Debut Flash: 'Ablution' by Atiqah Ghazali-alKashif

She washes her hands first. Right, then left. The water runs thin and obedient over her skin, but the smell does not leave. It hides in the cuticles, something metallic, almost sweet. They said the river was clean. Clear as faith. Clear as intention. Someone laughed before the boy drank. She remembers that. Teeth, white. A dare passed like a blessing.

She rinses her mouth. The water trembles against her lips. She does not swallow. She thinks of how easily he did, head thrown back, throat open, as if the body were made only to receive. There had been a moment, brief and exact, where she could have spoken.

Don’t.

The word had risen, full and formed. It pressed against her teeth. It waited. She spits. She draws water into her nose, inhales until it burns. The sting feels deserved. Beneath it, something else, the memory of watching. Not shock. Not fear. Watching, as though the scene were already finished and she had arrived only to witness its ending.

His body folded later, quietly. As though returning something borrowed.

She washes her face. Forehead, cheeks, chin. She does not look at the mirror. They will call it accident. Contamination. The language of mercy. She washes her arms to the elbow. Right, then left. The sequence matters. Order restores what the day has broken. But she remembers the stillness inside her when he drank. The absence. Not ignorance, not confusion.

Permission.

She wipes her head. Once. Enough. By the time she reaches her feet, the water runs clear. She leaves it running anyway.

 

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Atiqah Ghazali-alKashif is a Malaysian writer and poet whose work has appeared in publications in Toronto, Cairo, and London. She performed at the Georgetown Literary Festival in 2019. Writing across cultures and languages, she explores memory, faith, and the quiet textures of everyday life.