Hello.
It is 6:20 AM, the lights are still out but the sun is up; so are the crows and the trees and the winds and the mechanical bulls and cows. There is an old man practicing breathing exercises next to me on this deep, dark brown wooden bench. His fingers are coiled in a mudrasana and he stops every now and then to cough. The masks are on; his, mine, and everybody else’s. Still, the smog seeps in and trickles through our lungs, darkening them by the moving second.
Well, this is still home to me; the cobblestone pathways, the torn paper advertisements on every nook and corner, the building after building with frighteningly less accommodation, and the sand of this Arabian land. As the ink crawls onto this paper, grains of sand from my previous visit to the beach stop by to test me. I brush them off lightly, my patience wearing thin. Thoughts are coming and going, going and coming; appearing at the speed of light and disappearing even faster.
Maybe someday I’ll look back at this and remember this morning for what it is, or was, or will be soon.
Will someone next to me read it as well, like the old man sitting beside me on this deep, dark brown wooden bench? Will they question? Will they accept? Will they smile and nod? Or will they pretend to understand me or my ravaging thoughts? The possibilities seem endless, infinite, and somewhat thoughtless in itself. What are these musings of mine? Is every thought a musing? Is every musing a thought? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to seem? I cannot ask who I am because I already know – I am my musings, I am my endless thoughts, and I am my heart parading against my chest.
There is a bird next to me now, it’s chirping. I hate it. It is unpredictable, uncontrollable. Just like AZ. Now don’t ask me who that is. You will know all about her in time. But for now, she is mine. She is mind. She is in my mind? Well, you’ll never know. Or actually, you will.
Don’t ask when, just breathe.
Don’t interrogate, just see.
Don’t question, just listen.
Stop your thinking and just live.
The moon shines above and behind me with a soft glow. The fog is beginning to lift. The lights are in and so is the sun. It is cooler now. Not as cold as it was when I first sat here, next to this old man who continues to sit beside me. I wonder now, if the moon hanging behind me knows how I feel about him; that I find him magnificently beautiful, alluring, and charming to an almost indecent extent. People think the moon is rather feminine. But I say otherwise. My moon is him.
Did I lose you there? I thought I did.
It’s alright, though. You can’t understand it all.
So let’s talk about something else you cannot comprehend; how about the sun whose rays have now brightened up the sky? Oh! An ambulance just drove past. It may seem insensitive but I find it rather funny to die at the crack of dawn. How does your life end then? The previous night or by sunrise? The moment you lost your breath or by the time they found your lifeless body?
The old man’s old friend just walked by. Damn it, my flow has been ruined.
Ah yes, dying at sunrise. Where does your soul go when life has passed you? Up in the vastness of space or down in the depths of the earth? I think neither, your soul is where your life is but…
Okay, wait. The old man’s old friend is sitting by me now. His energy has shifted my perspective and thoughts. So let’s scurry back to the sun. It’s still coming up. My feet are cold. Are you still reading? Am I still writing? I think this is what happens when you write about the things you can’t understand. You lose track.
The old man’s old friend is snooping in my journal as I write. Right, so the sun. I keep getting distracted. God, I hate that word. Do you think Ms. Sunny gets distracted too? Imagine one fine day, she just decides she doesn’t feel like lighting up our insipid little world anymore so she simply doesn’t. Instead, she implodes! That’s HER impact. She controls our tiny, insignificant lives. And some day, I will too.
Oh, the old man’s old friend finally got a peek into my journal. Lucky man. He said my handwriting was nice. I smiled behind my mask and nodded lightly, forgetting that my mask wasn’t quite visible.
That’s alright, I suppose. My eyes are bright and light up when I smile – with or without the sun.
Is this intimate? Do you think you’re in my mind? Can you feel the chaos? Can you feel the calm? Well, I’ll let you live the dream for now and some more before my father returns. He gently held my hand or rather my wrist earlier; his coarse fingers on my toasty skin felt familiar and comforting. I love him very much for he makes my heart warm.
I don’t think I realized how hard it could be so hard to write about those you love. Why is that? Why do we love so hard but say so little? Why do our hearts ache but our silences ensue? Why do we bleed and pat ourselves dry than just bleed ourselves out? Would that be so bad? Would –
Alright! Change of topic now.
Let’s talk about the incomprehensible again; the mysteries, and the uncertainties of our world.
Update: the old man’s old friend’s old friend has joined the bench now. The social distancing is rather limited now. Just like their hearing.
Right. Life, death, the unknown, the visible, the dark, the good, the evil, the indecipherable. Have you ever met the human form of these attributes? Have you felt close to someone yet so far away? And what is it with distance? Are you afraid of it? Afraid of being alone? Afraid of leaving? Afraid of being left? I am not. I am indifferent to it now. What stays, stays. What comes and goes, comes and goes.
Except the sun and the moon. They always remain. They are far away from one another, distant and parallel. Unattainable yet… one. Is that what you crave? Oneness? With your soul and another’s? What if you never got it? Or it never got you? Would you run away or would you pull yourself in?
I know what AZ would do. Maybe because I know her very well and you do not. But you will. And that too very soon. She will uproot your life like fallen leaves stuck in a menacing tornado.
What would you do then?
Scream, cry, feel, or die? I already know it.
Maybe that’s why I want you to know AZ. Is that selfish? Perhaps. But cry me a river and see if I care.
These old men are boring me now. They are talking slowly in raspy voices about politics back home and of course, uncertainty. But I suppose it makes sense for them, who knows when they –
That was my walk back home. My father had returned so I shut my journal close. He held a brief conversation with the old man’s old friend and the old man’s old friend’s old friend. They spilled their life stories out of their mouths a few, short moments later. My father listened for he is a polite man. I did not.
So, we walked back home while he gently held my wrist or arm each time we crossed the road.
Oh, I also spotted another ambulance. Who do you think it was? An old man waiting to die? Or a young man unwilling to live? Maybe it was both.
The sun is here now. She will take care of me.
The moon has left and so have my thoughts.
Now, this is goodbye.
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By Farva Nadeem
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