Delving Into the Mind of Nimra

June 14, 2020 

6: 00 P.M     Monday 

An eyeball. A human eyeball which had recently been severed was found in the hands of Ali’s four year old son, Charlie. The child had been waving the object around like it was a toy. Ali was thankful that his son was young and not older. He can’t even imagine the trauma that his boy would have had to face. 

“Mr. Cordino. Mr. Cordino, I need you to explain why your son’s fingerprints are all over your ex-wife’s eye.” The questioning officer commands answers from the exhausted father, unintentionally causing him to relive the entire day all over again.

6:00 PM     Sunday

Ali Cardino’s life hasn’t been the same since his wife of six years asked for a divorce, two months ago. Her excuse being that she only got married to gain financial security and she couldn’t pretend to love him and his son anymore. Both the father and the son haven’t seen her since the very public divorce.

“Daddy!” A high pitched voice brings Ali back to the present. Ali jolts back into reality to see his son wiggling in the shopping cart and vigorously pointing at the Lucky Charms cereal box. 

“Daddy get this! Get this! I want the toy!” Ali’s overly enthusiastic son begs for the cereal box.

 Ali looks at the lucky charms cereal box and inwardly cringes. The father knows how unhealthy it is but for his son’s happiness he would do anything and if that meant he had to eat an unhealthy breakfast, tomorrow morning, then so be it. He grabs the box off the shelf and hands it to his son, who happily takes it in his arms as if hugging the box. 

Ali continues the journey home, lost in the thoughts of his ex-wife and their son. Ali didn’t even realize when he got home and put his son to bed. 

10:30 A.M    Monday

Ali awoke to his son jumping on his bed and demanding for food all the while hugging the cereal box. The father ends up carrying his son downstairs to the kitchen to prepare the milk bowls. While carrying Charlie, Ali notices that the box has been opened and he rolls his eyes thinking that his son probably peaked at the toy or had picked all the marshmallows. 

Ali puts his son down and watches as he digs around in the box trying to find the prize. The father knew the exact moment his son found the toy as his entire face lit up with glee. The boy pulled out a small gift box and handed the cereal box to his dad silently, telling him to start breakfast. 

Ali took the cereal box from his boy’s hands and dumped the contents of the cereal box into the two bowls. The father was confused to see a plastic toy and a piece of paper fall into his son’s bowl. Ali reads the paper in a perplexed expression illustrating his puzzlement over the whole situation. 

The letter read: You used to love my eyes. 

“Daddy! Look!” Ali looks up to see his son walk into the kitchen waving what looks to be an eye, alarming the already confused father. So he rushes towards the small child and upon closer inspection, realizes that it is in fact an actual human eye. 

Present 

May 25, 2020.

Day 2 of 30

It is supposed to be a celebration. It is supposed to be filled with happiness but all that she can think about are the people she has to call. This obligation is new for her and she doesn’t know where to start. 

Last night, she didn’t sleep a wink. She laid in bed, her thoughts racing a mile a minute. Should she be polite or say everything that is brewing in her mind? Does she converse like everything is great between them, pretending that she doesn’t have a gaping wound inflicted by their actions? 

Around 8, she gets out of bed and puts on her finest dress. She puts on makeup and does her hair, concealing the evidence of last night. She is happy throughout the day, until the moment that she has to call them. All three of them, one by one, without any breaks. 

First Call: 

It starts with a greeting for this holiday. The first thing they ask is to turn on the video. Her stomach starts to turn and she feels nauseous. She did not want to see their face as there is no way that she could hide the rage and hurt in her eyes. She presses the camera button, letting their faces fill her screen. 

She wants to scream in pain because just the look in their eyes sends a searing flash of pain in her wound. They look genuinely excited to see her, as if nothing happened. They talk to her normally and she gives two word answers but inside she is screeching. 

“Why are you talking to me like this? Everything is not okay! Why are you pretending as if what you did doesn’t exist anymore? Do you think that you are forgiven? Guess, what? I don’t forgive you. I hate what you did to me and my family. I just can’t get over how you can sleep at night, knowing what you did was wrong. You knew that it was wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t lie about what exactly happened to the rest of the family.” 

They ask her at the end if there is anything else she wants to say. The girl smiles and shakes her head, pressing the red button. That smile is a band aid that she slaps on her wound. 

Second Call: 

She is the one that video calls this person. She starts off with a basic greeting. They seem to not be interested in conversing with her. She is not sure if they are even hearing what she is saying. The girl feels ignored and there is nothing that feels worse. 

“We used to be so good together. Why are you doing this? Can four months really do this to a person? Have you changed so much that you don’t even know when your actions are hurting others? Maybe, this is all my fault, for blindly trusting you. Thinking that you are the same person that shared her bag of Lays with me, 14 years ago. Maybe, I should just let you go.”

She tries to keep the conversation going but it is hard when the other person is clearly texting someone else. The girl makes up an excuse about another call and she presses the red button. The girl just slaps on another band aid and hoping that two could hold the gash together. 

Third Call: 

The last call is a bit weird. The person kept cutting her calls whenever she ringed. The girl was utterly confused and was unsure of what to do. She waited until the person called and answered immediately. The person was not alone and was surrounded by others. 

They couldn’t have a conversation properly and were continuously being interrupted. They spoke with their eyes and what she saw was not good. 

“I am so sorry that you have to stay with these people. I hate that you have to be so far away from your family and everything that you know. I hate that I am not there to help you through this and I know that you are suffering.” 

May 22, 2020.  Let’s begin with the reason why this blog came to be. My best friend wanted to start a writing challenge and everyone is probably aware that challenges are much more entertaining with more than just one participant. I would walk to the ends of the earth for her, so I agreed to partake this journey with her. 

The next thing that we had to do, was plan the challenge. We haven’t set any limitations on what our topics could be or what style of writing we had to follow. We have some floating ideas that might prompt us into writing every single day. These ideas include; personal journals, opinion pieces on published articles, quote analysis, random thoughts that we had throughout the day, short stories, chapters from potential novels and even fanfiction. We also don’t have a restriction on the length of our daily posts which is really good because I have a tendency to ramble. 

The other thing that we discussed on our one line whatsApp message, was whether or not we would do the same topic. Working on the same topic is very appealing to me and I wouldn’t mind that. It would definitely provide a different perspective especially, if we do end up writing opinion pieces. 

To clarify, this challenge is supposed get our creative juices flowing. Seeing as how we both are medical students, it is very easy to get lost in the world of human anatomy and physiology. You get to a point where all you think about is your studies and there is no room for creativity. It’s really hard to find the time to write for leisure when your entire focus is either on learning or procrastinating that learning. 

I look forward to making this blog an outlet for the little bit of creativity that I have in me. 

I have also provided a link to my friend’s blog.