#must be noted that i am not myself muslim so i hope i've done okay with that part but it's something abt sam that i think about a lot

[altschmerzes]

you've mentioned having other POVs coming up for wriggle up on dry land- would love to see any dani or sam pov snippets, if you've got em :eyes:

YES, i have some of a scene with sam i was working on earlier that i really love. i'll put most of it under a cut bc it's pretty long but i had a great time writing this and wanted to include like. the whole Section it was from.

Sam never used to be a morning person. It was always difficult to get himself out of bed, especially when he was small. His father had made up a song about it that he would sing when rousing Sam for the day. Ola would walk into his son’s room already singing it, quiet at first and then louder and louder the longer Sam insisted on burying his face in his pillow and refusing to acknowledge being awake. He’d always gotten up at the end, usually with a groaned insistence that his father stop embarrassing him because he’s up, he’s up, and there had been less complaining involved the older he got. It was easier to go along with once Sam understood the necessity of making use of what time the day afforded to him, especially with football and school and other things leaving him increasingly feeling like every moment of the day must be preciously guarded and budgeted appropriately.

Lately, though, his perspective on the earliest hours of the day has shifted significantly. Now, mornings are the one part of the day that belong only to Sam. He doesn’t struggle to greet them now, no matter how startling it is for his alarm to go off and how heavy his body feels as he lays in bed in the moments before rising. The resentment he had once felt with the relentlessness of the arrival of the new day and the necessity of getting up to participate in it is replaced with gratitude. When he first wakes, there are a few moments of listening to his alarm go off where Sam can almost hear the sound of Ola’s voice, singing the song he’d made up so many years ago. Mornings make him miss home, and his father in particular, with a fierceness that makes his chest ache, but he appreciates them for that. The homesickness hurts, the longing for the life he had loved so much and left behind to be here throbbing like his lungs are bruised, but the pain is a reminder of what is important to him and why. Not a day goes by that Sam doesn’t think of the things that are the most important to him, and he wouldn’t want to forget even if he could. The schedule of a Premier League footballer also makes praying on time complicated and difficult at points. This is especially the case when travelling for away matches against clubs whose facilities do not have a dedicated prayer room. Mornings though, the earliest parts of the morning before the sunrise, are Sam’s no matter what, and he holds them precious, going through the well-worn steps of Fajr alone in his house or a hotel room, always on time. He has developed an ever-growing fondness for the cold blue of the watery light that seeps across the horizon just before the sun rises, and for the way his mother always sends him a text when she had finished with her own prayers, every day without fail. There is no time difference between Lagos and London half of the year, and only one hour between them the other half. Although the exact time of the sun’s rising isn’t the same, it’s been a comfort to Sam never the less to think of his family and friends at home going about their lives in tandem with his, despite the difference separating them. When he kneels and presses his forehead to the fabric of the prayer mat the imam of his childhood mosque had presented him before he left, a gift from the community and a token of their pride in him, he imagines his mother and father alongside him doing the same. For those moments, it’s possible to believe that he never left.