The Dreams Filsan Wishes to Sue

[Abtigiis]

PART I

 

Did I like Sahal more than Abib because he goes hard and long? Filsan introspected involuntarily, but quickly regained dignity and decorum. It was 25 December 2007.

 

I shouldn’t think about bad memories.

 

Except it is not a memory. It is real.

 

The drip drips of the falling water in the adjacent bathroom were real. The falling water was more fortunate than her. She felt the water stroking the hairless chest of Sahal, sojourning momentarily at the wide pit of his navel, and flowing past the forbidden thighs she used to pinch only two years ago.

 

The water, grateful it was allowed to traverse the contours of such regal physique undisturbed, only started to squawk when it thumps the white sink – the solicitous sink that indefatigably hosts the sins of mankind before it is buried in the cesspool as a waste. The sink – on which Sahal’s tall legs stood as his hands scratched the front and back of his frame to cleanse his skin of dirt. How he wished the sins of his soul are also cleansed!

 

Filsan shut her eyes tight and shook her head vigorously to expel the foul sketch of a nude alien man from her mind.

She succeeded thanks to the soft voice of Abib.

 

“Filsan, did you see my notebook?” Abib asked, worried more about losing the outline for the Friday prayer sermon – he will have to deliver in two hours – less about the notebook itself.

 

“Don’t worry. I put in the bedroom”. Filsan’s words reassured Abib; Abib’s query awakened her from a reverie of guilt and discomfiture.

 

She returned back to the muddled reality of the real world. She calls it the perverted world. How can they call this a real world? She muses.

 

Two years ago she married Abib. Two years and six months ago she slept between Sahal and Abib, gazing at the chandeliers of the brothel she worked in, wondering if the two men who were reining on her crimson that cold night were sane. She never blamed herself for the two men’s depraved carnal conflation.

 

“Did I choose this? Did I bring myself into this shame? Can I stop the men from doing this?” She was at peace with herself. “And…and…by the way” she said to herself “is sleeping with two men at the same time more sinful than sleeping with two or three in two alternate nights?” She knew that prostitution is a sin. She also knew that the sin doesn’t get bigger with each act of fornication.

 

Filsan blames her parents who did not take care of her. They did not educate her. As a child she trekked every other day from a village to a nearby town with her mom who earned a livelihood from selling firework. At 13, the parents – with 8 more children – heard that young girls of Filsan’s age are making money in the town. They sent her to work as a maid.

 

She was ignorant. She was confused. But her beauty was also confounding even the most sober of menfolk. To her luck, – Batuulo – the lady she worked for proved to be more than a good master. She became a real mother to Filsan. Batuulo gave the young girl food and remuneration. And more. She gave her guidance. She protected her from the prying eyes of evil men.

 

“O! has Abib already left for the mosque”, Sahal, drying his hair with a blue towel, asked Filsan.

 

“Why didn’t he wait for me?” Sahal and Abib always go to the Mosque together.

 

“You stayed in the shower for a while. Abib said, as the Imam of the Mosque, he should arrive on time”. Filsan said.

 

“He said you and him are going to have lunch outside today. So, I am not preparing food here.” She added.

Sahal nodded and went to his room to dress up for the Friday prayers.

 

Mama Batuulo felt insulted when she heard that Filsan has gone. Filsan stayed with Batuulo for two years only.

“Women – old or young – are all thankless. A man would at least have told me he is leaving! What did she miss here, people?” The old woman fumed at her neighbours who told her that Filsan has joined other “youth” whose destination was said to be South Africa.

 

Before Abib proposed, she was at the brothel where she met Abib and Sahal for three solid years. The first year was painful; the second was better, the only calamity being the scar on the left cheek which she got from a drunkard Zulu who cut her with a nail-cutter. Unless she felt hungry, or her savings dwindled so low that the next morning meal was at risk, she avoided accepting non-Somali customers. She would oblige their teases, accept drinks but always hid herself at the last minute.

 

She slept with Somalis and Asians; the latter always elderly. These encounters confirmed the validity of the Somali adages to her.

 

A cleric never goes to heaven leaving kin and kith behind.

 

It is true. Most Somali men who visited her were good to her. They treated her like a compatriot sister. Some even gave her money and implored her to leave the place. She took the money not their cynical advices.

 

“If they care about me as a sister, why do they use my body?” She gripes at times.

[Abtigiis]

PART II

 

But she always understood them. Most were men who worked at the townships. To be fair to them, they only visited her during the freezing winter months. The hardworking men at the townships of South Africa are decent men. Top in their to-do-list as soon as they get enough money is to marry a Somali girl. When the brides are “gabdho” (Virgin), they come from home villages in Somalia, Kenya or Ethiopia. Where they are “garoob”, Sweden, with its sundry single mothers, supplied the most brides.

 

Sahal and Abib shared Filsan only one night. Sahal was the one who agreed with Filsan for the nocturnal duty. That year was in 2005, two full years before Sahal and Abib finally found the path of God. That night, they were both drunk. As Sahal slept, immersed with the perspiration of appeased lust, Abib found Filsan irresistible and saw no reason to disdain the free prize of a superfluous filly. She did not mind the mount. Sin is not a mathematical function. It has not numbers. One or two or three does not apply for sins.

 

In the following months, both Sahal and Abib visited Filsan several times. Each knew about the other’s nights with the beautiful whore. So, it was a shock to Sahal when Abib proposed to Filsan. Proposed is an overstatement. He merely asked her if she agrees to marry him and she agreed.

 

The thought of a selfless Somali man who would marry her one day did occur to her in some instances, but she never expected that man to be Abib. Abib knew about Sahal, Sahal knew about Abib, so although both were regular visitors, she did not think one of them will be taker.

 

Whenever the sordid thought that she may have preferred Sahal if she had an option creeps into her mind, she curses herself for her ungratefulness.

 

It was Abib who made her a woman. A Marwo in a new Town. And soon a Marwo in a new continent – America.

 

There is more to marital prefixes than mere designation, mere appellations. These prefixes are monuments of dignity; stamps of purity; echoes of exclusivity. They are society’s hoodwinking metaphors even when the holders of the honorary titles are ugly sinners. They are detergents that cleanse past sins; paints that ameliorate clandestine present depravity.

 

Marwo Filsan lives in a two bedroom apartment in Cape Town, far away from Pretoria where she left her sins – in the Asian brothel she worked in. Sahal and Abib live together, as they lived always. The two friends agreed to save money by living together instead of paying two rentals.

 

“Breakfast is ready.” Filsan tell both men every sunrise. She cooks and feeds them. But at night, only one man owns her. Sahal for her is a dumaashi. Sahal for Filsan is a dumaashi. He never transgressed. She never desired Sahal in her real moments.

 

Abib was right about his friend. Sahal keeps promises.

 

The problem isn’t Sahal. Nor is it Filsan’s desire. The problem is Filsan’s dreams and daily mirages that bring bad thoughts; that smuggles bad sketches of a body – she should not know about but she knows about in atomic details – into her mind.

 

The two men are happy. It is she, who is tormented by dreams and filthy thoughts.

 

“Merry Christmas, dear viewers.” The SABC news reader –wearing a white shirt and yellow tie – was on the TV that night.

As if to cement the moral supremacy of his faith, the newsreader read a scary report about Somalia – as the trio in Filsan’s house – watched.

 

The report was about Alshabab militants in Somalia who beheaded a young girl and a 42 year old for adultery.

 

Abib reacted to the news first. “Many people in the world say AlShabab are murderous zealots. Many Somalis share the view that they are messing the country. I don’t know.”

 

He continued, “I don’t know what they are doing or if they are messing the country. But one thing I like about them is their stance on adultery and prostitution. They deal with the offenders strictly. They implement God’s judgment to the letter.”

 

Filsan did not speak.

 

Her mind was fuming at an enemy big and pervasive enough to warrant trial. If there were courts that had jurisprudence over the unreal world, I would have sued my dreams, my imaginations.

 

In truth, the enemy she wanted to sue was her vivid recollections.

 

Is thinking about who stayed long and who did not a sin? She ruminated ashamedly.

 

What is better? A soft heart or hard loins?

 

It a question whose answer she knew.

 

She cried in gratitude and love, thanking in her heart the man who made her a human being. Knowing that she loves Abib made her happy.

[oba hiloowlow]

sheeko waalan doesn't make sense

[Alpha Blondy]

there is something of the night about these stories.....

[Salahudin]

nice read!

[xabad]

Don't be a one trick pony. expand your repertoire and leave your comfort zone. you have have flogged this kinda stories to death.

[Haatu]

.

[Abtigiis]

Xabad, you are right the theme is getting repetitive, but then I can write only what i hear. I swear I did not want to wrote this particular story but a friend if mine in Sudan today said he was a witness to this story. I was shocked, so naturally wanted to shock.

 

This Apophis creature is proving to be something clever. I should make him my spokesman. He got this one right. This story should have been in the Women's section. It is supposed to get them by when they are waiting for an episode of " desperate housewives".

 

Anyway, as you may have observed I have taken a sabbatical from Politics; which means I am not interested in talking to men of SOL. I vowed not to return to the politics section until Oodweeyne returns. Sports are also not interesting these days, Man U is leading by too many points and tuujiye and Bob are not around.

 

I am therefore participating in the women's section even when I post stuff in the General section. Therefore men readers please don't read my stories. Please. It is not like I don't what appeals to you. It is that I am interested in the attention of the womenfolk.

[xabad]

My bad, i didn't check if it was the women's section or not.

[oba hiloowlow]

oba hiloowlow;903377 wrote:

sheeko waalan doesn't make sense

war imam masjid and goin to a brothel doesn't make sense

[rudy-Diiriye]

quuq ma jaba niin kiisa jabah!! haji abtiyo aaya la yidi....u have no clue what a price i paid when to comes ladies, specially xalimoos from qurbaha...nowdays, i eat one burrito a day and chill w/my senorita...! Garcia babe

 

worlds 2nd profession is always saver than world's first profession if u dont get 2 greedy!! so........watch u steps with world's 1st professionals. and this is just a literal term...nevertheless... asta la vista stinkers!!

 

Wajakaman aka Rudy.

 

[Abtigiis]

But she always understood them. Most were men who worked at the townships. To be fair to them, they only visited her during the freezing winter months. The hardworking men at the townships of South Africa are decent men. Top in their to-do-list as soon as they get enough money is to marry a Somali girl. When the brides are “gabdho” (Virgin), they come from home villages in Somalia, Kenya or Ethiopia. Where they are “garoob”, Sweden, with its sundry single mothers, supplied the most brides.

I was thinking this will ignite virtual fist-fight from SOL girls in Sweden. Apparently, they did not even notice it.

[rudy-Diiriye]

i am sure this excludes xaliimo single mothers in sweden..... Remember, all blk man in africa with lil cash only dream about white blond ladies. Thus xaliimos cant ride this boat!

[wyre]

I think i've read this story more than five times, I was thinking what, if this happened to someone you know, or maybe you, how could these two friends share the same house when is married to someone he used to sleep with, is there really some people who are as honest as abib and sahal, I think I've learnt the price of friendship from this story

[Reeyo]

Apophis;903410 wrote:

Lets talk royalties sxb and the title of the novel. I'm thinking: "40 shades of grey" (you can translate it to Somali). It's a well known name and will appeal to a younger demographic

 

I'll fax you the papers!

I absolutely abhor the name and the fame it is gathering in the UK. I am disapointed with the Brits, they are even making a movie about it! Dumbing down of the nation. Lol

 

Great read Aptigis. I particularly like the honest friendship between Abeb and Sahal.