Unwaitted event

by Mokhinur Toirova (Uzbekistan)

I didn't expect to find Uzbekistan

They were at their favorite restaurant called Benazir. Aisara watched over her little brother as she asked him what his plans were today. “I will be with family, and just hang out. I will go to my friend’s house to see my friend. Anyway, I will talk with my friends and you”. He paused before he said that last sentence and looked up at his sister with admiring blue eyes. As her brother, Azamat, continued talking, the waiter came up to the table. He started half listening to her brother speak and cocked his head to the side after hearing a few words. With his head down, eyes up, he made a look mixed between curiosity, pity, and disgust as he set down the same desert they ordered every time they visited. He must have been a new hire since Aisara didn’t recognize his face. She wished she could leap into the waiter’s body straight to his brain and make him change his facial expression. Breaking her train of thought, Aisara caught her brother looking at her out of the corner of her eye and turned her attention back to him. Azamat smiled, and said, “I try to do amusing events. I will enjoy the last days of my life. It is one big road, I do not know what the end of this road will be, however, I will continue on my way and go because this is my way and my life. I will travel and I have a lot of adventures”. Aisara felt a pang in her heart, and tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She was proud of her brother and glad that even though all his hardship, he continued to be optimistic and happy. Being happy was something Aisara thought she could never achieve but sitting in that little booth across from the strongest person she had ever known, gave her the slightest glimpse of that happiness. Azamat looked into Aisara’s green eyes, “Imagine, this day is your last day in your life, what will you do? Or you have a lot of money and it never finishes. What will you do, again?”. Aisara was taken aback by this question. She had never heard her brother ask such a question, so she turned the question back to her brother, “what would you do Azamat?”. Her brother’s eyes sparkled, “I will enjoy my last times with happy events and doing enjoyful works. I go to my favorite place or fly towards my dreams. Every minute is my life, so fly!” He raised his hands outstretched in front of him as he exclaimed the word ‘fly!’. After a moment Aisara broke from the trance her brother had placed her in and grabbed a fork enthusiastically, “let’s eat!”. She watched as Azamat slowly chewed and savored each bite of the blueberry cheesecake, saving the whipped cream for the last bite of course, his favorite part. It was the fifth day of June, almost too hot for comfort. They could feel the warmth of the dry heat blow over their legs as new customers came into the restaurant. Aisara wished she could stay in this moment forever but knew everything good had to come to an end eventually. She paid the bill and led her little brother to the car. She helped him get buckled and then they road off to home. “I promise to come to visit you during breaks while I am away at college, and happy sixteenth birthday again!” said Aisara. She took one last look at Azamat as he got out of the car. He turned to look at her and said with a crooked smile, “I know you will, thank you” then he disappeared behind the front door. Aisara knew her brother could imagine himself flying through the sky. Sometimes she wished she could have a ticket to view that movie. However, that was the last time Aisara had ever spent time with her brother. Azamat died at the age of sixteen. Asara's brother had down syndrome and he was born with a heart defect known as an atrioventricular septal defect. His heart, while large enough to share love with the whole world, was fragile and eventually it broke.