Living in Fear

I never knew what fear was till I moved to Karachi 7 years back. 

I wasn't prepared for this. 

Sure we don't trust people that we deal with in everyday life, or we teach our kids to not to talk to strangers. 

But do you know that cold paralyzing fear of approaching death that cause the very core of your bones to shiver uncontrollably?

Yeah that. 

Karachi embeds it in you.

You see that fear in the way people start panicking at the sound of fireworks, mistaking them for gunshots.

You can see it in the eyes of a mother dropping her kids to school early morning, double checking the security, looking around for evil lurkers in the shadows just as she lets those tiny hands go. 

You can feel it in the fast beating of those hearts when a motorbike slows beside you, just waiting for that muzzle to be pointed at you within half a second and for you to be robbed and killed.

That fear is in the polluted air around you. In the eyes of little kids. In the way a beggar flees. In the way cars speed. In the way crowds disperse. In the prayers of a repressed soul. In the bowed head of the helpless. In the barred up windows and doors. In the sky high walls. In checkpoints at every gulley.

That fear infests in the pit of a shopkeepers stomach, who has no money to pay the blackmailers. And threats after threats he waits for his last breath.

That fear of dying. 

Of losing the ability to watch your kids grow older. Of losing the right to enjoy every plate of delicious food your mom cooks for you. Of losing the sense of pure ecstasy of living every second you are alive.

It could be one gunshot. 

One suicide bombing.

One hit and run.

One robbery.

Karachi is not the city of lights anymore. It's the city of fear. 

And as much as I try to brush it off, uproot it from inside me, I can't. The news doesn't let me. The number of people killed everyday is my neighborhood doesn't let me. The fact that I was in that place few minutes before it was blown up, doesn't let me.

Everyday seems the last.

Everyday I kiss my kids good night and close my eyes in agony of restlessness.

Fear.

It has robbed me of my life.

It has killed me inside.