don't you love me?

In my village, all the people, hidden between their countless blemishes, were as closed-minded as they were indiscriminate. I remember it as if it were yesterday that my neighbours sat on the stairs of their houses, discussing the affairs of the son of one and the daughter of another. Had either gotten married, made a family, how was their life in the city… they talked about everything for hours, with pride and gossip on everything that moved.

“What about your son, Bahar? How’s he doing? It hasn’t been that long since he was expelled, was it, now?”

And my mother would bite her mouth then. She’d look down, anxiously, and her hands would fold together, whilst she was trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t serve us ~as a family~ to these snakes, ready to tear at us.

“He’s fine… slowly getting over it, actually. Besides, his father needs him on the field, all the help he can get, actually. He tends to forget himself there. He’s fine.” she said to them, and the words left her lips as though they were a careless thought, and she’d smile at the old women, that, whether or not they believed her, smiled back, in a condescending manner.

“It’s a crying shame, though. Such a smart kid to go down that path.” they’d comment then, shaking their heads, and my mother, what else could she do? shook hers along, agreeing with them.

I was a thorn for her, as I was for the Academiya. of course, the Academiya fared better than she was; an unfamiliar weed, can be uprooted carelessly and thrown away, without your eye batting and without concerns for what becomes of it. However, when the weed grows in your garden bed, then the uprooting isn’t as easy. So, you leave it there, and it grows, and grows some more, and it starts stinging you each time you want to cater to your plant. And at the start you ignore it, because you are telling yourself that such a harmless, tiny weed isn’t worth uprooting the whole plant, which is promising a rich blossom . You wait it out, even though you can feel the thorns pressing into your flesh, even though you can see the blood trickling off your pricked finger, each time you try to touch its stem.

You wait it out, until you don’t . And the worst part is that, were you to have gotten rid of it earlier, then perhaps now you wouldn’t have to be as harsh in its uprootment, pulling and tugging at it maniacally, throwing it away, as far away from your garden bed as possible. Nothing can save you then, though, and even the blossom you had waited out this whole time looks wilting and ugly.

For my mother, a weed. For my father, the utmost shame.

Sometimes, I try to remember the day the letter announcing my expulsion came, only to discover that I don’t remember much. All I'm able to recall is my father turning to me, on his face an expression I’d rather not think of, with my mother trying to hold him back. My father always had an eruptive and intense anger. I found that closing my eyes and imagining I was all alone in the village helped me calm down, and I could ignore all that found its way to me: insults, comments, accusations, blows. It was always successful, and the next day, when my face used to hurt like a bitch, I almost forgot all that had happened.

The mind is a wonderful thing, seeing as it often acts completely on its own.

“Oh why, dear? Come on now, what’s gotten into you? Let these things be, go outside, walk to the market! Will you always sit inside with just your books?”

My mother, a tragic figure, always scolded and caressed at the same time. She’d hold a mortar in front of my eyes, swinging it warningly, her tone almost begging as she crushed the contains of the stone bowl, turning them into dust. I was all my mother had in mind, I was her malaise. And also her downfall. At least that’s what my father claimed that night, when his face was disfigured due to the fires of the torches that the villagers were holding, clenching their hands around them, and, even though they were screaming loudly, I couldn't hear anything. My ears were ringing as I was running, without even realising, away, out of the village, further, into the desert, even further, go away . Once I could hear again, all was silent. In the desert it’s quiet at night.

In the desert it’s cold at night. Was that the reason they chased me with flaming torches? Fire is a source of warmth, that I know, but theirs burns, stings, hurts. It hurts me. But I'm cold.