Girl

Preface
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/ Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

(Coleridge, Kubla Khan)

Let’s talk you and I, let’s talk about a girl. Let’s intrude a world that sprang twenty two years tonight.

On a warm, pleasant, moonlit night, February the fourteenth, or the fourteenth of February; a girl was born to her wonderful parents.

Very much unlike tonight there was no snow, the moon was out, the stars were radiant, and the air was pleasant. The location was a tropical city called Moqdishu.

We shall call this girl, Girl.

Disappointment was apparent. Why couldn’t she have been born on February the fifteenth or the fifteenth of February like her Mother? The little thing was; I’m afraid to say, quite, quite useless. Why hasn’t she waited few years to spring? Why had she interrupted Mother’s education? Useless questions! Nonetheless, she arrived and was welcomed for her advent.

A sheep was slaughtered thanking Allah for her safe arrival. Her grandmothers sang her a song of Dua’aa (prayer). In the hospital; Mother refused to depart from Girl even to the washroom, lest another mother replaces her own child with Girl. What a silly eighteen year old was Mother! Silliness continued! Her fourteen year old uncle tried feeding her cookies on her first day home. Excitement spread in her father’s house! Everyone wanted to hold Girl. She was passed on and on and on, till Mother put her foot down. Father was the most excited. On the first day he literally stole Girl from her Mother while a sleep to show her off to his buddies. What a silly twenty four year old was Father!

That was the excitement Girl brought.

Perhaps she was less of a disappointment and more of a blessing. Twenty two years tonight; prove the unconditional love she received from both parents. However, our interest; you and I; is not her birth, but her life, her deepest thoughts, her essence.

I am to convey to you what makes Girl. Perhaps you and I will not fully indulge in Girl’s deepest spring of thoughts and actions. I doubt she even knows herself that well, but you and I will decipher historical life events and presume that Girl came out the way she did because of certain things in her life. I will be the narrator for the next few pages. I will remain in the shadows. But that is only because I haven’t switched the lights on.

You and I will be doing a sort of psychoanalysis to Girl, connecting dots between her subconscious and conscience, between her actions, thoughts, views, and what brought them to be.

Since girl can remember she was fond of words. She was fond of what she can do with words. She was fond of what can be done to words. Since she can remember she loved reading and writing.

To proceed with our mission, we will divide her life to two parts reflecting the circumstances she was in: peace and war. Then we will further divide the two sections into subsections reflecting her major fundamentals.

As mentioned, Girl was born in Somalia; however, she spent only the first year of her life in that country. Prior to her birth; her parents resided in Saudi Arabia, thus after her birth the family moved back to Saudi abandoning her birth country; forever. Subsequently, her family deserted Saudi Arabia fourteen years after her birth to live in Canada.