“Like what? In your opinion”

“Look, we are seeing that the mischief has begun, your brother has left the house and he is suspecting you for your father’s death. This might be the beginning, but when this mischief would reach its final stage, the two of you would be against each other for some other reason”

Rizwan felt amazed listening to this as Mr. Taha’s words made complete sense to him. Sidra broke the silence:

“And what about the last prophecy?”

“The last prophecy?”

“I meant the prophecy you know and we are currently unaware of”

“Oh yeah, well the fourth prophecy I remember was something like a lying person would seeing plenty of owls during the night one day”

“The lying person?”

“Yes, I don’t remember the exact words of the stated prophecy but I do know that a person who would be lying to everybody would see plenty of owls, one special night”

“Now this new” Sidra commented.

“Yeah, I feel the same. I’m not confident about the word ‘lying’ but it was somewhat similar”

“Oh dear God” Rizwan spoke holding his head.

“What happened?” Mr. Taha asked him.

“I’m so worried, our father has left us in this mess”

“Oh Rizwan, don’t be disrespectful”

“He is not being disrespectful” Sidra spoke getting defensive, “he is right. His father has left us in such misery. We shouldn’t have even come here”

“No Sidra” Rizwan changed his position, “don’t get too emotional, what I meant was that he left us in this mess, unintentionally. He had no contribution in this”

“No” Sidra said as she stood up, “I don’t think I can be a part of this family anymore”

She left the place angrily as she spoke this.

“Sidra!” Rizwan called her out.

Mr. Taha said to Rizwan:

“She is too frightened now, these prophecies have definitely scared her to leave you”

“No, no don’t worry about it. She is just steamed, she’ll be fine by tomorrow morning”

“Oh…So are you leaving now?”

“Yes, I think I should, but don’t worry, she will be fine”

“Ok, now what about Khattab?”

“Yeah, Khattab” Rizwan stood up. “Well let him come and settle. Then after few days, I will meet him”

“I would recommend you to not delay this, because if Hannan gets to him first, then you won’t be able to justify yourself”

“Well I’m not worried about that; I don’t have to be afraid of them”

Rizwan offered his hand for a handshake and Mr. Taha shook hands with him. Rizwan finally spoke:

“Thanks for everything Mr. Taha, you really helped me today”

 That day’s night, Rizwan was up quite late. He had just noted down all the prophecies he knew on a fresh piece of paper. The room was dark but he had turned on two candle lights.

He read the mentioned prophecies:

1. A dark period will come to this family.

2. Our father’s grave would be crushed.

3. My daughter will see a lot of pain and torment in her life.

4. A two-faced person will illegally capture the land that belonged to us once.

5. The first phase of the mischief would be different than the last phase.

6. A liar will see several owls in a single night.

After reading the six prophecies, he uttered:

“I have collected six, now there are either four or five more”

He looked at the paper for a while and then wondered:

My life is about to get really harsh. My fate will literally make me bleed, but I am not afraid, I will fight. I will struggle against whatever comes my way.

Several hours later, he was sleeping on the couch he had been sitting all night. He awoke as he heard the doorbell. He opened his eyes and stood up. The heard the door bell ringing again. He turned and looked at the main door. He heard the voice of his servant.

After one minute, Sidra came and stood by Rizwan. Rizwan looked at her and asked:

“Sidra what were you up to last night? You didn’t even wait for me and simply left the place. This was not polite of you, ok?”

“I want divorce” Sidra said quite bluntly.

“What?”

“Yes, I want divorce” Sidra spoke firmly.

“Why? What for?”

“You know why I’m asking this. Believe me, I’m not liking this, but I have no other option”

“Oh come on Sidra, we have plenty of other options, we can live without children, or we can adopt a son if you’re afraid of the daughter’s suffering”

“No Rizwan, its not about the daughter. Your life is about to get really worse. I’m sorry, I simply cannot live with you. We need to get divorced”

“I can’t believe you Sidra” Rizwan spoke sadly. “I thought you would be my support during such critical time”

Sidra simply turned and walked towards the exit of the house. Before stepping on the garden, she spoke:

“I’m giving you two days’ time, after that I will involve court into this”

“Oh my God” Rizwan was left stunned seeing his wife’s attitude.

Several minutes later, Rizwan was running inside his house’ garden, trying to ventilate his anger and frustration. He was also recalling how his brother and his wife had turned completely against him.

This hurts too much… he cried while running.

He stopped as he heard the doorbell. He rushed towards the main gate hoping it was Sidra, who had changed her mind.

As Rizwan reached the gate, he took a deep breath and opened the gate. It was some unknown guy of his age, who had come to meet him. Rizwan asked him:

“Yes, who are you?”

“My name is Khubaib Razaq. I am Khattab Razaq’s younger brother”

“Oh” Rizwan uttered and shook hands with him.

Rizwan welcomed him inside the house quite warmly and asked:

“So, where’s Khattab?”

“He’ll be here after few days” Khubaib replied.

Khubaib and Rizwan were walking towards the garden side and were having this conversation:

“You know your father was a great person?” Khubaib spoke.

“Yeah”

“I didn’t really know him that closely but my brother did. My brother was a really aggressive person but your father made an angel out of him”

Rizwan was least interested in this conversation and he was listening to him out of courtesy. Khubaib however continued:

“I had heard a lot about your father from different sources, so I was convinced that my brother is in good hands”

“I see”

“Yeah, your father was my hope. My brother Khattab, I was really afraid of him, so I simply prayed to God, I wanted him to improve and get better. By better I mean cool tempered. And that’s what happened. Your father did it, and I can assure you that it was his biggest achievement”

“I see”

“Well I’m glad that I’m meeting you and Hannan today”

Rizwan’s eyes opened wide, so he spoke immediately:

“Uh, Mr. Khubaib…Uh, Hannan is not here. He is out for some chore”

“Oh, well that’s ok, I’ll meet him some other time. It’s not a problem for me”

Rizwan didn’t respond as he personally did not want this man to show up again. He however kept on walking and before they could continue their conversation, he said looking at the plastic chair:

“Why don’t you sit here? I will get you some water”

“Sure”

Rizwan rushed to move away from his guest and finally spoke to himself:

Now how can I get rid of him? He seems too clingy. I have to do something about him. I better make him leave quickly. He will spread news about our current family issues, if he finds out.

Rizwan called out his servant:

“Sirtaj, where are you? Come over here!”

Sirtaj came immediately and asked:

“Yes, what do you want sir?”

“I have a guest outside, I need your advice. How can I send him away?”

“Send him away? But why? I mean aren’t you pleased with him?”

“You don’t know that my wife just left me, do you?”

“She left you? Why?” Sirtaj asked getting surprised.

“It’s a long story, right now I want to be alone and I want to him to leave. Can you help me out Sirtaj?”

“How? I mean why? No I mean, who is this person?”

“He is Khattab Razaq’s brother. I wasn’t expecting him, nobody was. But I was expecting his brother”

“So why aren’t you meeting him? Wasn’t he closer to your father?”

“No he wasn’t. And I don’t care about this person, let him leave. Right now I want to be alone”

Saying this, Rizwan walked towards the table where he had listed down his father’s prophecies on a paper. As he got there, the paper wasn’t there. He looked around under the table and the sofa to find it out but he wasn’t able to.

“What are you looking for?” Sirtaj asked him.

Rizwan did not answer and kept on looking for his note. Sirtaj asked again slightly raising his voice:

“Sir Rizwan, what are you trying to find? May I help you?”

“I’m looking for a piece of paper, it was a list that I had made last night”

Sirtaj left the spot saying:

“Ok I will help you find it but first let me give some water to the guest”

“Yeah, sure” Rizwan answered.

Sirtaj went to the kitchen and after filling the glass with water, he walked towards the garden of the house. As he reached the garden, he found that the guest had gone.

Sirtaj immediately went back to Rizwan and asked:

“Sir, was there any guest at all? Because no one is here at the garden”

“There isn’t?” Rizwan asked getting badly surprised.

“You can see it for yourself”

Rizwan then remembered the list he was looking for.

Few minutes later at some restaurant nearby, Khubaib was handing over the same note to Hannan. Hannan took it from him and commented:

“I hope you have found something important for me”

“Just read what is mentioned here and you will be thankful to me”

Hannan read out the list in his heart:

1. A dark period will come to this family.

2. Our father’s grave would be crushed.

3. My daughter will see a lot of pain and torment in her life.

4. A two-faced person will illegally capture the land that belonged to us once.

5. The first phase of the mischief would be different than the last phase.

6. A liar will see several owls in a single night.

“Oh my God” Hannan uttered loudly.

“Well I don’t know what these exactly mean…” Khubaib replied, “but I want to know it from you”

“This is a detailed conversation but right now I am glad that you did a great job. You played well”

“Thank you, you don’t have to mention it” Khubaib spoke courteously.

“Anyways, now that I have these, I am going to make sure that no one harms my father’s soul”

“How can anyone harm his soul?”

“There are many ways, but you cannot understand it like this. Anything that displeases him would torment him in his grave. This is what I believe”

“If that is what you believe then don’t you think that you are responsible for bringing pain on him?”

“Me?” Hannan asked a bit furiously. “How? How did you even think that?”

“Tell me seriously, don’t you think that you accusing Rizwan of murdering him would ruin your father’s peace”

Hannan was left literally speechless on this.

“…No I don’t” Hannan spoke reluctantly after a long moment of pause.

“Ok” Khubaib answered giving an expression of ‘he didn’t care’.

After few seconds, Hannan kept the paper on the table and spoke:

“So tell me, what else did you observe?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean to ask what else did you observe there with Rizwan?”

“Well, while he was talking to his servant, I heard him saying that his wife had left him”

“What? Say that again!” Hannan felt kind of stunned.

“I’m saying that most probably his wife has left him, I’m not sure but I think heard something similar”

“Oh dear Lord, this was not my part of plan” Hannan spoke in lower voice. “In fact I never wanted them to separate like this”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m not happy about this. I did not want this to happen”

“It shouldn’t matter to you, you are not responsible for this”

“I’m not?” Hannan looked up at him and asked.

“Come on, think about it. You had nothing to do with it. You never intended that, you were not even bothered about their personal life”

“I know but I think that breaking them apart had something to do with me”

“That is also not true. There can be plenty of other reasons behind why she left him”

“Such as?” Hannan asked getting interested in knowing the reasons.