They made fun of the paint peeling off the walls and the bricks that were getting loose. The chairs were too hard for them to sit into and the bed not warm enough. They stared at the blackened walls as if they made ugly faces at them. My father’s old rickshaw was to them a funny sight. Their frosty gaze pierced through the cloth that covered our windows instead of glass.

They had a quick lunch sitting in my dingy kitchen as mother made them hot rotis. They left after a curt handshake, smirking to each other. I saw them till they bent the corner and vanished.

I had tears in my eyes as I turned to go back inside. My gaze fell on the rickshaw standing alone on patches of green. It wasn’t the rickshaw I could see then.

My father had come home after the day. He smiled as he saw us. We rushed into his tired arms and he kissed his exhaustion away. His mouth smelled of hunger yet his eyes gleamed as he took us for a ride around the house before retiring for the day. We huddled around the kitchen fire as we had our dinner. Mother sat in the rickety chair beside our cold beds as she transported us into our world of fantasy, lulling us into the arms of sleep. It wasn’t the blankets but her presence that kept us warm through the night.

Mother was calling me inside. It was time for father’s medicine. I glanced one last time at the dilapidated walls of the house that my friends had seen today. If only they could have come home instead.

My friend wrote this. Her name is Namra Sultan. She is as beautiful as she writes.