THE DREAM

Qudus counted his fingers like he normally does whenever he felt frustrated.He stared at his mother,who dressed for him, inside their flat ,since he couldn't due to his forever paralyzed left arm and his leg.He wondered if his brother wouldn't sleep where he had been sent.He vehemently prayed he didn't.

But why couldn't his heartbeat stayed normal.He had never been this impatient.He doubt if sherifat,his mother would understand and accept what he had to say.Atleast,I should try, he told himself.

"when would brother isa come back home?"qudus asked his mother,sherifat.She stopped dressing him and searched his eyes before her frown.

"He will be back soon,"she replied and continue to dress him.His mind set him into persistence.

"like in an hour or a few minute?"he asked.

She wondered why he kept on asking about his brother ever since he woke up.

"I don't know,"Sherifat said with her forehead lined with concern

"why did you keep on asking about him like you've not seen him for years?"

Fourteen years old Qudus looked down slightly trying to keep his fear to himself and sound calm as much as he can.

"I had a dream,"he said.Sherifat's eyes widened with fear.There goes that damn stupid dreams of his, she had never wanted to believe.She would have told him to shut up that instant but she wanted to know if it was somehow connected to her favourite son.

"what is it about?" she asked with irritating fear.Inorder to make his new dream less frightening like his former ones,he skipped the first part of the dream.

"I saw dead grandpa.He told me to make sure my brother doesn't sleep, throughout today," He sniffed alittle.

There was only one dead grandpa and that was her husband's father,she thought.

"And if he does?"she asked.

"He might die," he said to his mother and whispered to himself"he will die".She fought the urge to slap him.But, out of anger, said,

"You imbecile child!!!!!!!how come you never dream of the good things.The so damn dreams that always tell you to say this and that but didn't tell you how you could had prevented ten years ago incidence"she left his presence.

He kept on pacing the sitting room,thinking of what he could do to avert what he had seen.If only his mother could tell him where isa was.He would have gone there and set things right,Qudus thought on,while ignoring the fact that his mother last sentence was pointing to the incident that had made him forever paralyzed.....