Coming back from the ceremony, she feels tired. It is late and she has to get up early. Still, she does not feel like going to bed, on this, her last evening as a girl. Her younger cousins take turn to decorate her with Henna, they too tired from the evenings festivities.
As she closes her eyes a couple of hours before dawn, tucked in her bed, she holds her hand outside the covers for the henna to dry in the warm glow of the natural gas heater beside her bed. She quickly falls deeply asleep. And dreams. Her last dream as a girl. And as dawn breaks, the henna on her hands half dry and starting to crumble and flake off, her dream fades away.
