Farha drew a box on the paper, enveloping “X = -172” with the utmost confidence. She shifted in her desk, and a loose bit of dusty brown hair fell in front of her eyes in response. Farha blew it out of her face, and then she tucked it back behind her headscarf where hopefully it wouldn’t see the light of day for the remainder of school hours.

Farha returned to her math journal, slanted halfway across the wide-open textbook. Her desk was small, and though usually Farha might drag another empty desk next to hers to make room, she simply didn’t feel like mustering the effort to do so alone. Farha was not a strong or tall girl; what’s more, her simple sandals didn’t get the most traction on the linoleum floors, and overexerting herself against an immovable object was an accident waiting to happen.

Farha started transcribing the next problem into her notebook. The sounds of graphite scratching against paper were deafening in the empty classroom, and Farha would be lying if she said she wasn’t annoyed. But seeing as the library was currently closed for renovations, it was either this, or join the lunchroom with the rest of her fellow pupils. Sitting in a cafeteria, watching her peers munch down delicious tantalizing edible school lunchmeats while Farha herself was forced to sit in silence, never eating a bite no matter how hungry she got… it was not a fun proposition.

But that would be her reality for the next twenty-nine days until the end of Ramadan. So, until the library was open again… the classroom was her study hall during the lunch period.

Farha reached into her dress and scratched her armpit. Her fingers came back moist, smudging the henna. It was hot.

“Nothing in this school works…” Farha muttered to herself. She had given up focusing on her work, and now all she could do was clutch her head in frustration. The clock at the end of the room ticked, but the minute hand was stuck. All Farha knew was that it was one o’something. She assumed it was closer to two, but it was impossible to know for sure.

“Ahh… aaaghhhh…” Farha groaned, kicking her legs out, throwing her sandals across the room. She leaned back in the chair as far as she could; this desk was the kind that was integrated with the chair itself. Her caramel-brown toes splayed in the air, appreciating the breeze that was now allowed to floss through the gaps and give her a bit of relief.

When it happened again.

Farha noticed it. Again. There, on the floor, beneath the table.

There on the unswept classroom floor, stood a tiny, naked woman.

***

The novelty was lost on Farha. This wasn’t the first time one of these creatures had shown up. As a matter of fact, as she thought about it, she could remember… she was in her room, watching Lord of the Rings… on a Sunday… during eighth grade winter break. It was an extended break because the power lines snapped from frost before they were able to return to school. And there on her bed, she spotted it. Out of the corner of her eye, a tiny… man. Yes, it was a man. A young-looking man. A cute, young-looking man.

Farha had screamed, then immediately lunged for the creature, taking a trail of her bedspread with her. She covered it with her hands when her father and brother burst into the room to ask Farha what had happened. Despite her fear, she managed to make up something about the scene when Bilbo turned into a monster asking for the One Ring. With some difficulty, the two men accepted her excuse, and Farha was free to examine what she had found.

It was the first time Farha had seen a naked man before (though coincidentally Sex Ed would happen that following semester, so it was a close run). The creature spoke in a language that held snippets of what seemed like English, but no dialect that Farha was familiar with. And he was scared.

Once Farha got over her initial suspicions that it was some sort of djinn, she cared for the man, despite his numerous attempts to escape and the fear with which he beheld her. She kept him secret, kept him safe; she furnished an old shoebox for him with cotton balls for bedsheets and a ramekin she made sure to fill with water every two days, she let him sit on her shoulder while watching movies on her laptop, she even sometimes stuffed him in her purse and took him on outings. The two never managed to settle on a mutual system of exchange of information, though not for lack of trying. None of this seemed to erase his impenetrable fear of her, but it did alleviate some of the initial stress for both of them just enough for the pair to sorta become comfortable spending time together… at least until Farha stepped on the box on accident one groggy morning while getting up for Fajr, three weeks after his initial arrival. She spent an extra long time making a du’a that night after burying the box outside.

She thought that would be the end of it. But then, a month later, another tiny appeared in her room. This time, Farha saw it happen; one moment he wasn’t there, but the next, he was. No puff of smoke, no magic. He had just appeared. This one seemed older, and the way he spoke seemed to be a different language. His flowing syntax and brown, bearded face suggested he was more “foreign” than the last one. Farha tried to cultivate a new relationship, even if this full-on adult man was slightly less appealing to her pubescent, undeveloped mind than the hottie that she’d crushed by mistake. Perhaps as a result of this disinterest, the relationship ended even quicker than the previous one when Farha forgot she stuffed him in her back pocket while rushing out the door to go bike riding with her friends.

Time passed, and with time came more of these visitors. The third one was a girl. A woman, more accurately. This one’s arrival sparked in Farha not a sense of fear or excitement, but of annoyance. She was in the middle of her morning routine and had just finished brushing her teeth when she saw the new creature’s sudden appearance on the bathroom counter. The woman looked left and then right, then tried to make a leap off the edge but was caught midair by Farha, who looked at her ominously. Farha’s family did not have a large yard; she couldn’t keep burying these creatures in shoeboxes forever.

Farha was short on time and short on patience. So, in one smooth movement, she stuffed the one-inch woman into her mouth, and she gobbled her up. The bulge in her jowls formed by her squirming body was difficult to down at first, but the question of who would prevail between a spindly little white woman and the peristaltic might of Farha’s throat was foregone.

Belch…

“… Bismillah…” Farha laughed a bit at the burp, then left to have a proper breakfast.

That was about the point Farha lost count. Over the years, the arrival of these tiny creatures became more than simply accepted, but expected. The precise timeframe of their arrival was erratic, but a few things always proved true:

1) The longest gap in between one tiny’s death and another tiny’s arrival was about six months, though they’ve been known to respawn after as early as a day.

2) They only seemed to spawn at times when Farha was alone, though it wasn’t aware of the difference in context between being alone in her room vs alone in a public bathroom.

3) They only ever arrived after the previous one met some sort of untimely end.

What this end looked like varied; Farha grew more and more callous with each repetition. She enjoyed eating them, and she even took a liking to chewing them up before swallowing them down. Something about their flavor exploding in her mouth made her absolutely flushed. Beyond that, Farha had on more than one occasion crushed these bite-sized visitors beneath her feet when she felt like mixing it up, and it was especially fun when Farha set them outside to make a cat-and-mouse game of it. She at first only did so while wearing shoes, but after one of these tinies unexpectedly appeared in an empty mosque bathroom while she was making wudu, Farha’s quick thinking compelled her to stomp down and crush him between her barren foot and the shower tile. Feeling the tiny splatter underneath her moist heel gave Farha a euphoric high, and she immediately felt a pang of shame, but not before those feelings were overshadowed by a desire to feel it again, even as her toes scrunched in the wetness of viscera and running water as they ran down the drain.

From then on, Farha became even more aggressive. She seldom tried to talk to the tinies when they arrived anymore. She was always more interested in figuring out how best to cause their demise in a way that could maximize her pleasure. She had curiously dug her nail underneath the neck of one such visitor, humming over his screams as she plucked the head clean off. She stuck them beneath the toe of her shoes and sandals, carefully placed so they wouldn’t be detected by any observers. Keeping the stowaways in her footwear all day was a fun reminder of the power she held over their lives. One time, Farha was sleeping over at the house of her best friend Nandini, and feeling especially bold she plucked the tiny inside of the steaming biryani dish made by Nandini’s mother for the two girls. The lady’s screams were muffled amidst the food and spice and their laughter, and when Nandini had finished eating her portion, she remarked with surprise, “It’s never tasted this good before!”

Farha lost count over the years how many tinies had met their demise at her hand. And feet. And rear. Mouth. Other body parts. She had only a passing interest in where they all came from, but she was more than content to accept this boon as a blessing from Allah for being such a devout young woman.

***

When Farha spotted this newest young woman, she simply rolled her eyes.

The tiny froze as she locked eyes with Farha. Then she turned tail and ran.

Farha gave a slight chuckle and scooted out from her desk. The dress she wore was carefully hemmed just above the ankle, allowing her to walk comfortably without fear of the material dragging along the ground. It only took a few sticky, barefoot strides for her to catch up with the figure. Farha stood there for a few moments, tapping her foot against the floor, its wet pads trapping the excess dust and paper scraps that still littered the floor.

Farha lifted her foot. “It’s been a while since I’ve crushed one of you… especially in school…”

And she let it fall.

The miserable girl raised her hands to the sky and cowered beneath Farha’s shadow until… it stopped.

Farha stopped. Her foot hovered in the air only an inch away from its target.

For the first time in a long time… Farha began to feel a tinge of… guilt?

It was Ramadan after all, the time to examine your behavior and dīn and make changes to better yourself. Try as Farha might, she couldn’t actively remember if one of these tinies had appeared before her in Ramadan. She had yet to develop a protocol during the holy month.

“Hmm…” Farha stepped back. She bent down to the frozen tiny on the ground and cupped her in her hand. She peered at her scared face, blonde hair, green eyes. Farha didn’t want to kill her… yet… but it had been so long since she’d kept one of these for longer than two days.

Something about that look in her eyes, though. That fear… it gave Farha an idea.

Farha walked back to her desk. She slid into the seat, and she placed the tiny girl on the desktop. The young woman trotted to the edge and looked down, wavering visibly as a pang of vertigo overtook her.

Farha smiled, and she reached down, hiking up her dress. Rolling it up into her lap, Farha pulled her knees up, planting her feet on the seat. Then she pulled those up, finally plopping her heels on each half of the textbook with a thump! each. Her sweat steadily dripped downward, and it created damp spots on the pages. Farha didn’t really mind. This book was a loaner from the school anyway.

“You want to live? Clean them.”

The tiny woman began speaking in gibberish, flailing her arms around in fear.

THUMP.

Farha glared at her, and Farha opened her mouth, pantomiming licking something for a nice, long time. “Understand now?”

The creature nodded, and she trotted over to the book, clambering onto the open page. From here, Farha’s bare, beige soles loomed close by in their full majesty. She walked up to one tentatively and began to lick.

“Oh…” Farha was in love with the delicate pixie-kiss sensation of her repeated licks, but more importantly she was in love with the knowledge that she had the power to make this happen. Farha still had no idea where these tinies came from or how they got here, but she knew that everything happened as Allah willed it. If these creatures were a gift from her, who was she to deny what her Creator had placed specifically for her in her life? And if Farha wanted to use them to worship her own feet…

“Yes… Keep going…”

Farha scrunched her toes, and a rogue droplet of sweat squeezed between the big and second toe, splattering the tiny woman like a water balloon. She spat out what she could of the salinated dew and then swallowed what was left. As it ran down her throat, she shuddered, taking a break from her licking, when suddenly Farha’s toes reached down, clenching around her head.

Farha grabbed her foot, dragging the heal back as she stared down at the struggling tiny in its clutches. Her green eyes were intense. Powerful. Dignified.

“You’ll stop when I say you stop. Or else…”

Farha gave her toes a slight squeeze, and she held them in that position. The tiny was constrained, her breaths were faltering, her face was turning purple, her flails became erratic. Her raw instinct produced a delicious bout of shrieks, and Farha allowed the façade of her divinity to slip just long enough to giggle.

Farha’s foot let go, and the small woman fell back on the desk. She rolled around on the wet paper before hobbling to her feet. She tripped over herself a few times until she reach Farha’s foot, trying to scrape off the rest of the dust that adhered to her heel. Farha angled her toes closer to the desk; her ankle was close to 180 degrees with her leg, and it was a straining position to keep herself in. Yet she managed, and in response, the tiny wrapped her arms around Farha’s big toe, plunging her own face into its doughy, blobby girth. Farha shuddered as the tiny reached beneath the nail, scraping out the excess flakes, taking on the sweat-stained bits of dried skin, clearing the toe of the lint and sediment still stuck on it. Her work was mechanical; she certainly could smell the rubbery scent of Farha’s feet, exacerbated by the hot spring day. But she paid it no mind, knowing that this work would be what determined her continued existence.

Farha chuckled, and she untensed her ankle. The tiny was still grappling on the big toe, so she was pulled upward suddenly, too scared to let go when faced with a drop several times the height of her body at a minimum.

The bell rang. The rackety metal chime told Farha that the classroom would be populated soon.

“Tch, that was quick… time really flies when you little folks are around, huh…” Farha gripped the tiny into her fingers again and licked her lips as she looked down at her scared, cowering expression. She planted her inside her handbag, zipping up the container just as the first of many students of many different colors started to stream inside the room.

On normal days, it was hard not to feel jealous that they were allowed to eat. But this time, Farha didn’t feel jealous at all. The days were long during Ramadan, but if this tiny was able to last long enough, Farha felt confident the month would be over before she knew it.

Inshallah.