Things that Set: On Temporary Rizq

Somewhere in the world, there is a Tony’s chocolate wrapper sitting on a nightstand. Sometimes I imagine the boy to whom I gifted that chocolate. Does he open the drawer, pick up the wrapper, and run his thumbs along the crease, to feel where my fingers once rippled the film? Does he miss me as I miss him? “I don’t know.” “Maybe he looks up at the stars and realizes we both share the same sky.” “Probably not, considering he’s the one who ended things.” “Oh, shut up.” My friends say I have attachment issues. They’re the same friends I’ve known since middle school. Before moving away, I promised them I’d keep in touch. Maybe they thought that was just something people said before disappearing forever, so the grief loses its sting, but not me. I meant it. I always mean it. I still call them a decade later to complain about the boy, college, and my new job brewing coffee at a Yemeni cafe. “I don’t think I’m meant to be in high-stress environments. It’s bad for my health.” “When’re you gonna quit, Iman?” “I don’t know. I like my coworkers. And I like the way the cafe smells. And what about my regulars? Adeni Chai, No Sugar? Spinach Feta Guy? What’re they gonna do without me?” In Islam, rizq, or divine provision, can appear in the most unexpected places. For Maryam, it was the flesh of the date melting on her tongue, revitalizing her. For me, it’s people. Things. It’s the girl I saw at a college event, waiting in line for Turkish food, who became my closest companion. The little coins customers leave me after they say, “Have a good day!” It’s the fact that I can still meet up with the old group of interns I worked with during a busy season, and talk like we’re still crammed in our cubicles, filling out tax forms. “Remember last winter?…” “And Mayfield—” “I still can’t believe he said that to you, Iman.” “I still can’t believe we’re all in touch.” “Why can’t you?” Minh laughs, her black hair trailing like sparrows in the breeze. “You made the group chat, after all.” My love takes hold of people who should’ve been ships passing in the night, and dragging them, clawing, screaming, back to my shores. I believe everybody who came into my life should be in it forever. The regular who came into the coffee shop in December will still order a hot chai in May. The friend whom I met in line for food will invite me to her wedding someday. I move through life devouring provisions like the flesh of dates, one after another, relishing in the sweetness. Never worrying about the seed, because it seems like God has already plucked out the pit. That is how many of us take rizq: not in gratitude, not even in awareness, but in the lazy certainty that it will keep coming as it always has. Until it doesn’t. For a long time, I thought my provision lay in the boy with the Tony’s chocolate wrapper. I remember the nights I spent awake, pacing the floors of my bedroom, wondering what my life would look like tied to another soul. I found myself unfolding my prayer mat to bargain with God. I’ll pray tahajjud, just keep this boy in my life. I’ll read the entire Quran cover to cover—with English translation!—if you could just please, please let me have this. Please. The night after the boy left, I remembered his face when I gave him the chocolate, how he neatly folded the wrapper and tucked it into his pocket. “What’re you doing that for?” I asked him. “For the memory. I’m starting a little collection of souvenirs, just like you.” With embarrassment, I look down at my laptop, covered in stickers. Souvenirs from different places I’ve been and people I met. A sticker lies right between a map of Pakistan and a movie ticket. It’s from the box of Ferrero Rocher he bought me the first time we met. I always wanted to preserve that day, the thrum of excitement in his voice. Now I can’t bring myself to rip it off. What was supposed to be rizq has been reduced to this: silence. A fading sticker. My nail scraping the film. I called my companion that night, despairing over a chocolate wrapper. “Ramadan’s starting,” she said calmly. “You’re literally entering a month that can change your entire life. You can get through this.” “I just wish this had never happened.” “I know.” “But it did.” She said something I reserved solely for provision: Alhamdulillah. On the first day of Ramadan, I showed up at the coffee shop, feet dragging from the lack of caffeine. Coffee is an underrated rizq, I thought, rubbing my eyes. I walked over to the cash register, clocked in, and reached below the counter for my little white dog. “Who took it?” “Took what?” My coworker—also fasting—walked over, a bag of coffee grounds in his hands. “My stuffed dog. I leave him under the register every night. And now he’s gone.” “You left a stuffed dog here?” “It was a little bag charm my friend bought me. The keychain broke, so I decided to donate it to the coffee shop. I keep it on the register while I take orders.” “Uh-huh.” His lips twitched in amusement. “When was the last time you saw him?” “Two days ago. Have you worked since then?” “I closed last night. I had him right there on the register.” He knelt, craning under the counter, rifling through all the junk customers left behind. No luck. “Ohh, my sweet dog. He was only a few days old. I named him Mufawar.” I didn’t realize this was fuel until I saw the look in his eyes. He raised his brow, gearing for the kill. “Mufawar. As in…” He gestured towards the bag of grounds. “The blend of coffee beans?” “You think this is funny.” He shrugged. “I’ve lost my dog.” “Well, did you try calling him?” When I ignored him and went to restock our vanilla syrup, he followed me, attempting to ease the sting by blaming our poor coworker, Martín. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. He might’ve done unspeakable things to the dog.” “Don’t make jokes like that during Ramadan.” “Don’t get so angry during Ramadan.” “I’m not…” I took a deep breath. “I’m not angry. I’m calm. I just don’t understand why somebody would’ve thrown him out.” “Why’d you donate it to the shop anyway?” “Because I thought it was nice.” “Ah. See? That’s what you get for having such a kind heart. Your dog’s probably stuck in a drainpipe, clogging up the plumbing. Or Martín—” I swung open the door to the lobby, leaving the vanilla syrup to crust over. That night, I lay in my bed with the English translation of the Quran on my phone. These were my nights now: no phone calls and inside jokes, just myself and my deep desire to understand. The words come to me slowly at first. Mercy, straight path, trial, forgiveness. Repent, repent, repent. Lines I’d heard my whole life, but seemed to be uncovering for the first time, like an archaeologist digging for provisions within the Earth she’d always trampled. “I guess I’m trying out new habits,” I tell my dad when he sees me dressed for taraweeh. He doesn’t know the urgency I feel when I leave the door, desperate for the hallowed walls of the mosque. I spend the nights in sujood, my forehead pressed into the carpet, creating ripples in the nylon. When I come up for air, my cheeks are wet. وَكَذَ ٰ⁠لِكَ نُرِیۤ إِبۡرَ ٰ⁠هِیمَ مَلَكُوتَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَ ٰ⁠تِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلِیَكُونَ مِنَ ٱلۡمُوقِنِینَ﴿ ٧٥ ﴾ We also showed Ibrahim the wonders of the heavens and the earth, so he would be sure in faith. I picture the vast sky, the merciful noor of the moon. SubhanAllah, subhanAllah, subhanAllah, on my fingertips. I taste the words I’d spat about the chocolate wrapper boy on my tongue, a desperate attempt to ease the sting. Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah. I look up at the stars dangling outside the window, the same stars prophets lived under. How they blaze. فَلَمَّا جَنَّ عَلَیۡهِ ٱلَّیۡلُ رَءَا كَوۡكَبࣰاۖ قَالَ هَـٰذَا رَبِّیۖ فَلَمَّاۤ أَفَلَ قَالَ لَاۤ أُحِبُّ ٱلۡـَٔافِلِینَ﴿ ٧٦ ﴾ When the night grew dark upon him, he saw a star and said, “This is my Lord!” But when it set, he said, “I do not love things that set.” I do not love things that set. Perhaps it’s in our nature: we pour ourselves into people, hoping they’ll stay. We package ourselves in little reminders to be scattered around this world like cosmic dust: a wrapper, a sticker, a charm, a bad joke, a promise, a valiant effort to remain. But eventually, all of it will set. The people, the things. We’ll have to reckon with the fact: it is impossible to keep what you do not own. On some days, the fast feels so long I wonder how I’m gonna stay on my feet. When customers come into the coffeeshop, ask the stupidest questions, and I have to find the strength in me not to slap them, relief is ages away. And then sunset. The date. Sugar rush. Insulin spike. The hunger fades like it never existed in the first place, and the provision remains, rolling sticky in my fingers. Supple and divine. In just a few bites, this is lost, too. So in a world where everything is designed to come to an end—what is our true sustenance? I spent most of my life searching for permanence to anchor myself, all for my hungriest attempt at love to end in nothing but a sticker. But even if I still received that love, then what? Something would still be missing, a part of me still aching. I look up at the stars and see them burn in fervor, their time—like ours—finite. I do not love things that set. During the last ten days of Ramadan, I clock in to work, my coworker teases me to the point of mild upset (remember, no anger in Ramadan), and then when I half-threaten to clock out early, he reaches down into the counter and pulls out a tiny, white toy. “Your dog, ma’am.” I’m dumbfounded. Almost an entire month has passed since I’d seen it. “But how—“ “It wasn’t lost; it was just buried under all this other junk.” I take it in my hands: there’s dust all over his fur, a gray cast that makes him look less like a dog, more like a zombie. “I can clean him,” I start. “I can put him in the wash and…” My coworker grabs Mufawar and plops him on his usual perch, but for some reason, he looks lopsided, wrong. I blink. “It’s so ugly.” He covers the dog’s ears with his hands. “Iman. It’s Ramadan. Be kind.” “I can’t believe you found him.” I lock eyes with my coworker, who, for once, stares at me without a hint of irony. “I can’t believe I didn’t see him the first time we looked. He was in the bin, right where he was supposed to be.” There are a million things I want to ask him: where was the dog this whole time? Why hadn’t we found it weeks ago? And why did you go searching for him again? But all I can muster is a half-hearted, “Thank you. I appreciate it.” He assumes I mean the dog, and walks towards the syrups with his shoulders back, trying to mask his triumph. But my brain’s still spinning. Who took the dog? Martín? No, not possible. Even if he had, why would he put him back in the bin? Perhaps it was a stupid prank. My coworker might’ve hidden it just to rile me up. But then, I can’t deny the warmth in his voice, the tinge of surprise, as if he was trying to unravel the mystery, too. He was right where he was supposed to be. I remember how, in the depths of my misunderstanding, my friend, my companion in Islam, just said “Alhamdullilah.” In losing the dog, I glimpsed a flicker of kindness in the person beside me, a desire to set things right. Maybe Allah took the dog away weeks ago, and placed it back in the bin of junk now, when the timing was just right. Maybe this is my provision; not the dog, not the kindness—but the mercy. A reminder from the One who never sets: He’s here, with me, and here, He will remain. When my coworker isn’t looking, I pick up the dog and run my thumbs along its fur, just to feel them ripple through the dust. How big this world is, I think. I throw the dog into the nearest trash can, and go about my day.