I forced my hand onto the wall and again, it was swallowed whole. Little twinkling lights danced around my wrist and trailed up my arm. I thought back to the numerous science fiction novels I had read, the fantasy thrillers I had watched, and the cosmos I had painted. Was it possible to start hallucinating something if you liked it strongly enough?

No, I concluded. This is real.

It was an ordinary, usually impenetrable, wall. Yet it was anything but ordinary. The wall felt strangely light, as if it was floating. I tested my hypothesis and bent down. Sure enough, the wall wasn’t connected to the floor anymore! I hooked my hands in the tiny gap between their adjoining axes and yanked it up.

I gasped. Right before me was a whole range of rooms, just like mine — all suspended in an inky blue space!

I looked up and saw, to my added surprise, whales swimming through the expanse above me and jellyfishes bobbing around as a school of fish drifted by. Everything had a neon glow about it. I looked down and saw there was no floor!

Was I in floating in the space somehow? I swished my hands in front of me and little bubbles erupted — water. Everything here was floating in water, yet I was breathing perfectly fine. I swam to a room at random, put my hand on its wall, and was immediately pulled through.

Bang! I fell head first on the floor. Standing back up, I found myself facing a little girl on her bed. She didn’t seem fazed by my sudden entrance at all. In fact, I could detect boredom on her face.

“People come and go around this hour almost every night,” she glanced at the clock on her bedside table displaying 3am. In my world, it was only four in the afternoon.

The surrounding seemed old, so I said, “In my world, the year was 2043. What year is it here?”

“2008.”

“No way!”

“Yes, really exciting,” the girl replied in a flat, monotonous voice. “You get used to it after the first few times.”

I must’ve looked confused, because she then told me how she had always noticed strange thuds and creaks coming from her house and shadows of people crossing or standing in her room when everyone else had fallen deep asleep.

One night, she decided to investigate the source of these random noises and found this world where not spirits, but people were tumbling and swimming about and exploring new rooms. Since then she had always set her alarm clock to wake her at night, so if anyone visited her room, they wouldn’t have to hide in her closet or under her bed out of fear of being discovered, but instead would have someone to talk to and comfort them about this new situation.

I looked around her dimly lit room and felt a faint sense of recognition. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Hiba.”

I felt goosebumps on my arm. “And your parents’ names?”

She seemed a bit hesitant, but replied anyway, “Raza and Hamna. Why?”

I was right. I knew where I’d seen this place. I visited it every weekend. It was my grandparents’ house, and this was my mum’s old room. Which meant …

“Are you okay?” Hiba — or rather Ammi — inched away from me worriedly.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Just thinking,” I replied as casually as I could. As brave and confident as she seemed, I still didn’t want to freak an 11-year-old out by telling her I’m her future daughter, so I settled on asking her questions about herself which she was happy to answer.

I really enjoyed Hiba’s company. She was intelligent, witty and full of character. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mum dearly, but I’d never gotten to know her on a personal level. I don’t think I had ever seen her as her own person. I was used to her just being a maternal figure in my life.

I was surprised to know that she, too, was deeply interested in learning about universe and space like me. Even mundane facts like her being a Hannah Montana fan or her habit of watching Pokemon on weekend mornings felt extremely exciting to learn. At such a young age, she was already so intelligent and well-spoken that I couldn’t help but be in awe of her. The more I learnt about her, the more I cursed myself for not knowing all this information beforehand.

I wanted to make up for every single bad thing I had said or done to her. But that would mean nothing to her at this age. However, there was a version of her out there who did indeed need to hear me say I loved her and show it through my actions as well.

Back in my world, I made a beeline for the living room. My mum was shelling peas while watching television. Here was my mum, thirty-some odd years, later. The same almond-shaped eyes, but with new crinkles pinching them. The same pools of brown, but with new wisdom about them. As if years, of experiences had left their impression on them. The same child with a few alterations. Yet it was as if I were meeting her for the first time.

I could feel myself beginning to cry. How could I have ever been mean to or ignored that wonderful person, who knew everything at eleven, yet I knew nothing at 18?

Sure there were times when my annoyance or anger was justified, but was it necessary for me to treat her like some replaceable object? No, not at all. I had always found some fault within her, some mistake in her attitude, some wrongdoing in her parenting, yet I had never really considered that she too was a human being and that it was truly impossible for any parent to be the perfect parent.

Years, of reading wannabe therapy posts on social media may have helped me in some way but, unfortunately, it had also made me dislike and cut-off people from my life who never deserved to be shunned like that. One of them being my own mother.

“Maryam!” Ammi exclaimed as I suddenly hugged her and started sobbing. “Is everything alright?” Her voice was soft and punctuated with worry.

“Nothing. I just ... had a bad dream. Got scared,” I mumbled. Ammi looked unconvinced, but didn’t push the issue further.

I looked at the television screen and said, “Do you want to watch Tanhaiyaan with me?”

Ammi’s eyebrows shot upwards, almost comically. “You know that drama?”

“Of course I do,” I laughed as I opened the YouTube application on the television. “Didn’t you and your mum used to watch it?”

“Yes . . . but how’d you know that?” I could feel Ammi smiling at me as I played the first episode.

“Because you told me, Ammi!” I giggled as the theme song began to play.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 10th, 2022