The Drummer's Call
"Before dawn in Ramadan, drummer Abu Walid walks the streets waking families for suhoor—until insomniac Mira starts following the sound and finds something to keep her awake."
The Drummer's Call
The drum sounded at 3 AM—ancient rhythm, calling the faithful to wake and eat before dawn. Mira lay in bed, listening, unable to sleep.
Finally, she followed.
"You're not going to suhoor."
She jumped. The drummer—Abu Walid, the neighborhood called him—had stopped in shadow.
"I can't sleep."
"Neither can I. That's why I drum." He resumed walking. "Come. Keep me company."
She walked with him every night that Ramadan—through quiet streets, watching windows light as his drum woke families.
"Why do you do this?" she asked.
"Because my father did. His father before." He struck the drum thoughtfully. "Some traditions are too important to let die."
"Even when no one pays you?"
"They pay in gratitude. In prayers. In remembering." He smiled. "Currency you can't spend but can't live without."
The walks became more. Conversations, confessions, two night owls finding each other in darkness.
"Why can't you sleep?" Walid asked one night.
"Bad dreams. Since my husband died."
"Ah." Understanding, not pity. "The night is different when you're grieving. Bigger. Emptier."
"Less so lately."
"Because of the drum?"
"Because of the drummer."
They came together on the last night of Ramadan, his drum set aside, her grief temporarily silenced.
"Ya Allah," Walid breathed. "Mira—"
"Don't stop. Make me feel something besides loss."
He did—with hands that kept rhythm, with a body that understood waiting. They moved together in patterns old as the traditions he preserved.
"I could love you," he said afterward. "If you'd let me."
"I'm letting you."
"Then stay. Not just for Ramadan. For all the nights after."
"Na'am," she whispered. "But I'm learning to drum. Someone should help you."
"That takes years."
"We have years."
Outside, the last call to suhoor echoed. Inside, something new was beginning—waking them both to possibilities neither had expected.
The drum continued, and so did they.