It was the quiet pre-dawn of Fajr prayer, and as was his habit, my brother Ahshee had slipped into my cell in the early AM to pray with me. This time, I was leading. We had just begun, I'd uttered the first Takbir, "Allahu Akbar." As my gaze lowered momentarily, there it was: Ahshee's big toe, gloriously, hilariously, defiantly poking through a hole in his sock. And then, the absolute audacity – he wiggled it. It was like a tiny, rebellious flag of foot freedom doing a little dance in the otherwise somber atmosphere of that early morning prayer.
A snort escaped me. I tried to stifle it, focusing on the sacred words of Fajr, but the image of that rogue toe, performing its silent jig, was too much. A giggle bubbled up. Ahshee, sensing my silent tremors, glanced at me, and his eyes followed mine to the offending digit.
That was it. The dam broke. Silent snickers turned into full-blown, shoulder-shaking laughter in the still morning air. Tears streamed down our faces. We’d manage a few choked words of prayer, only to be derailed by another wiggle of that audacious toe. The guards probably thought the early hour had finally gotten to us.
A five-minute Fajr prayer stretched into an epic half-hour ordeal. Every time we’d regain some semblance of composure in the quiet of the cell, a slight shift in Ahshee’s stance would give that toe a new, even more comical angle for its wiggling performance, sending us spiraling back into fits of laughter. By the time we finally sputtered out the final "Assalamu alaykum" of our extended Fajr, we were both weak with laughter, eyes watering, and feeling only slightly less pious but significantly more bonded by the absurdity of a rogue toe's wiggle during our early morning prayer in a prison cell. That toe, I swear, had a mischievous soul all its own, especially in the quiet dawn.
