Why do I keep doing this to myself?

Tw: Suicide

“Fuuuuuckkkkk!!!!!!!”

“No! No! No! It can't be Friday!” she shrieks with the little energy she can garner.

The disorientation she feels is so corporeal. She has no sense of time whatsoever. She doesn't even know how she got home. She is angry at herself! At the world! At her pounding head! At the stupid cat she adopted from her friend who relocated to Tokyo! And angry at herself again because she forgot to ask if the cat was potty trained before adopting it! Angry at the shit droppings she has to pick up around the house, thanks to the cat!

“Aah. Toka hapa!” (Kiswahili for: Get out of here) She screams at the cat peacefully lying beside her.

She looks at the marred appearance of her room and her head drops in disappointment. The glorious squalor of the room makes her feel like throwing up. Or maybe it's the hard liquor she consumed last night. A consumption that suggested to anyone gazing at her that she didn't care. That she understood the meaning of YOLO. Okay. Maybe they gazed at her because they had never seen a hijabi in a club. Just maybe.

She picks up her phone to look at the time. “Great!! Kill me already,” she mutters to the cracked screen. How reckless must she have been? A cracked screen? It couldn't get any worse, right?

Wrong.

It was 1345hrs!!! Crap!! She had a madrasa class to teach, scheduled at 1400hrs. She surely couldn't do it. How? In that state? In 15 minutes?!!!! Nope! She had to give a fake excuse. A lie in better words. They couldn't know about her clumsy little secret. No. They'd strip her of any respect they had. So no! She had to lie.

She screams into her pillow. A little reprieve.

It surely couldn't get any worse. Right?

Wrong!

She remembers last night's events. Well, partially.

She remembers how she recklessly kept swiping her card in the club. Ohh surely!! Now the thought of her ending her life started swiping through her mind. But no! She thought of how she needed to lose a few pounds for that to happen. Her body should at least be in shape, even with a noose around her neck. Right? Because oh that stomach would dangle weirdly. And the arm fat? Let's not even get started on that!

You'd think the thoughts running through her head are completely asinine (I do too!) But they made so much sense to her. Don't play with how hard body dysmorphia can slay the human mind. Idi Amin and his tyrannical regime had nothing on body dysmorphia. Trust me!

“Why do I keep doing this to myself?” She asks in a whisper to interpolate all the thoughts running through her wrecked mind.

Drinking had become her masochistic pastime ever since her brother died. It gave her a little respite from the dark clouds looming around in her world where she had somehow lost herself. Her world was too poignant. The vendetta she had, kept doubling up every day. Why did Hassan have to die? He was her only joy. Her only peace. Her only safe space. But life took him away. Great!

Her phone dings! An Email notification.

“Dear Fatma, we regret to inform you…” she didn't even read on. She had gotten a lot of these that she wasn't surprised. Not even disappointed. All her job applications had been rejected. Wow! Amazing! She thinks of how her ghost would haunt all those hospitals that rejected her applications if at all she were to die. The thought of working in her dream hospital as a paranomial figure makes her chuckle a bit.

It most definitely couldn't get any worse. Right?

Say it with me class: WRONGGG!!

A memory flashes in her mind. Her miserable mind. Her extremely miserable mind.

She remembers making a drunk call as she was chilling at the hookah lounge, drunk to a stupor. “Oh no! Please no”

She called one unimpressed Maina. It was at around 2:14 am. Nooo!! Whyyy!!! She made quite audacious claims during the call. Those included how much she loved Maina, and how he should convert to her deen so that he could marry her and how he should leave his good for nothing girlfriend for Fatma because she was willing to settle with Mohamed (that's the name I imagine they'd have given Maina after he converted to a muslim…if he agreed that is!)

As you can imagine, Maina was pretty angered by this, not because he didn't understand what Fatma was saying, but because his said “good for nothing” girlfriend was sleeping right next to him.

“Fatma, stick to your lane! Or better still, get a life,” he ended the call.

Explains why she smashed the screen.

She wondered why her deen and relentless salahs were not enough to mortify the desire and love she had for this Maina. A simple man from a whole different religion. I mean look at him. He wasn't ugly ok but he also didn't have much to look at. But for some reason, Fatma just couldn't let go of him.

Or maybe it's because Maina was the only one who ever showed her love. Occasionally that is. The love that her heart yearned for. The love that she never received, especially after her Hassan died. Maina had a girlfriend okay, but Fatma was okay with being the second option, because the love breadcrumbs that Maina seasonally gave her felt like a gulp of chilled Minute Maid apple juice on a hot and busy Monday afternoon.

She remembers the letter Maina once wrote to her that said “…as sure as death, I will love you forever…” She also remembers the song Chikwere by the Kenyan artist Bien-Aimé Baraza that Maina once dedicated to her.

Why was he doing this to her? All these were hoodwinks meant to keep her there in the desperation of a leech for blood.

She hated herself! She hated Maina!! And his girlfriend, her good for nothing contender, she hated her the most!!!

How can she unhook herself from this?

And just like that, her Jumaa became even more despondent. Thanks to Maina! Thanks to the cat! Thanks to the screen! Thanks to her body! Thanks to everything! Thanks to you too!