The Community

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

She felt the Community had enough men, women, and children living in poor conditions to have the place shut down, but it remained standing.

Never having an idle minute may have been part of the master plan to keep folks from questioning.

she became the one thing she swore to never be and that was dependent.

She was growing tired of faking ignorance. The time had come for her to face her fear.

marauders,

demure.

doe-eyed

She was taught a husband had to consult his first wife before taking another, and all wives and children were to be looked after.

The Community didn’t have mirrors—Isa said they were a sign of vanity—so we avoided them.

circumventing

shellac

The entire situation was confusing to me: my father claiming he wanted to become Muslim to move into a community that separated him from his family, which is the opposite of what a Muslim family should look like, to the three of us leaving separately, on separate occasions, and not coming together.

ingrate

kafirs

Black people make beautiful babies every day.

ominous.

words “Islamic terrorists,” “jihad,” and “war”

al-Qaeda.

Americans were terrorizing brown people for looking like terrorists.

There were some women, but the crowd consisted mainly of white and Black men. They were shouting “Terrorists!” and “Go back where you came from!” Some yelled, “We should kill you!”

The feeling that one suffers alone but also as a collective,

curmudgeon

and now, at twenty-four, I wanted distance from everything—from the Community, Ummi, and the US.

cajoling

gingerly.

soldered