The Last Kick

Blurb

Taahir Rahman wallows in the corporate numbness that overtook his life since leaving the scenic town of Blueridge.

His grandfather, Abdullah, plays substitute striker in the Southeast Cup Final sixty years earlier.

Through clearing the attic, Taahir stumbles upon remnants of a past he never knew. Remnants of his grandfather that, though seeming small, change more than Taahir could’ve ever hoped for.

A heartfelt story weaving dual narratives of a grandfather and his grandson, all set in the quaint English town of Blueridge. Read on to discover S. H. Miah’s latest riveting short story.

Prologue

Though the largest of gestures weigh down our lives, it often appears that the little moments woven into the fabric of existence occupies much of our memories thereafter. That much can be said for almost everything.

Cast your mind to a relationship, whether romantic or platonic. What truly provides that sense of security? One may point to a marriage ceremony, one may point to the huge milestones achieved, one may point to a particular result.

But dig further, deeper, and the smaller things will appear. The little gestures, the smiles, the laughter, sitting and eating together, sharing the monotony of daily stones beyond the boulders that we believe define us.

But, at times, there are moments paradoxically both large and small. Both monumental, yet insignificant, and those are the moments best cherished.

Those are the memories that, underneath it all, truly define us.

Chapter 1

15th May 2024

Taahir Rahman had never entered the attic of the house in which he grew up. Sure, he knew about the place, as did his one older sister and two older brothers, but his parents had never allowed him inside.

The reason for not allowing him to enter all that time?

Taahir hadn’t a clue, really, but he was here now, and that was all that mattered.

The dust was the first thing Taahir noticed as he opened the latch in the ceiling whilst balancing on a ladder that wasn’t as sturdy as he’d first imagined. He pushed the latch fully, ignoring the plumes of whatever-on-earth-that-dust-was billowing into his face like it wanted to suffocate him.

No matter, however, because Taahir was more resilient than most. That was why his siblings had dumped the job of clearing this place to him, the youngest in the family, instead of doing it themselves.

As the latch smacked the floorboards with a thud that felt way too hollow for Taahir’s liking, he thought back to his deliberation when deciding what to do with this old house. The house itself was located in the town of Blueridge—a town Taahir had loved when growing up.

Scenic sunsets and rises, a sea that sparkled no matter the time of year, a breeze that nourished those that breathed it in. What wasn’t there to like? But Taahir and his siblings sought a life in the big city, a life amongst the corporate madness they hadn’t known whilst growing up in the calmness of a relaxed town. And so they’d all left, leaving this house in the hands of their parents who’d passed away recently.

Truly, Taahir’s early life in Blueridge was the calm before the storm, so to speak.

Initially, Taahir had considered hiring someone to clean the place. But that felt a bit too corporate, even for a data scientist like himself who practically lived in an office, so he decided to do it himself. Or at least, doing the important bits himself, before getting others to properly clean the place since Taahir wasn’t a professional.

But he was resilient if anything, even if that meant braving the heavy smell of dust and dirt and grime rushing into his nostrils as he stared into the darkness above him. Apparently, there was a light in there hooked to the ceiling and dangling like something out of a horror movie, but it probably wouldn’t work after so many years.

Taahir gripped the lamp in his left hand tightly, before jumping off the highest step on the ladder. He teetered for a second, but pushed and pulled himself over the edge and finally onto flat ground.

A clatter below him signalled the ladder falling down, which was just great, wasn’t it?

Taahir sighed, his back against the dust, nose getting clogged like a sink with too many dishes not letting water pass through the hole. The lamp lay on the ground beside him, light illuminating a ceiling with wooden beams swarmed in cobwebs.

A heat wrapped over Taahir like a blanket, as though the attic was attempting to put him to a permanent sleep, as though this place was on a different planet from the rest of the house, and indeed the rest of Blueridge.

The silence was deafening, the kind of silence perfect for taking a nap midday. Not that Taahir knew what that felt like, since his life was drowned in noise, both outside and in.

But Taahir had to stay awake, and clear the attic , because he knew of something inside the attic that intrigued him. More than anything else. And that curiosity had sparked after a random comment from his mother soon after Taahir had left home.

“Your Dada Abdullah kept a diary, you know,” she’d said. “Never read it meself, and so hasn’t your dad. Your dada was an old man that had a lot of wisdom, I’ve been told. Fresh perspective on life, too, but I guess all old folks got that.”

And if there was something Taahir needed more than anything, it was a fresh perspective on life. Since his life was drowning in corporate nothingness.

So he got up, despite the dust, despite the creak of floorboards that felt like they were about to collapse, despite the stuffiness squeezing his body.

He got up and lifted the lamp, and got to searching.

Chapter 2

15th May 1961

Abdullah Rahman sat in the small changing room off to one side of Blueridge Marshes, where the football matches of Blueridge Town FC took place. Abdullah was a substitute striker, rather than the main goal threat up top, yet his boots were strapped as firm as the lumber that formed his house, and his shirt tucked itself in with pride.

May Allah give us victory, he chanted in his mind, whilst the Blueridge supporters outside chanted their own swirls of victory and hope. The noise surrounded the changing room despite being far away—encouraging, all-encompassing almost, and Abdullah felt the positivity flowing through the rest of his teammates.

The atmosphere was buzzing, the cool May air outside only accentuated by the beauty of the sun.

But here, in the warm and sweaty changing room, where Abdullah could taste and smell the will to win despite the odds, Coach Richard pointed to a blackboard where the tactics were chalked in white.

“Look here, lads,” Coach Richard said, smacking his hand against the board and almost toppling it over. “Got one striker up front but it ain't enough. Target man is turning into the opposition's target, so I'm making a substitution.”

Abdullah's heart rose for a second, before sinking again. He'd never been subbed on at half time before, only well into the second half in matches when the hope was truly lost. And Coach Richard, the old geezer he was, rarely altered his ways. Trust that.

And in the local Southeast Cup Final, when all was on the line in the biggest game in Blueridge Town FC's history?

Abdullah would have a better chance of a pay raise at the mines. That was to say, he hadn't the chance. Not a chance whatsoever.

“Abdullah,” Coach Richard suddenly called. “Yer up, you hear me. You got an old pair of legs but they’re fresh for a second half, yeah.”

Abdullah just stared at the coach, before nodding and grabbing his water bottle. He took a swig, before letting it fall back on the bench, whilst excitement and anticipation flowed through him in equal measure.

But he couldn’t let the emotions bubble up inside him too much. For a striker required poise, required finesse—a word he had learnt recently. Most of all, required Allah’s help in everything.

InshAllah, we win, that voice said within Abdullah. Almost a voice outside himself, despite being his own. The voice that always called out to Allah, the One who created everything, when Abdullah sought His help.

He had gotten Abdullah into the U.K from Bangladesh for a better life. He had allowed Abdullah to learn English from the townsfolk in Blueridge, and to join the local football team despite having lived in the town for only a few years. He had given Abdullah a beautiful son and a beautiful wife.

And only He could grant victory, wherever victory was sought.

Abdullah tapped his shin pads with both sets of knuckles, a ritual of sorts to calm himself, before he stood and walked out of the changing room. The game would restart in five minutes, just enough time to pray Asr and then get out there to win this final once and for all.

Chapter 3

15th May 2024

Taahir Rahman stared at the lamp next to him, now that he'd sat up on the creaky and dusty floorboards. He was such an idiot, he thought, whilst tasting the grime against his tongue, a grime that slipped into his throat like it had been injected into his neck. The lamp, with its orangey hues that faded the further they travelled, was nice and useful and all.

But it was a blithering lamp of all things. Taahir could've just as easily grabbed his phone and turned on the torch before placing it upside down so it lit the entire attic. Easy, problem solved, voila!

Except no voila, not for Taahir at least. Not for a long time in his life. At least, that was how it felt.

Perhaps it was some sense of rekindling the past that pushed him to bring a lamp rather than his phone as a light source. Perhaps, since this place held the secrets of his grandfather, he wanted something from that time to guide him.

Regardless, Taahir grabbed the lamp's handle and hauled himself to his feet.

Unsteady feet, like most else in his life, but at least he was standing. Standing and moving. Not sitting and still.

He brought the lamp to eye level as he approached the wooden and rickety shelves on the far side. It was only now he realised that he wasn't in complete darkness without the lamp. A slit in the roof signified a tiny window, sliced into the tiles, pulling as much sunlight as it could into the attic.

Not that there was much sunlight in the first place. For the first time in what felt like forever, Blueridge didn't feature sparkling skies and fresh air. No, for the first time in Taahir’s life, Blueridge was as dreary as the streets of London from where he’d driven.

As dreary as the shelf whose dust reached out to tickle Taahir’s face. He scoured the tilted wood, not even knowing what he was looking for, whilst recounting all the times when his father forbade him from coming in here.

“It’s dangerous, Taahir,” his dad had told him on so many occasions. Back then, Taahir had that fire of curiosity within him that all children possess in waves and that drives parents insane. Not that Taahir would know—though he was married, he hadn’t the blessing of children yet. But he made dua that Allah would provide, soon.

Still, he remembered that part of himself. The part that would seek out the unknown at all opportunities, seek out questions and then their answers, seek out adventure and a way to seize the day, not let the day seize him or, worse, pass him by in mere indifference.

Where had that part of him vanished? Where had it disappeared to? What had snatched it away from him, never to return it again?

More questions. More questions that he just didn't have the answers to .

He searched across the shelves some more, that lamp cradled in one hand, with the other hand dropped by his side like a limp noodle. Then, his eyes met something on the far side of the shelf, and he honed in on it like a heat-seeking missile in the arctic.

Something like a book, it seemed. Dusty and dishevelled, battered and weathered like it had suffered a thousand lifetimes, but clearly a book. It sat on the shelf second from the top, tilted to the right, the book itself nearly falling apart from being in that position for years and years.

Taahir stepped closer, eyed the book from afar, then reached a hand out. His arm zinged for a second, and an electric shock of sorts travelled across the rest of his body. The dusty smell overtook him, and he tasted anticipation in the dimly lit and warm air, whilst the silence crowded around him as if joining his search.

He felt…alive, for the first time in what felt like years. Alive, with the burning curiosity flowing through him. Burning like a real lamp would, not an electrically powered one.

He held the lamp up to the book, then coughed as a zit of dust flung itself at him, as though it possessed a life of its own. Using his free hand, he palmed the dust off the cover of the book, then wrung his hand quickly, before realising the book’s cover was entirely black.

Kinda like the horcrux in Harry Potter, that voice inside Taahir muttered.

Well, it appeared that, like the horcrux Harry destroyed in his second year, this book was also a diary. To be exact, his grandfather’s diary, Dada Abdullah’s diary. The one his mother had mentioned what felt like years ago.

Taahir gripped it by the spine, and felt a rush flow through him, and tingles zinged across his skin like a shockwave.

He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that what was inside the diary would change his life.

Chapter 4

15th May 1961

Even after coming on as a substitute, Abdullah found it difficult to ease himself into the rhythm of the match. Every time the ball sprang across the fresh grass to his feet, he lost control. The ball bounced away, much to the cheers of the opposing fans and the disappointment of the home fans. Abdullah gave away possession on a counter attack a few times, wind carrying the shouts of Coach Richard on the touchline, and the score kept itself at a deadlock for much of the second half.

The hot beads of sweat blocking Abdullah’s eyes on the warm late spring day wasn’t helping things, either.

His fellow striker, Elijah, ran up to him after a failed header from a corner. Currently, the ball was out of play to allow for a goal kick, and Abdullah’s team took the time to regroup before play resumed.

“You seem t’be fumbling the easy ones,” Elijah said, one hand covering his mouth so their opponents couldn’t hear. “It ain’t like ya, trust me. What the hell’s goin’ on?”

“Not in the last ten minutes,” Abdullah said, glancing at the time on a board next to one of the linesmen. “We need a goal to win in these next ten. I will get that goal.”

“So long as someone does,” Elijah muttered, before he took his position on the left again, with Abdullah leading the attack from the right side.

They were playing a classic 4-4-2. Four defenders in front of the keeper holding down a solid back line, shifting along the waves of play. Four midfielders in front of them, all in a row, combining in attack. With Elijah and Abdullah leading the front line.

But the other team was also playing the same formation, and their two centre halves were closing in on Abdullah and Elijah every time they ventured forward.

It was a nightmare in that last ten minutes trying to get past two burly men over six feet tall with muscles the size of oversized milk bags. Abdullah's legs were tiring, as was the rest of the team, and it didn't help that the tension across the pitch had become palpable.

“Need to play as a team,” Abdullah muttered beneath his breath, noticing they only had half a minute left of stoppage time, then glancing across the pitch to the midfielders on his team. Alfie, Christopher, Timothy, and it was Hector surging down the right with the ball at his feet.

“James, get the ‘ell up there!” Coach Richard called out from the touch line, at the top of his lungs.

And Abdullah suddenly understood the assignment.

It was something they had practiced in training, but never actually utilised on the pitch. Doubling up on one wing to overload that side during a counter attack, overwhelm the wing back, then get the ball into the middle for a finish.

James, as per Coach Richard's request, was absolutely legging it down the right, past Hector who still held the ball.

Hector passed it to James, nice and perfect, past the opposition's wing back.

Abdullah needed to shake off the centre half sticking to him like glue. He wrapped around the back of him, peeling off to the back post so the two centre halves would have to criss-cross to mark him.

Elijah did the same, causing all sorts of confusion at the back.

All whilst James had fired a cross into the box, and the noise around the pitch had increased to tantamount levels. Near deafening. But Abdullah's eyes were trained on that ball, watching it fall to Elijah's head.

But Elijah scuffed the ball.

And Abdullah's heart sank.

For only a second.

Because that scuff sent the ball down into Abdullah's path, only six or so yards away from the goal.

And Abdullah, with every ounce of strength in his body, lashed the ball straight into the back of the net.

All whilst picturing his young son's face from before the game, a son that wanted him to win almost as much as he himself did.

And the rest was, well, history.

Chapter 5

15th May 2024

The story itself was, strangely, more riveting than any book Taahir had ever read. Strange, too, because his grandfather hadn’t actually come to the UK in his childhood, nor grown up here from birth like Taahir and his siblings. His Dada Abdullah had learned English after arriving in Blueridge, instead of going to London and other cities like most Bengali immigrants, and then written this diary in that language likely to practice and develop his abilities.

And, for some reason, that immigrant’s writing had Taahir enraptured like nothing else. Or maybe it was that familial connection flowing through the withered, rough-textured pages. Taahir would never know, he guessed, but the dust of the attic along with the light of the lamp along with the heaviness of the air accompanied his hunched reading.

At the end, his grandfather wrote a simple sentence, but a sentence that resonated with Taahir more than anything else.

All for my son.

His grandfather’s drive in life, it seemed, stemmed from providing for his family. Providing for his son. And that was his source of pride in life, the thing that kept him ticking when the hardships of life in a new country got to him. And his hardships in life—well, they were way more difficult than what someone like Taahir was facing.

Taahir closed the diary after reaching the end, then placed it to his chest like he would a Qur’an when walking to his evening maktab as a child. A maktab that his grandfather had insisted on, since one couldn’t lose their connection to Allah in the fast-paced world that they lived in.

Taahir searched through the rest of the attic, but found little else of significance besides a few. Small shades of the past hidden in nooks and crannies he hadn’t explored earlier, a few old pictures depicting his Dada and Dadi, and their son too, Taahir’s father.

The pictures were beautiful, the colours faded yet the smiles as vibrant as could be. Taahir fingered the smooth texture of paper under the lamp’s light, wondering if, one day, he could have his own picture—with his wife and child, all smiling, all happy, despite the troubles of life that would come their way.

He felt a ridge at the back of the picture, as though it had a spine holding it up. He turned the picture over, and in the orange embers of light, he saw an inscription etched in thick ink. The ink so thick it was as if it never wished to fade.

Blueridge Town FC - 2

Essex Rovers - 1

Taahir gasped. A gasp that echoed across the attic. Blueridge Town FC was the team he had played for as a child, along with his brothers. They hadn’t quite managed to make the first team despite it being Sunday league, but to find that his grandfather had played for the same team that existed now—that fact sent shivers down his spine.

And to score a winner in a final was the cherry on top. Most people had probably forgotten about that fact—it was something small in history, after all. But to Taahir, and to those directly affected by that goal and that victory, the moment was larger than life.

Without folding or bending the picture, he slid it into his pocket and stood up, lamp in hand. He couldn’t dwell on the past any longer, or dwell on his current situation. No, Taahir had to be like his dada, and look to the future. Look to building a family, for the sake of Allah, and finding a purpose in that.

All for my son.

That phrase reverberated in Taahir’s mind, like a mantra that never wanted to let go. His dada had driven himself to be stronger and better for the sake of his family—yet Taahir wallowed in that corporate numbness that had overtaken his existence. Despite having a wife at home, despite having that possibility of a bright future with his loved ones and with Allah.

What on earth was he doing?

With his mind set on change, and his heart firmly swayed, Taahir gathered everything he wished to keep from the attic and faced the exit. He cut the light of the lamp, breathed the stale air, straightened his back.

And in that darkness, he felt closer to the light than he had ever been.

JazakAllahu Khayran for reading!

Feel free to read any of my other free short stories, or click the all fiction tab above for info on where to find my longer works.