"On The Bus."

Ahmed clambered up the narrow dusty steps of the heavily decorated bus which stood huffing and puffing at the bus stop. He quietly told his destination to the jovial looking conductor swinging at the bus door and took his ticket, stumbling as the bus driver drove ahead with high pitched screeching of the tires, quickly grasping the crimson rod to keep himself from falling.

A tall and broad figure, he was wearing a crisp freshly ironed white collar shirt tucked under sensible black pants with a belt, over his shirt he was wearing a navy blue sleeveless sweater, a light brown leather bag was hanging over his right shoulder. Close up, either full-face or in profile, he was a surpassingly handsome man. Golden brown hair, glistening in the morning sunlight, some thick, side-swept strands were falling on his forehead, fair-skinned(mind you, highly prized feature in Pakistan) and a shapely nose adding to the amiability of his face, but perhaps his best feature was his clever and curious emerald green eyes(not just rare in Pakistan, but the whole of the world) the number of compliments he had received on them by practical strangers was astounding.

The bus halted at another bus stop and several people stood up. Hurriedly, Ahmed scrambled to the nearest one. With a sigh of relief, he sat by the window. "Lucky day", he thought happily. It was once in a blue moon to get a seat in the morning rush.

It was a foggy December morning and quite chilly, "the most it can get in Karachi", thought Ahmed with a scoff.

Looking at the window, Ahmed observed the dustiness of the city, everything was remarkably dusty or at least gave the impression of being dusty. The grimy brown flats with chipping paint and laundry hanging erratically on balcony rails, electric wires with layers of dust on them hanging overhead haphazardly, even the sporadic dull green trees on sandy green belts, had a lot of dust set on them. The grocery shops and utility stores and bakeries tumbling upon each other, under the apartments, and cars of all kinds from small white mehrans to smart big Toyota carollas. Even the weather was dusty, dry cold winds were blowing from the sea. Dirty posters of advertisement tacked up on walls for truly absurd things, treatment to get fairer skin, losing weight, gaining weight, and Ahmed's eyes widened as he read an advertisement for freaking black magic to get rid of jealous relatives. Ahmed smiled to himself at the audacity.

He shifted in his place and crossed his legs, stretched and sliding down a bit, and leaned his head on the headrest. shutting his eyes, his thick long lashes twitching, from a distance he could hear a cooing of a baby on the bus and two old men discussing politics. He tuned out their voices as his flow of thoughts moved towards the most pressing topic of his life right now; his family. "My inexorable and fragmentary family", echoed in his mind, he had long ago picked out these two adjectives to describe the persona of the people whom he called his family.

"Oh, it went all downhill when mother died of cancer about eight years ago." Ahmed's eyes dampened a little and he brusquely rubbed them and took a deep sigh. He remembered those sleepless nights at the hospital waiting room, all those medicines and visits to the doctor, and how he flunked in all his school subjects and smoked on the rooftop at night, with tears in his eyes, that moment that he will never forget till his dying day when the doctor said those terrible words, the finality of them, "your mother has only six months left to live", that moment when it felt like the world stopped, when it felt he couldn't breathe, the doctor continued talking, but he couldn't hear, something about taking her home and spending the last days together.

After that moment which felt like an eternity, everything was so fast-paced, the sad hope fullness of his mother, then the funeral, the disturbed disposition of his three younger brothers whose ages were ranging from ten to fourteen years old, the total confusion, the emptiness, his endless sorrow, the denial and all of sudden his father announcing his plan to get married, how he cried that night and kept calling his mother, the fat, crude forty-year-old woman his father brought at their house as his bride, his painstaking tolerance of that woman who now sat at his mother's place at the dining table, his wide-eyed wonder at the ease with which his brothers took to her.

As much as he tried to accept her, he just couldn't because he felt a malicious nature under her sickly sweetness, he hated how she threw his mother's belongings away and took down her framed pictures. He began to hate her with every cell in his body and she too, feeling his flinching disdain of her presence in the house turned against him and went out of her way to make his life more difficult. It was a cold war. Ahmed's father was a submissive old man and showed a total reticence in this matter and if pushed took his wife's side.

Which was most aggravating to Ahmed, he felt anger rise up in his body as he saw his father's silence at his wife's mistreatment of him. Gradually he began to withdraw away from him, he was unable to hide the disgust he felt for his actions, "what kind of a man didn't even stand up for his son!?!"

For five years his life was a passive-aggressive hell. Until Zari came into his life, like a fresh rose-scented breeze. She was a sweet souled lass and it was her selfless, caring nature that drew him towards her. A dark-eyed beauty, lithe and winsome, Zari was his Parsi friend's cousin. The moment he laid his eyes on her he knew she was the one he wanted to share his whole life with. Their love went on to bloom into a beautiful flower and they both decided to get married and begin a life together.

Intercommunity marriage was not to be accepted by his family, Ahmed's father placidly followed his wife's ferocious opposition against it, Zari's family was easier though, her widowed mother didn't object much. Ahmed knew who he loved, he could not give up Zari because of some hateful woman's opinions. He rebelled for his happiness and Zari, who was already quite interested in Islam and was more than ready to convert. They both had a court marriage and blissfully began their married life.

Unfortunately, their happiness did not last long for their life was plagued by problems created by his stepmother. Their joy was always ruined by some crude remark or some malicious action. Matters worsened to an extent that Zari, who was a cherub by nature, had permanent sadness in her eyes.

Here, Ahmed opened his eyes with a realization and straightened up. "Oh God, how come I never thought about how sad Zari is these days until now," thought Ahmed with vexation. "This is enough, I cannot tolerate this anymore!", Ahmed felt restless.

There and then he decided, he will move out from his father's home, probably move to some other city, he will talk about it at his office, or he could apply for that job in London whose requirements he could easily fulfill. A thousand plans sprouted in his mind. Whatever he must do, the crux of the matter was that he needed to get away from his father and his loathsome wife. They were poisoning his whole life and making Zari unhappy.

The bus arrived at his destination and Ahmed stood up with vitality, firmly and energetically walked down the aisle, not uncharacteristic for a twenty-six-year-old young man who has just made a life-changing decision.