Fizza

Fizza waited for the hospice nurse to wrap Nani-ma’s arm. “I’m sorry you had to make an extra visit because of us. I don’t know how she keeps getting out of her bed,” Fizza explained. The nurse gently placed Nani-ma’s hand on the bed. “Please don’t beat yourself up about this. It’s impossible to watch someone 24/7,” the nurse responded. Fizza twisted her hands, her shoulders taut with the tension of the last several hours. “How is it possible for her to even get out of bed? She has a broken hip” she asked. “Actually, it’s more common than you’d think. There’s a possibility that the pain isn’t registering for her anymore, with how far her dementia has progressed. While it might be a balm for her in some ways, as you can see, it can be unsafe too”.

Fizza paused, trying to make sense of what the nurse was describing. Nani-ma stared blankly at them. The bandage was the only evidence of her grandmother’s skinned arm. Her face revealed nothing.

“There was so much blood. If that was me, I’d still be screaming” she said. The nurse looked at Fizza, her brown eyes filled with compassion. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She’s hurt, but it’s not life-threatening, and we need to take a win where we can find one.” She stood up, packing her bag. “I left the comfort kit in the fridge. She seems to be comfortable now, but if anything changes, the instructions for how to administer the medication are all in the box.” The nurse hesitated. “Are you sure you feel comfortable watching her on your own?” Fizza smiled bitterly, “well, I don’t seem to have much of a choice.”

*****

Fizza stared at the wedding photographs, positioned neatly on the hallway table. Seema Aapi and Hasan Bhai gazing adoringly at each other in one, Seema Aapi smiling coyly at the camera in another, and the last, a family picture: Baba, Nani-ma, Seema Aapi, and Fizza. Nani-ma smiled brightly at Fizza through the photograph. Suddenly, Fizza felt a hand on her shoulder. Fizza jumped at the unexpected presence. “Sorry, I realized I forgot my phone charger” Baba explained, apology creased in his forehead, “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Fizza waited for the pounding in her heart to lessen before she responded, “no, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting you.”

Baba stood in the hallway. He wore ill-fitting, creased scrubs. His grey hair fell limply to his ears. The shadows under his eyes seemed even darker than when Fizza last saw him. “Is...is everything okay?” Fizza asked. “I thought you were off work today.” Baba sighed. “The charge nurse for tonight called out, and they asked me if I could come in.” Fizza’s brow tensed. “Baba, you’ve talked to them about this. You’ve worked the last three nights in a row, this isn’t the schedule you agreed to.'' Baba inched towards the door, his face resolute. “Fizza Jaan, I don’t know what you want from me. If the hospital needs me, the hospital needs me.” Fizza felt a tendril of resentment creep through her, snaking its way up her body and wrapping itself around her heart. “I promise you, tomorrow night I’ll be off. You can get a break and I’ll watch Nani. Khudafiz and call me if you ne-”

Baba closed the door behind him, barely finishing his goodbye, and Fizza felt the tendril, snaked so cleverly around her heart, pull.

*****

Fizza loved her home at nighttime. Although it had been a year since her sister’s wedding, the string lights they hung up still welcomed her each evening. The lights twinkled softly through the home. Fizza walked through the kitchen, down the hallway, and stopped in front of the stairs. The chair lift, installed to help Nani-ma, was stopped in the middle of the stairs.

“That’s strange,” Fizza muttered to herself. Confined to the hospital bed in her room, nani’s lift had fallen out of use after she broke her hip.

Fizza dismissed the nagging feeling in the back of her head. She climbed the stairs, one by one, feeling heavier with every step. Since becoming her grandmother’s caregiver, Fizza’s nighttime routine had gone from a small snack and a calming shower to medication, wound care, and diaper changes. The dread in the pit of her stomach seemed to be growing each evening. The years wound past her at unthinkable speeds.

Calloused as it sounds, she hadn’t expected Nani to live this long. Fizza always thought she knew death. It had arrived so much quicker in her life than it does for most. First, when she was five. Her mother’s accident. Then, at 7, her Nana’s heart attack. But, she hadn’t known it. Seen it unfold before her. Smelled the stench of it on her clothes. Felt it dragging it’s claw through her life, slowly. Languidly. Taking its time. If her mother and grandfather’s deaths were a bandaid being ripped off, her grandmother’s was an ulcer. Rotting through skin, slowly but surely.

A scream jolted her out of her thoughts.

Fizza ran up the stairs into her grandmother’s room. Her grandmother was clutching the bedrail, trying to pull herself up. Her eyes widened when she saw Fizza. She screamed again, the shriek piercing the reeking air.

“What happened? Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?”

Her grandmother shook her head furiously. “We have to go. We have to go right now.” she babbled. “Go where? Did something happen? Are you okay?” Fizza asked. She checked nani-ma’s arms and legs for any wounds. She saw nothing and breathed a sigh of relief, until she noticed the brown sludge leaking out of her grandmother’s diaper.

“Well, that explains the smell,” she sighed.

Her grandmother, unfazed, began climbing out of the bed again.

“Listen, naani-jaan, we can’t go anywhere. You need to get back into bed before you hurt yourself,” she explained. “You aren’t understanding, Fizza. Please don’t leave me here, please we need to leave.” Nani-ma held her face and began weeping. “I promise, I’m not leaving you. I’ll sleep right here, in your room. We can’t leave, but I won’t leave you.” she reassured her.

Fizza paused as she decided what to do first: clean Nani up or retrieve the medications from the fridge. “If I try to change her now, she’ll be too agitated. It makes the most sense to get the meds, wait for them to kick in, and then clean her up when she’s calmer” she said, to no one in particular.

“Jesus, who am I even talking to? I swear to God sometimes it just feels like-” she muttered to herself as she left the room. Fizza quickly washed her hands in the bathroom and made her way to the staircase.

The lift was at the top.

Fizza’s heart began thudding inside her chest. “I know I saw it in the middle. I know it wasn’t there.” She rubbed her eyes, hoping somehow when she opened them it’d be a trick. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.

It wasn’t.

Fizza’s mind began racing with possibilities. Was someone in the house? Did Baba come back and leave? Why would Baba move the chair at all? Whatever the explanation was, she knew there was no time for hesitation. She could still hear her grandmother, whimpering faintly in her room. The stench began wafting into the hallway. There was no time, no time at all.

“Bismillah hir rahman ir raheem” she began reciting to herself. “Bismillah hir rahman ir raheem” she repeated, with every step, slowly descending into the darkness.

“Why is it so dark down here?” she wondered. Weren’t the string lights on when she went upstairs? “God, my memory is shit these days.” Flicking the kitchen lights on, she hurried to the fridge and retrieved the Haldol, tucked in the comfort kit the nurse had left behind. She closed the door, turned off the lights, and hurried away.

“Shit.” she mumbled, as she bumped into the staircase.

The light in Nani-ma’s room beckoned her. She began climbing the stairs, the darkness looming behind her. Fizza climbed quicker, as if attempting to outrun the encroaching gloom. “Why am I acting like this? Running up the stairs after turning the light off like I’m twelve.” She dismissed her thoughts as she began to focus on the task at hand.

Entering the room, she made a beeline for her grandmother. She administered the medication and set up a sponge bath. “I can bathe you fully in the morning, when Baba’s here. It’s probably not safe for me to do it by myself, especially at night”. Nani-ma’s brown eyes seemed flat now, the fervor had ebbed away and left nothing in its wake. As Fizza began to bathe her grandmother, she began talking to help dispel the uneasiness that still lingered. Although her grandmother seemed fine now, Fizza had been unable to shake the feeling that had been gathering in the nape of her neck. Tension, hot and prickly, seemed to climb up and down her spine.

“Are you feeling a bit better now?” she asked

Nani-ma shrugged.

“What was all that commotion about anyways?”

Nani-ma locked eyes with Fizza. “You won’t believe me if I tell you. You’ll just say I’m some crazy old lady.”

Fizza rubbed her grandmother’s arm, attempting to comfort her. “I promise, whatever it is, I’ll listen.”

“You didn’t listen when I told you we needed to leave,” Nani-ma retorted. Fizza lay her hand on her grandmother’s wrinkled forehead. The skin felt velvety soft beneath her touch. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen then, I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Fizza felt her grandmother’s body tense. “She’s coming, Fizza.”

Fizza groaned internally. The hospice nurse had mentioned this might happen. She told Fizza story after story about paranoid dementia patients, convinced that their rooms were being broken into or that attackers were coming after them. Fizza tried to remember what the nurse had cautioned her to do if her grandmother began exhibiting a similar paranoia.

“Who’s coming?” she asked. Nani-ma’s eyes went wide with fear. “They come when you talk about them. It brings even more.”

“Ok. If she comes, I’ll protect you, okay?” It didn’t feel right to dismiss her grandmother’s fears. Whatever Nani-ma felt seemed real enough to her, so Fizza would protect her like it was real. “We can’t leave, but there must be something we can do to be safe right here.”

Nani-maa thought carefully, her sparse, grey eyebrows furrowed. She sighed. “I just don’t know. Every time I think I know, it slips through my fingers.”

Now, it was Fizza’s turn to think. Her grandmother had been a deeply religious woman, a religious talisman might bring her the comfort she needed.

“What about an aqeeq? Amma said that if we sleep with an aqeeq under our pillow, it’ll protect us from anything.” she suggested. Her face brightened as she remembered the rest of her mother’s advice. “And! Amma said that if the aqeeq breaks or goes missing, then it worked! So, if we wake up in the morning and our aqeeqs are fine, we’ll know that there is nothing to be afraid of.” she said, triumphantly. At this point, she wasn’t even sure who the reassurance was for. The likelihood that Nani-ma would even remember this in the morning was slim. But, there was a small part of Fizza’s mind that could use the comfort of knowing that everything, as strange as tonight felt, was fine.

Nani-ma nodded her head. Fizza ran to the prayer room. Amma and Nani-ma had been the only people of faith in the home. Once Amma died and Nani-ma got sick, the small room was rarely used. There was a dresser in one corner. A small bin with folded prayer mats and clothes in another. “God, I haven’t been here in forever. This looks terrible.” Fizza rifled through the drawers until she found two silver rings with a small, brown gem set in the middle. “Okay, good to go.” she said to herself.

Fizza came back to her grandmother’s room and showed her the ring. “I’m putting this under your pillow.“ she said, while she slipped the ring beneath the stack of pillows. “This will protect you from anything bad, okay?”

Nani-ma’s body visibly relaxed. Even if Fizza didn’t believe in it, the relief her grandmother felt was evident. Her eyes grew heavy with sleep and she began drifting off. Fizza was setting up her bedspread next to her grandmother’s bed when Nani-ma jolted awake. “What about you? What will keep you safe?” Fizza showed her the second ring. She made a show of putting it under her own pillow, as she said “look, I’m safe too.” Reassured, nani-ma lay her head back down and Fizza turned off the light and closed the door.

“Shit. I forgot to read hisaar” she remembered. She wasn’t sure if the short prayers she read every night did anything, but her mother had taught her to say them every night. Fizza imagined a second skin sliding over her, protecting her like a shield. Although it wasn’t her routine, she threw in three claps at the end. Amma told her that wherever the sound reached, that’s how far the protection would extend.

She couldn’t leave her grandmother out of her protection.

As Fizza turned over to fall asleep, she heard it.

Chhaan.

“It’s probably nothing. I’m just hearing things” she told herself.

Chhaan

The noise drew closer. Fizza knew it sounded familiar, like something she’d heard before.

Chhaan

“Are those…are those ghungroo” she thought to herself. Fizza was astounded. The sound was unmistakable now. The soft, tinkling sound of ghungroo. She felt her head spinning. Why would she hear ghungroo? If something was going to go bump in the night, wouldn’t it be something more..predictable? Fizza racked her mind for clues. She thought of every horror movie, every creepy book, anything that she might have seen or read that might provide a clue.

Chhaan

The noise was on the stairs now. Fizza felt desperate. Weren’t ghosts supposed to knock things over? Flicker the lights on and off? Didn’t they smell like sulfur? Fizza sniffed the air, which smelled disappointingly normal.

Chhaan

The noise was in the hallway. “I must be going crazy. They left me alone in the house and now I’ve lost it. I’ve fully lost it.” She looked over at Nani-ma, hoping that at least she wasn’t alone in her terror. Nani-ma snored gently. “God bless the haldol I guess.”

Then, it hit her.

Fizza felt her heart stop. It couldn’t be. Those were just stories her family told to spook the kids. They weren’t real, they couldn’t possibly be real.

Chhaan

The noise was outside the door now. Fizza swore she heard a laugh, the faint sound of a woman’s laugh.

A churdail. The only thing it could be was a churdail.

Fizza shut her eyes tightly and pretended to be asleep. She heard the door swing open.

Chhaan. Chhaan. Chhaan.

Fizza felt the footsteps coming near her. She felt a weight press into her chest. She tried to mime breathing the way she would if she were sleeping, but she could barely get a breath in. She felt it bending over her, coming closer and closer to her face.

“Fizza jaan” it taunted “Fizza jaan, you don’t want to see me?”

That voice. Fizza felt pain jolt through her chest, at hearing her mother’s voice for the first time in ten years.

Fizza kept her eyes closed tightly. She began reading her prayers in her head, but the prayers she had read so confidently only moments before, now seemed to elude her. She grasped internally for the words but they seemed lost. Fizza’s panic had blossomed into full-blown terror, consuming any logic or thought.

Fizza felt a sharp nail drag down her face. “You’ve forgotten what I taught you, what a shame.” it said, voice dripping with malice. Fizza felt it’s hot breath on her ear. Goosebumps erupted across her body. “Tonight, you are lucky.” it said “your trinkets and your prayers might protect you now. Tomorrow, you might not be so lucky” it threatened.

Fizza felt the weight lift off her chest. Her heart began beating normally and she drifted, almost immediately, off to sleep.

******

The light streamed in through Nani-ma’s window, hitting Fizza directly in the face. She groaned and rolled over. Her chest and shoulders ached. “I’m too old to sleep on the floor, my body isn’t built for this anymore,” she grumbled.

The events of the night came back to her, like a flood. “What a bizarre nightmare.” she said to herself. She stood up and checked on Nani-ma. Nani-ma smiled brightly at Fizza and patted her on the check. “Seema, I haven’t seen you in so long. Where have you been?” she said.

So, it was going to be that kind of day, Fizza thought.

Fizza sighed and began rolling up her bedspread. She neatly stacked the pillows in a corner and shook out the sheets. “Wait.” she said. She shook the sheets out one more time. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. She checked under the bed and around the floor. “This can’t be real,” she said, as heart started to pound. Fizza reached under her grandmother’s pillow to look for the ring she placed beneath it. She pulled out the small silver ring and breathed a sigh of relief. “I really need to get a grip,” she thought.

Fizza folded the sheets and went downstairs to make breakfast. The lift chair was at the top of the stairs, the way it always was. “Maybe that was all in my head too,” she thought. As she passed it, something glinted in the morning sun, catching her attention.

She reached down, hands shaking, and picked up the small, silver ring carefully placed on the chair.

Fizza couldn’t believe her eyes. There it was, clear as day.

A silver ring, with a brown stone, fractured into countless pieces.

Translations & Glossary

Nani - grandmother

Nana - grandfather

Ma - term of endearment, often added as a suffix to names or terms

Aapi - honorific, referring to a sister or older woman.

Bhai - honorific, referring to a brother or older man

Baba - father

Amma - mother

Jaan - term of endearment that colloquially translates to dear or darling

Khudafiz - a mixture of persian and arabic, used by Muslims in Iran and South Asia to say goodbye.

Bismillah hir rahman ir raheem - Arabic for “I began in the name of God”. Though it is most often used before the recitation of the Quran, it is commonplace for Muslims to say this before starting tasks.

Aqeeq - a ring made with Carnelian or Agate, used to ward off evil or calamities. This is typically worn by Shia Muslims but occasionally used by Muslims of a variety of backgrounds.

Chhaan - Onomatopoeia used to describe the sound of ghungroo.

Ghungroo - Anklet bells. Used most often in classical dance, though can be worn by anyone.

Churdail - A mythical or legendary creature in South Asian folklore. A vengeful spirit of a deceased woman. They appear as beautiful women. They often wear anklets (as commonly worn by many South Asian women) and can be identified by feet, which are backwards.