words carefully, not to soften them, but to make sure they landed clearly.
âThe babyâs heart is showing multiple defects. Four structural issuesâ she said. âFour structural issues.Tetralogy of heart.â
ââŚfour?â she repeated, as if the number might change if she said it differently.
âHaan,â she said gentlly," Yes. Itâs serious, but it can be treatable."
The word that usually brings relief.
Because it came with something else.
âSurgery will be required after the deliveryâ the doctor continued. âPossibly more than one.â
The room started closing in on her.
Meerabâs hand moved, almost automatically, to her stomach, pressing lightly, as if she could reach something through skin and silence.
ââŚwoh bach jayega?â she asked.
The question came out fragile.
The doctor didnât answer immediately.
"We will provide the best care possible,â she said finally. âBut the risk is high.â
Another word that stayed.
Meerab nodded slowly, even though her mind hadnât fully caught up yet, because sometimes the body responds before understanding, sometimes it agrees before it has processed what it is agreeing to.
The rest of the conversation blurred slightly after that terms, procedures, timelines, names of specialists important things, necessary things, but they felt distant, like they were being said for someone else, someone who was more prepared, more stable, more capable of holding all of it together at once.
By the time she stepped out of the room, the corridor felt longer than before.
Or maybe it was just her.
She walked ,her steps steady in a way that didnât reflect what was happening inside her, because inside, everything had shifted again, the fragile balance she had been holding tilting slightly, not enough to collapse, but enough to make her aware of how little it would take.
Outside, the air felt heavier. It was pressing against her skin.
She stood there for a moment, not moving, just breathing, trying to anchor herself to something physical, something real, because her thoughts had already begun slipping toward places she didnât want them to go.
The words circled, repeating, refusing to settle into something she could manage.
Her hand tightened slightly against her stomach.
Because this wasnât something she could fix.
This wasnât something she could control.
She started walking again, slower this time, her steps losing some of that earlier steadiness, because now the loneliness felt different, not just emotional, not just the absence of familiar faces or voices, but something deeper, something tied to the realization that whatever came next she would have to face it without anyone who knew her before she broke.
The fight had ended almost an hour ago but the adrenaline still sat under the skin like heat that refused to leave.
One of the smaller gangs from the old side of the city had tried getting smart over territory, money, loyalty same old story, different faces and by the time it was over, two men were unconscious, one had disappeared completely, and the warehouse floor smelled like blood, sweat, and burnt gunpowder.
Uzair washed his hands at the rusted sink near the back room, water running pink for a few seconds before clearing. His knuckles were split again. He barely noticed anymore.
Behind him, Hamza kicked a broken chair aside and let out a tired breath. âSaalo ka dramabaazi bahut badh gya hai aaj kal.â
(These idiots have become too dramatic these days.)
Uzair gave a faint hum in response.
A few months ago he wouldâve said something sharper, something colder, but now most conversations died halfway around him. Hamza had started noticing that more and more.
Like Uzair was present physically but some part of him stayed elsewhere all the time.
Hamza reached into his jacket and pulled out a small packet. âChal,â he said casually, âaaj thoda dimaag band karte hai.â
(Come on. Letâs shut the mind off for a while today.)
Uzair glanced at him once. Then at the packet.
Normally he wouldâve refused.
They climbed up to the roof of the warehouse because the rooms downstairs still carried too much noise inside them. Up here the air was colder. The city stretched far away in flickering yellow lights and distant sirens.
Hamza sat first, back against the low wall, lighting the rolled cigarette slowly before passing it over.
Uzair took it without a word.
The smoke hit harsh at first, burning the throat before settling warm somewhere behind the eyes. He leaned his head back slightly, staring upward at the black sky.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The silence wasnât awkward anymore.
Hamza watched him from the side quietly. âTu pehle itna chup nahi rehta tha.â
(You didnât use to stay this quiet.)
Uzair exhaled slowly, smoke disappearing into the dark air. âWaqt badal gaya to halaat bhi badal gaye, Yeh sab dekh ke jazbaat bhi badal gaye, Yeh kuch aur nahi bas waqt ka taqaza hai yaara,Kabhi woh badal gaye aur kabhi ham badal gaye.â
(As time changed, circumstances changed too,Seeing all this, emotions changed too,This is nothing else but the demand of time, my friend,Sometimes they changed, and sometimes we changed. )
The cigarette slipped from Hamza's fingers as he fell into a coughing fit, his breath coming in sharp, desperate wheezes.
Uzair smirked at his reaction.
Somewhere below them a dog barked. A bike sped past on the road outside.
Hamza rubbed his jaw, still sore from the earlier fight. âWaise ek baat bolun?â
Uzair didnât answer but Hamza continued anyway.
âTu shayari ke liye nahi bana hai.â
(You weren't born to become a poet)
Uzairâs eyes stayed fixed ahead, as he spoke.
"What was I made for? Who knows, who can tell...".
That landed somewhere deeper than he expected.
Uzair took another drag before speaking. âKabhi kabhi lagta haiâŚâ he stopped halfway.
Uzair lowered his gaze toward the city lights below. âKabhi kabhi lagta hai mei kisiko bhi jaanta hi nahi .â
(Sometimes I feel like I don't know anyone.)
The words came out rougher than he intended.
Uzair laughed faintly after that but there was nothing happy in it. âAjeeb hai na?â he murmured. âInsaan saamne hota hai itne time⌠aur phir ek din pata chalta hai ke kuch bhi pata nahi uske baare mein.â
(Funny, isnât it? Someone stays in front of you for so long⌠then one day you realize you knew nothing about them.)
Hamza looked away for a second.
Because he knew things Uzair didnât.
And suddenly sitting here beside him felt heavier than before.
âSab cheezein jaan lena zaroori nahi hota,â he said finally.
(Not everything needs to be known.)
Uzairâs jaw tightened slightly.
The wind picked up colder around them.
Uzair closed his eyes briefly, leaning his head back against the wall. The smoke had softened the edges of things but not enough. Her face still slipped into his mind too easily. The hospital corridor he never saw. The questions he never asked. The conversations that never happened.
It sat inside him like unfinished business.
Like a door left open somewhere.
Hamza noticed the way his breathing changed whenever silence got too deep. He nudged the cigarette back toward him. âAur maar.â
For a few minutes neither man said anything.
Just sat there shoulder to shoulder under the weak city lights, smoke curling between them, exhaustion hanging heavy in the air.
But no longer just allies either.
There was something else now.
The kind of closeness men like them only formed after violence, silence, and shared ruin.
And somewhere in the middle of that quiet night, while the city kept moving without caring what either of them had lost, Uzair finally admitted something to himself he hadnât allowed before.
Not angrily or romantically even.
Like missing a part of your life that ended before you realized it mattered.
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