| Author | Message | ||
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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3710 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention What Happens to One Happens to All M The morning air flares febrile for Alamin in Riyadh. Mama Abrar is transformed, Aunt Muhsin solemn. Her jilbaab removed, Alamin lies naked, extremities splayed in the shape of an X. Abrar lashes her limbs one by one to opposing table legs. Muhsin wields the rusted razor. Alamin – cut in places she knows nothing of, torn passages sewn shut with thorns and catgut – shrieks Mama is the gowaan leopard; Aunt, the butcher shrike. “Sunna,” Muhsin screeches the word over her. “Sunna,” Abrar howls, the word advancing from the back of the throat like Inshaalha across the Saudi plain. The girl becomes the guttural yowls of the slashed oryx. In New York, a father waits for his wife to leave the house. My daughter is too wild. She plays outside with boys. This will tame her. Thus the seed of Sunna carries on the currents, traverses the waves, permeates fresh soil. |
