Caught in a Fluffle

Saadeya was pregnant. It was a blistering hot day; the sun hung over their heads, and even the horses looked like they were a minute away from collapsing from the heat. But Saadeya didn't care, she was pregnant. She told the hens first, but they didn't care. They laid eggs every day and only asked what took her so long in the first place; they reminded her of the old ladies from her village, always poking their beaks in her business. When she whispered the news into the rabbits' ears, they only cared about how many children she was carrying; she secretly hoped for only one, because she doesn't think she can handle more, at least for now. Only the cows understood her and gathered around her lowing and mooing in celebration of the great gift she was bearing.Her husband was ecstatic, and so was her mother-in-law. All they cared about was that they should host a huge gathering, invite everyone in the village, invite everyone from the neighboring villages. Have a feast—no, two feasts—and slaughter a million animals because killing innocent souls in celebration for the coming of one was logical to them. Saadeya tried to protest but to no avail; both her husband and mother-in-law were headstrong like that. When they set their minds to something, it was going to happen no matter what, so she took no part in their planning and dreamt about her baby.Everyone wanted her to have a boy, even the horses, but she couldn't care less for the gender of her baby, she loved it—no, them—she loved them no matter what. She already loved them more than all the rabbits and all the cows and all the hens and all the animals she have ever met. She'll love them even more than Besela, the cat she had for four days when she was seven before her mom found out and threw the cat back into the street. Saadeya never got over it, the donkey said it was her first heartbreak, of course, she'll never get over it.The day of the celebration came, which was set on a Sunday, the day on which Saadeya would've been pregnant for nine months on the dot. Sety Labiba, her mother-in-law, insisted it should be that way so no one would give Saadeya or the baby the evil eye. Sety Labiba prepared every meal to perfection. All types of food were to be served. From the savory, like molokhia with rabbits and rice with veal, to sweets like konafa and loqmet el qady. She knew Saadeya never ate any meat, so Sety Labiba set aside some rice so she could have something to eat. Saadeya had a weird thing about animals, but she had a heart of gold, so Sety Labiba allowed her son to marry her.But it was known, a pregnant woman has to eat all forms of food, including meat and fish, or else the baby will be born weak, and Sety Labiba can't have her grandchild be weak, what will the people say about them? That her son was flawed? She couldn't stand for it. Besides, Saadeya was in her ninth month already, some meat would do her more good than harm. But there was nothing she could do short of forcing her to eat some, and it was known that upsetting a pregnant woman this late in her pregnancy would result in a temperamental child, so she kept her mouth shut until Saadeya gave birth, at least. Then, she'll feed the poor child some of her famous bouftek and then the child will be as strong as ever.Zaghareet and chants filled the place, and Saadeya's smile couldn't be bigger and more genuine. People were dancing and celebrating, all for her baby. Every few minutes someone would come over and congratulate her, and ask when is she going to give her unborn child a sibling, but she ignored them. Today was her day, she was not going to allow trivial things like that to bother her. She focused on the birds singing at the top of their lungs, the dogs barking up a storm, and the occasional neighing of a horse and mooing of a cow: the melodic sound of all of her friends wishing her a healthy baby.During the celebration Om Fawzeya, Sety Labiba's friend, came and put her hand on Saadeya's stomach and declared that she would be giving birth to a baby boy. That she could feel his strong aura, that he was going to be a great man and a great leader. Sety Labiba nudged Saadeya with her elbow to congratulate her, but Saadeya didn't truly care, as long as her baby was healthy that would be enough for her.Dinnertime came, and the throngs of people gathered around the food that Sety Labiba had made with the help of the old ladies of the village. Saadeya couldn't help but feel sad for all the animals that had been killed, supposedly in her honor, but she couldn't do anything. Besides, she apologized to her friends beforehand and they all said that they knew she would never do anything like that to them, that they forgave her.So she sat with the others, but she couldn't help herself, she was so very hungry. She looked at the different types of food available, in hopes of finding something without meat in it so she could eat it. The molokhia looked quite delicious, and there was nothing in it, as far as she could tell. She poured some of it on the rice Sety Labiba made especially for her and ate it, and the flavors danced on her tongue; she'd have to personally thank Sety Labiba for the food, it tasted exquisite.Sety Labiba saw Saadeya eating from the molokhia with rabbits and was quite baffled. She tried to make Saadeya eat rabbits on multiple occasions, and she always refused, even if it was used merely as a stock in the molokhia. But Sety Labiba did not stop her, pregnant women always had weird cravings, she would know herself. When she was pregnant with her fifth child all she wanted to eat was watermelon with feta cheese, even though she never used to like feta cheese. Being pregnant opened her up to trying new food, maybe that was what was happening with Saadeya. She told her to get pregnant sooner, but she never listened. Sety Labiba knew that a woman will never be fully a woman until she has at least one child.It was a week later that Saadeya gave birth to her baby, and it was the most stressful week of her whole pregnancy. She had a stomachache so bad that she wasn't able to leave her bed at all. The baby would not settle; they would kick and kick and kick all day and night, which did not help her already upset stomach. She couldn't bear to eat anything except for the lentil stew and mowghat Sety Labiba made her, anything else was expelled out of her the same instant it touched her tongue. For some reason, the animals stopped talking to her as well.Squalling and screaming, Saadeya gave birth to a healthy baby boy. He had all ten toes and ten fingers, nothing else mattered to her.But people talked a lot about Moamen, especially his eyes. He had huge, perfectly round eyes that were too big for his face, in which you couldn't see anything except for the subtle brownness of them, no white whatsoever. His stare was menacing and skittish. The perfect roundness of his face and cheek didn't help soften the intensity of his gaze, even for a newborn child.Sety Labiba couldn't bear to look at her grandson's eyes, they unsettled her. Something was wrong with the child, and she felt it in her bones, but they couldn't tell what it was. The doctors said he was fine, that maybe he'll grow into them, but they all eye him warily like they themselves don't know how to diagnose him or what was wrong with him in the first place. She thinks it was Om Fawzeya that gave him the evil eye; she only gave birth to girls and she always wanted a boy, so she must have jinxed him.Saadeya loved him with all her might; she loved him more than she thought she was capable of loving, after all, she had no one but him. The animals stopped talking to her after she gave birth to Moamen; she tried several times but ultimately gave up after the hens almost plucked out her eyes, and the rabbits kept on biting her. At first, she thought they were jealous, that they thought she'd ignored them for her baby, but when she mentioned that to the mare, she told her to stop being stupid and threatened to kick her in the face. She took the message as it is and never visited them again. The people in the village wouldn't talk to her as well, but they didn't matter to her.She went back to her normal, day-to-day routine after she gave birth, just much more lonely and quieter than before. She collected the eggs from the hens as quickly as possible because if they felt that she was stalling to spend more time with them, they would peck her to death. The cows would tolerate her milking them only once a day instead of the usual three, and they would spit at her the whole time. But she could handle them, sometimes even enjoyed the peaceful silence, but the rabbits were the ones she dreaded going to the most. Whenever she went to clean their ditch, refresh their food and water, or even grab Moamen's blanket from his bed there to wash it, they'd try to bite chunks off her arms and legs, a particularly vicious one once climbed her and tried to bite her nose off.Moamen spent all of his time with the animals now, just like she used to, the only difference was that he never left them. He slept with the rabbits, showered with the cows, ran around with the horses, and even gossiped with the hens. She saw how the mother cow berated him when he was too rough with the other calves and how the hens gently pecked him when they thought he wasn't eating enough, so she wasn't worried about him, he was safe. It wasn't like he completely abandoned her. Every day, he'd come and have breakfast with her, kiss her forehead, and then he'd go and hang with her friends and she'd go on with her day.Sety Labiba couldn't handle the shame of having the two of them in her family. She brought this on herself, she allowed her son to marry her in the first place. But the past is so far away, and she knows that death will be coming for her soon; she can feel it in her bones. Maybe Saadeya knew better than to eat any animal's meat, she knew what was best for her baby. Maybe if she told her, back then, but no. There was no point in regretting past actions. What is done is done. As the saying goes, it's no use crying over spoiled milk. Even if it had a tapping foot and twitching nose.Saadeya's friends aren't afraid of her Moamen. She knows that if anything, they love him more than they have ever loved her. They hang around his every word, they seek him out and flock around him, and they invite him to sleep beside them and fight over his company. They are a family to him more than she could have ever been, and she is okay with that. She knows they will take care of him, and that he is truly happy in their midst, away from all humans. Sometimes, if he spotted her in the fields, he'd run and give her the tightest hug and then run back to his friends.