Syeda Batool Fatima Rizvi
08496
Batool_fatima16@hotmail.com
It was the summer of 2010. That one dark night that changed my life forever. Every time I think about it the horrific images come right in front of my eyes as vividly as the night I’d seen them, sending nasty chills down my spine all over again. The fear, the terror that had griped me then denies to elude me even today. Even after four years, I’m still the scared little 18 year old girl who saw people get killed brutally and mercilessly right In front of her eyes, especially when she could easily have been one of them, if the police had not intervened and saved her from such fate.
I remember clearly the events of that June night. It was just like every other day in the bustling city of Karachi. I’d woken up to the sound of noisy car horns and rickshaws , below my balcony, stuck in the never ending traffic of the city and the loud shopkeepers calling out to passer bys to entertain them into buying items at reasonable discounts. And then my mom had reminded me of the errands I had to make and the things I had to get done that day ,promptly getting me out of bed and out to work. I was pretty much done with everything by evening except for a bank visit that I had to make but I was so hungry that I stopped by a restaurant instead. It was dark by the time I’d finished eating so I hurried to be done with the errands and reach home. I had just gotten inside the bank when everything changed all at once.
Five masked men all in black came inside and started firing at once. Loud, ear popping shots that chilled me to my bones. One of them pulled down the shutter of the bank, giving me a glimpse of the dead guard lying lifeless outside by the door, while other two pushed the few people that were inside the bank to the walls, including me. The men demanded for the money and when they got it I tried to calm myself down a bit that once they get the money they will leave. Until I realized they weren’t just going to take the money but kill all the witnesses as well when they pulled two innocent men from the opposite wall by their collars and killed them mercilessly. It was all happening so fast. The air was thick with the nauseating smell of blood. I could barely believe my eyes when the men didn’t have mercy even on a small child and killed her brutally right in front of her mother! That blood curdling scream that her mother gave upon seeing her daughter getting killed, made me feel such tremendous terror that in a way scarred me for life. I’d lost all hope of remaining alive amidst these monsters. I was almost certain that the next bullet that would come out would hit me when I heard police sirens outside.
The masked men inside then rushed out through the back door with the money. They made it. They were out before the police could break the shelter and come in. But at least I was alive. Alive and breathing. And the nightmare…was over. Or at least I thought it was.
Because since that day there has not been a single day in my life when I didn’t feel trapped and terrified. Terrified that it might happen again. Terrified that those people would come for me one day. It took me months before I could even step out of my house after that event. I had nightmares so intense and so real that I’d woken up many time screaming and shaking and sweating with fear. I found it hard to stay in closed spaces. I found it hard to trust people. I especially loathed going to the banks. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Life went on like this until this one day when I met a girl who later turned out to be a true inspiration for me. There I was this very day, being forced to go to my aunt’s house. I walked down the lane, glancing around nervously, still suspicious of my surroundings. I heard her before I saw her, she was shouting at her brother and her words piqued my curiosity. Finally, the girl came into my view as I entered into my aunt’s porch. She was a relative on my uncle’s side, and I knew her story: she had lost her leg in a bomb blast last year. However, to my surprise, there she was, the very girl I had heard people speaking of with pity in their voice, moving around like a whirl wind on her wheel chair, dunking basket after basket past her physically superior brother. She was satisfied with whatever she had. She hadn’t lose faith in God and life. Nothing was scary to her. She wasn’t afraid of facing people. She wasn’t wasting her life because of that one event. She wasn’t a coward like I was. I stood there, amused by the sight.
Now I have come to terms with that event and I am going to change my habits. God saved me that day for a reason. A reason that I am going to uncover and serve it. May come what may. At least I won’t die a coward. I will not live in constant terror anymore and quack with fear every time I leave the sanctuary of my house. I will rise in the face of evil. I will not back down. I will NOT give up.