HEAVEN HAS NO MERCY AT ALL

HEAVEN HAS NO MERCY AT ALL

Heaven! Heaven has no mercy! No mercy at all!

The sky is a pale hue of tangerine, my spirit is fractured, my grandmother is six
feet under.

The grown up ladies of the household each hold a silver tray in their carefully
manicured hands; full of neon-coloured candies, some moist with sweat. My
mother's candies are dry just like her heavily made, dark brown eyes are dry.
She slaps my hand gently "Candies are for the guests only!" She wears
a black dress with a crimson color. "My mother will be turning in her
grave now!" Aunt Shehrazad whispers in my father's ear shooting a
poison-green look at my mother's direction.

Aunt Shehrazad looks like my grandma, my father does not: marble grey eyes, an aubergine
shaped nose and both sporting Dora the Explorer's mouth.

 My father holds my tiny, cotton-ball like
hand and drags me to the beach after the wake. I don't know why on earth or
heaven it is called a wake; my grandmother will never be awake, ever again!

I wear my navy-blue coat my mother says black is not a good look on a ten year
old. Aunt Shehrazad says my grandmother is in heaven now with the huris and the
angels. Aunt Shehrazad is an excellent story-teller: she told me all about
huris, genies, angel of death, tooth-fairies, angel of messenger. My mother
says none of these exist. When people die, they don't go to heaven or hell,
their decaying flesh fertilise the earth for daisies to grow on.

"Will grandma Daisy turn into a daisy now?" I ask my father on the
beach while I take off my pink shoes to get rid of the sand. The sand glitters
under the fine rays of sun like fine grains of pure gold. "All that
glitters ain't gold!"  My grandma told me. "The sand is just the
sand! One day, we will all turn into sand!" In school, they taught us all
about the sand: the sand is composed of finely divided rock and mineral
particles. This I tell grandma! She listens intently.

Grandma finished middle-school with distinction. Her father would not let her
study further. "Girls who go to university turn into cheap whores!"
He wagged his finger at grandma and made her go to take up the hijab and study
Quaran..

She forgot all about science but she still had a sharp mind for Maths and
money. She gave her hijab up when her father died. When Aunt Shehrazad wanted
to take up the Hijab: "Over my dead body!" She said. Aunt Shehrazad
gave my nana's silent body a huge hug while playing with her hijab. When I
placed a lavender on her brilliant white shroud, she gave me a secret smile.
Her favourite is Jasmine. This year Jasmine has not bloomed. My mother sprayed
the corpse with Chanel No5; the room smelt of 1001 Jasmine fields. Imam Effendi
said where my grandma was going lavender,  Jasmine and roses were
plentiful.

Grandma did not believe in heaven and hell. "Hell is other people busy
bodying themselves with so-called religion and virtue. Heaven is a country
without a religion!" So, she arrived in London with my father still
suckling on her earthy breasts; a city with religions as numerous as Ganesh's arms.
When she saved enough money they moved to Cornwall.

I walk hand in hand with my father: his eyes moist, mine wet. It frightens me
when my father is contemplative. He squeezes my hand with his beastly hand. It
hurts a little but I don't tell him that. We stare at the sea, the sea is
sea-green and calm. I see an ice-cream van, my mouth waters slightly.

We arrive near the beast-like, mud coloured rocks. I collect some shells while
my father climbs on the rocks. I feel a pile of bones under my wet touch. My
father comes down when I scream and holds me; my rosy complexion turns ashen as
I catch a glimpse of a skull with some auburn hair still intact, wild grin and
eye sockets an intense shade of hell. The air is perfumed with the smell of
sea, fish and sea-gulls' excrement.
"Close your eyes! Don't look!" My father urges me.

So I peep. He tries to usher me away from the skeleton while I gaze at a
blue-green smoke coming out of the corpse's eye sockets. The policemen arrived,
they cordoned off the rocks and removed the corpse. The following week it is
all over the papers, we are all over the papers : the corpse belonged a girl my
age who went missing a decade or so ago. "Murder mystery solved. The beast
buried the child deep in the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean. Her soul can rest
peacefully in heaven now" My father and I are hand in hand, me wearing my
navy blue-coat and white baby doll dress, my father his black coat and shiny
pointy black shoes. Me looking like a frightened kitten with my deep grey marble
like eyes, my father like a poet with dark blue, sad eyes gazing at the sea.
"It must be your grandma's spirit losing its way and ending up in the
corpse's eye socket en route to heaven!" Aunt Shahrazade  concludes
with her matronly voice,  looking as  excited as a famished puppy who
had just seen a bone.
My parents roll their eyes and give each other a sneaky smile like they always
do when my aunt talks about spirits, heaven and hell.