
THE SURPRISE by Aisha Hassan
The funeral prayer was almost over but I didn’t care, and Safia needed me here, and since she’s the one who did the dying, her word is as good as God’s. I stood at the back so the rows of hunched women would ignore me for now. The mosque was bloated with hot air and I could smell sweat blooming beneath white prayer robes. Rotting hearts, too. I imagined Syed’s heart, fleshy and dark, emitting the stench of a hammered mouse, thumping inside his hairy chest. He was on the other side of the partition where an Imam’s voice sang…