Khurrum Rahman - Ride or Die

I couldn’t wait any longer. The thought of Saheed’s emotion in front of the cameras fuelled mine, and my body moved of its own accord. I don’t remember stepping out of my car. I don’t remember tucking the Glock into the waist of my trousers and slipping the suppressor in my inside pocket. All I know is that I was striding through the snow, the plastic food bags secured tightly over my shoes and hands with elastic bands.

The weather had picked up. The gentle fall of snow was now torrential rain, dropping from a black cloud that would forever follow me. I pulled my baseball cap low and my scarf high. It gave little protection against the strong wet wind, biting into me, trying to blow me back the way I came.

God’s way.

But me and Him, we were no longer talking.

I lifted my eyes and through the storm I glanced at number 65 across the road. My eyes furtive and busy, taking in everything. Upstairs the bedrooms lights were on, shining a ray through the gap in the curtains. Downstairs, the living room light was off, but the glare of the television through the net curtains illuminated one figure.

I dropped my gaze and moved past the house. Further down, two houses next to each other had their lights switched off. Number 71 and number 73. Only a metal gate between the two houses separated them. I crossed the road and without breaking stride I rested one foot on the metal gate and scaled over. I hurried around to the rear of the house and into the back garden. The fences were head-height but the adrenaline made me feel light as I lifted myself over with ease. I ducked low under washing lines as I crossed from garden to garden to garden, until I was standing in the Kabirs’ garden.

I craned my neck up. Upstairs the toilet light came on.

I pressed myself to the house and sidestepped to the back door. I peered inside, through the frosted window. No movement, just the muted sound of the television. I removed the Glock from my waist and wrapped the tail of my scarf around the butt of the gun and then tapped it firmly against the window. The glass fell gently onto the kitchen mat on the other side. I put my hand through; the glass cutting into my forearm caused me no pain. My hand landed on the lock. I turned it and stepped inside their home as glass crunched under my shoes.

I looked around the kitchen as I attached the suppressor to the Glock. It was dark but I could make out a tower of mismatched Tupperware on the worktop. The neighbours. They would have rallied around at this tragic time and forced home-cooked meals into the hands of the Kabirs. I moved out of the kitchen and into the narrow hallway. Flashes of light and music from the television travelled from the living room. I stopped halfway into the hallway as an unwelcome memory hit me and I stood staring, just as I had eight months ago. Hung on the wall, the Ayut-al-Kursi in swirling Arabic written and engraved in wood. A prayer that once meant so much to me and was threatening to do so again. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped my gun tightly and let them in again.

Smiling. Laughing. Living. Dying.

I exhaled hard and walked past the prayer without another look. With the Glock in my grip hanging low by my side, I stepped into the living room.

To my left the television was tuned into a music channel, heavy drum and bass accompanied by flashing lights. I turned to my right. Rafi’s older brother, Asif, had already leaped up from his armchair and was hurtling towards me, the flashing from the television made his movements appear jerky. He cut the distance quickly. I blinked as a tight fist gripped around a remote control came towards me, connecting just above my eye, knocking my baseball cap off. I absorbed it. No pain. No fucking pain! The batteries dropped out of the remote and cracked loudly on the laminate floor. A second blow, same place, and I felt a trickle of blood above my eyebrow. I switched the Glock from my left to right hand and swiped across, blindly catching Asif flush on the jaw and dropping him. He looked up at me. Anger turned to recognition and then realisation.

‘Imran?’ he said, getting himself up on his knees. He spat out a bloody tooth. I lifted the Glock and pointed it to his chest. ‘I couldn’t have known… I didn’t know Rafi was going to—’

I pulled the trigger and felt the bullet travelling through my heart and through my arm and popping quietly out of my hand and into his heart.

Asif dropped back, his head meeting the floor with his legs still tucked underneath his body. I breathed in three times through my nose and out of my mouth.

I would not let the guilt in. He had a hand in this.

I turned away and moved out of the living room. I passed framed family photos hung on the wall as I slowly climbed the stairs, the last of the family’s memories. I stood on the landing, the Glock impatiently tapping against my leg. To the left, a light seeped underneath the bathroom door. To the right, a bedroom, door ajar. I pushed it open slowly. The room was lit dimly from a small football-shaped table lamp. Rafi’s room.

By the side of the bed, Rafi’s mother was standing on a prayer mat, hands clasped against her chest, her face a picture of peace. I watched her for a moment, just as I’d watched my Khala pray so many times. She moved her hands to her knees as she bent down towards Mecca, and then knelt in the Sajdah position, her forehead touching the floor as she recited Subhana Rabbiyal A’laa, three times.

The Glock twitched in my hand.

She sat up, back straight, such was the discipline, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the prayer mat even though there was no doubt that she would have noticed in her peripheral vision a stranger in her home.

She turned her head slowly over her right shoulder to the angel who records good deeds and softy whispered, ‘ As-salamu-alaykum Rahmattulah .’ She turned her head slowly over her left shoulder to the angel who records wrongful deeds and softly whispered, ‘ As-salamu-alaykum Rahmattulah .’ It signalled the end of prayers.

She folded the prayer mat twice over and got to her feet. Turning her back to me, she placed the mat on the bookshelf, amongst Islamic literature mixed in with comics. She sat down on Rafi’s bed, her hands clasped together on her lap, and for the first time lifted her eyes to me. She nodded.

The gun felt heavy as I lifted my arm and pointed it at her. I nodded back and shot her in the chest. She fell to her side, her head finding her son’s pillow.

I would not let the guilt in. She had a hand in this.

I stepped out of the bedroom and waited on the landing for Saheed Kabir, faithful servant of Ghurfat-al-Mudarris. A man who helped fight a war that to many was justified. He was a small part of a huge movement, one that had become too powerful in the battle against the West, against the deaths of innocent Muslims across the world. He was a man who had educated his two sons with nothing but hatred towards the West and hatred towards the Kafir.

In the eyes of his ten-year-old son, I was that Kafir . I was that Munafiq . I was that traitor .

I heard the sound of the flush and then the sound of running water. I lifted the Glock and pointed it at the toilet door. The water stopped, the handle turned and the door opened.

Saheed met my gaze before his eyes moved towards the bedroom, then back on me. Filled with dread, his mouth moved, a silent question on his lips.

I answered it with a slow shake of my head.

Saheed fell heavily to his knees, a tear escaping from his eyes as his obese body shook and shuddered. ‘Asif?’ His voice barely above a whisper. ‘My son?’

I shook my head again and his howl deafened me as tears flooded his eyes.