THE SCARLET DHOW (Malik's Story) - Chapter 4: The Dhow That Burned

Some betrayals arrived with a thunderclap. Others slid in quietly, like saltwater into a wound—painful only after everything was already ruined.

Malik had been building a future that didn’t exist.

The guesthouse in Malindi had become more than a love nest. It was where he’d dared to imagine permanence again—something solid and beautiful and real. He’d sketched plans to turn it into a boutique hideaway: a bistro on the lower floor, rooms overlooking the sea, and a rooftop bar for sundowners. A place filled with music, rosemary, sea breeze, and the low laughter of lovers.

But the foundation he was laying had termites in the wood.
And her name was Aida.


---

That Friday, Malik had risen early, energized by the new sketches he’d worked on all night. He bought fresh hibiscus flowers on the way, something he knew she loved. He imagined surprising her—maybe even whispering the beginnings of forever.

He didn’t expect to find a stranger’s shoes at the door.

Or to hear a man’s voice echoing in the room they once filled with whispered poetry and slow kisses. He didn’t expect to see Aida walk out of the bathroom in a towel, her wet curls clinging to her shoulders, her eyes freezing the moment they met his.

The man beside her, broad and composed, dressed in rich linen, turned toward Malik with a mixture of confusion and authority.

Aida’s silence was deafening.

The stranger narrowed his gaze. “Aida, who is this?”

Malik said nothing. He didn't need to.

She didn’t answer. Her hands trembled. Her towel slipped slightly. But she said nothing.

And that silence spoke of every lie, every secret rendezvous, every time she’d said “I’m not ready to introduce you to my world”.


---

Malik didn’t scream. Didn’t break anything. Didn’t demand answers.

He left.

But inside, something crumbled.

The coral-stone hideaway, once a monument to a second chance at love, had become an ash heap in his mind. He returned to his rented space by the dunes, closed the curtains, and shut the world out for days.

He didn’t eat. He didn’t sleep. The drawings in his sketchpad mocked him. They were filled with promises made on borrowed time.


---

Love hadn’t destroyed him—deceit had.
The worst part wasn’t that Aida was married. It was that she let him believe she wasn’t.

She had watched him dream out loud, fold himself into her life, and she said nothing. Not when he imagined a shared future. Not when he kissed her like she was the only thing worth rebuilding for.

He remembered the dhow. That old wooden boat he saw burn once offshore, silhouetted against a purple dusk. It hadn’t sunk right away. It kept sailing, ablaze and dignified, until it finally surrendered to the tide.

That was him—sailing, burning, pretending it wasn't too late.


---

Eventually, Malik reopened his sketchpad. Not to draw Aida, not to remember what had been, but to return to what still could be.

The Ngong Road rooftop. The restaurant project he’d been planning long before Malindi, long before Aida. That was his. Untouched by betrayal. Unsoiled by her secrets.

He booked a flight back to Nairobi. He packed light, but carried the weight of it all in his chest.

The dhow had burned.
It was time to build again—this time on steel, not sentiment.




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