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Her forehead is stone-cold, and what once was the silk of her hair feels like coiled wire between my fingers. Defying my nature to think again and again before acting, I move, the pull of gravity bringing me closer to that frozen case of flesh.
My kiss doesn’t stir anything anymore inside her. Inside me, however, a thick pang nestles, more stubborn than myself. Fear? Regret? I couldn’t know, I’ve been a stranger to those emotions for too long, and now I don’t have what it takes to break down those sensations. Whatever riles up in my chest and throat can wait. Indeed, let it wait.
My kiss changed nothing. Death cannot be undone. I look at what’s left of her. I look and look… and look until my eyes sting. Naturally, I shake my head aside, as if death itself has slapped me. Then I feel the touch, I do, rolling off my left cheek. I feel it deep into my bones as I lose my balance and stumble backwards. I kissed death. And the concrete memory of it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
A chain of voices. If I could, I’d pay heed to their message, but I’m trapped inside the prison of this moment. It’s quite likely I’m having sleep paralysis. The cadaver of my grandmother is this close to me; were I to reach out my hand again, I’d touch death again – and I cannot turn away to run. I cannot think. Whatever order kept the temple of my mind upright and consolidated has vanished as I blinked.
Blood comes out of physical wounds – the reality of anatomy. Then, by the same logic, I suppose tears must come out of other kind of wounds.
Seeing is believing, they say. Therefore, I shut my eyes.
The voices are getting stronger now, enough to reset my awareness and make me realize my hypothesis is negated. This cannot be sleep paralysis, and I’m not alone – that much is certain. All that’s going on right now is painfully real. Acutely painful. Real. One may look away from death, attempt losing themselves in the mirage of escape, but they are bound to fail on the long term.
Because death is patient. Death stalks every living thing, effortlessly waiting for the moment to snatch it away. I can’t help but wonder when my turn might come.
I used to take pride in being able to accept life as it is, accept whatever it throws at me, be it opportunity or failure… but now, faced with her demise, I can but stare down the suddenly unreasonable and, dare I say, evil ways of nature’s cycle.
No stranger am I to loneliness. However, that was always a self-imposed routine. An escape? A coping mechanism? An act of weakness… of cowardice. Am I a coward for choosing this reclusive way of living? This new kind of loneliness crushes me alive.
Another touch – this time, of a stranger. He speaks my name. I hear it, but there’s no meaning in that string of sounds. A gentle pat on my back. I arch upright, the fog clearing at once. That voice… I try clinging to it. Even though I can’t discern its message, I cling to it. It has my undivided attention. I must not have reacted the way he expected me to, for he forcibly pulls me to the side. Oh. I should have stepped away?
If I reach out to you, will it make my pride crumble?
Movement behind me. People gathering around the casket to… close it. No. I watch, frozen in time and space, unable to stop it. No.
The noise that is my name being spelled once again.
A foolish man I am. My studies are nothing, my reasoning is nothing, my competence is nothing – not when death beckons. I catch one last glimpse of her perfect face – undisturbed in the golden slumber – as I feel my own contort and ache and burn.
Who will take my hand in the flood?
~
You left! And took the last remains of my family with you.
You left! And there’s not a single thing I could have done to prolong your stay in this plane of existence.
You left! And by doing so, a part of me also joined you in death.
You left! You left, you left. You left…
Here I stand.
Time freezes. So let it, along with what’s left of my heart – encased in the murmur of my mind, solely my ego as companion.
Action. I need action. Do something, move something. Anything.
Sleep. I want sleep, even if that is the brother of death.
The room swirls around me… or maybe I am swirling. A tornado.
“Alhaitham?”
I didn’t use to think I’d come to despise my name this much. Yet when he is the one to say it, the affection in his voice is irrefutable. A warm mug placed in my hand. Did I even reach out to take it? I can’t remember. The rumble of fabric, then the quiet curtain of evening. Under this curtain, he is here with me.
He stayed.
Despite our differences, despite our fall-out, despite the tears of frustration in his eyes, despite my dissatisfaction, despite… despite it all. He came back when he learned of grandma’s death.
“She–” I say, gasping at my incapacity to articulate sounds properly. “She liked singing.”
My throat is as dry as the Scarlet Sands of Deshret’s kingdom. I take the cue Kaveh gives, and raise the mug to my mouth. One sniff. Not coffee. Hmph. I would have…
“Mulled wine is the Sumerian custom,” Kaveh says. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it. Customs are not that important, I can go get you–”
“She liked keeping the tradition,” I muse, staring ahead at the empty wall. “You are very thoughtful,” I let out, a bit less willingly.
The water in the hookah on the table has boiled nicely, already releasing the lavender essence in the room. Curious, I take a gulp of mulled wine first.
“Cinnamon sweetener?” I ask him. “And lavender essence for the pipe? Last time, we agreed to Padisarah and Zaytun Peach.”
Kaveh spins around briefly, and that’s when I notice he brought his dutar with him. He gives it a few strokes, and the chords tremble… and some part of my chest trembles briefly with it.
“I wanted to make this evening about you. To honor her, too, of course. Hence the wine. But you’re hurting, Alhaitham. Tell me what you need.”
I have to quickly avert my gaze. Tobacco seems like a good distraction. Besides, no one ever gets drunk with mulled wine. This might turn into a long night… and I’m still a coward. Kaveh speaks no more as I taste the new tobacco aroma he prepared for us. It’s strong – definitely enough to knock somebody down if they overindulged – but it leaves a nice feeling in the mouth, then in the head, as the smoke blankets the cogs of cognition, which thus cease their rumble.
Oh, cease this rumble.
“How are you feeling?” invades my short-lived exile.
“Are you certain this is legal stuff?” I ask, my eyes still closed as I lean back on the couch.
“Boy oh boy, Cyno would throw me in jail, no buts about it!” Kaveh replies, a little too enthusiastically for my ears. “Really, it’s the weakest thing I’ve ever mixed up. And legal, yes.”
There’s something about his tone that forces the corners of my lips upwards. If I end up smiling, it’s against my will.
“Weakest?” I insist as I take another drag.
“It’s been a difficult day, Alhaitham. If you sense this as strong, then you surely need a rest.”
Ah, the obvious limitations of the human condition. How shortsighted of me.
“Play something for me,” I say instead. “What do you think she would have liked?”
I can’t bear to speak her name. I don’t think I’ll be able to any time soon.
“I picked up a score from the Grand Bazaar the other day. Tried it just once, so this may be a little rough.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
It’s you.
First my body betrayed me, now my heart follows. How helpless am I, in all truth? I fall deeper into the soft cushions, wishing they were her embrace. Silence falls upon the room while Kaveh fidgets with the music sheet.
You’re no longer mine.
Slowly, the sounds come. Inexperienced and shy, a bit off-tune, dare I say. The mug in my hand is still warm, the wine feels nice down my throat, especially after the smoke that must have scraped it so much by now.
Only pain that never ends.
Kaveh plays the dutar next to me, the chords reminiscent of a distant, somber sunset. The sunset of a human life.
Now, in the hour of your eventide…
Behind my shut eyelids I begin to see it – picture it so vividly – maybe even influenced by the tobacco. There are the dunes of Gavireh Lajavard, the unforgiving sun above them, the waves of Samudra Coast lapping on the beach. Eventually, the desert meets the sea. There does exist a sea at the end of the desert of our life, waiting for us to reach it.
Praying that you safely reach the shore.
Kaveh keeps playing, and here I lie, protected against my own mind which seeks to destroy me, for the first time in ages. The music is like a sacred ritual, pushing away the demon that resides there. One day, I may have to face it. One day I could be brave. But for now, I puff absentmindedly from our shared hookah, and drink mulled wine for my grandmother. She read me stories. I was too scared to step outside our house, too avoidant of the world, so she took me to another, then another. We navigated these universes together. She showed me where reality ends and fantasy begins, she spoke with such devotion, telling me that “grief” is different from “pain”, that “old age” and “eventide” are not the same, that all the characters in those stories have a story of their own, worth listening to, that words – language – has the power to shake and rebuild an entire kingdom.
I’ll carry your legacy along the journey of my life.
I open up my eyes.
The music is fading next to me, almost reaching its fateful end.
Words. Words, that have lain dormant, insignificant, unspoken, rile up in my chest, nearly tearing it open. It hurts.
Kaveh’s hand is immediately on my shoulder, the music ceased. We share a single a glance. He nods, gracing me with a small smile before reaching for the music sheet.
“You can use this. Write on the back.”
“You don’t mind? It’s the score.”
“Not at all!” he beams at me. “That way, we’ll have music and your lyrics for it.”
It’s been years since I’ve last done this. Here, in this moment, it comes naturally, blissfully easy, as if to mock me! Words, words that often fail me in speech… spring out of me and onto the music sheet, as I furiously do what a superior force commands me to – write. My hand is the medium between godly inspiration and human reality. Kaveh leans forward, watching the labor of my creation. Is this state similar with what he himself must be going through whenever he designs something? Is this euphoria of discovery the result all artists hope to achieve? I’m no artist. I thought I wasn’t.
Until my grandmother taught me the art of storytelling.
Singing the song you always sang to me.
There’s no time. My energy is failing me. I want to scream–
I’d scream all you wanted me to say.
So many things I could have still told her if I hadn’t held on to my stubbornness! I could have done more for her. I could have been a better child. I–
How can I help you through – demise so abrupt?
“Right here, Alhaitham.”
Kaveh’s touch, again on my back, as he takes a drag from the slim pipe. This must be hard for him, too. I think. I don’t think. Not sure. I can’t think… In the end, we’re two broken people with remnants of family haunting us.
Your old temple lies corrupt.
After the deed is done, I breathe in, hungry for air, hungry for life. I stare down my own writing – frenzied black shapes on white paper, the proof of my feelings, the concretization of my… humanity. Kaveh, Kaveh’s music, Kaveh’s voice, Kaveh’s hand… If I were to imprison myself in loneliness again, I know these won’t let me.
“It’s beautiful, Haitham.”
Silence. A finger starts tracing the back of my palm.
“She is proud of you. It’s not my place to talk about her, I know, but who wouldn’t be proud of what you’re doing? What you’ve done so far?”
Silence. Thorns in my throat. Fire in my eyes.
“What have I been doing, Kaveh?”
“You’ve grown up and lived as best as you knew, guided by her teachings too.”
Water falls along my cheek, but I don’t have time to wipe it, for what Kaveh said…
“This. Not here. Carry your legacy. Does it rhyme with me?”
“The meter sounds right,” he confirms with a smile. “It’s okay to feel the way you feel.”
“How am I feeling, Kaveh?”
“I… I too know loss. I won’t speak for yourself, because experience is what gives the emotion its unique echo, but I imagine you’re mourning… a premature parting. You’re stuck in a melancholy for what you had and have no more.”
Undoubtedly now, something does break, making me hunch forward in anticipation for the weight of pain. Yet it isn’t a crushing weight that settles on top of me, but two strong arms which hold me, hold me, and keep holding me until I’m almost certain I can stay afloat in this river of sorrow.
“You wrote a lovely poem for her,” he speaks softly, close to my ear. “I’ll do my best to teach myself the score so I can play it for you. We can sing your lyrics together, if you want to.”
For music could speak for me. Music could convey what I wasn’t yet ready to say. But my grandmother deserves honesty from me. If not now – when she’s gone, truly gone – then when? This time I will speak. Let this be the first step I take towards courage. There’s validation in Kaveh’s eyes as I straighten my posture.
“She didn’t often use her full name. I, for a long while, didn’t bother to utter it correctly. Her closest friends called her by a nickname, and I picked it up. It sounded funny. Didi.”
As I speak it, suddenly the wave has gobbled me up again. I’m nauseous as it swirls me on its own will.
“She taught me love when no one else could give that to me,” I scream against the current. “She taught me to speak when I wouldn’t do so in the first five years of my life. Everything I have now, I owe it to Didi.”
The second time I utter her name, the wave is letting up. I look at Kaveh, his face – forever my lighthouse – and somehow find the strength to swim with the current that will take me home, to peace and safety.
“Thank you for being here,” I breathe out, hoping he hears. “I’d like to try singing these lyrics, see if they match the beat.”
A smile, in which I see all the understanding I needed. He sets the dutar in position, ready to strum again. A long indeed, but suddenly pleasant night awaits the two of us.
Eventide
~written for the score Golden Crescent~
Wandering the scarlet sands,
You’re no longer mine.
Only pain that never ends –
Will it heal in time?
‘Tis but what’s left of you.
Your old temple lies corrupt.
How can I help you through –
Demise so abrupt?
I’d put more stars to guide the way,
I’d scream all you wanted me to say.
Forest turned Desert, Sun turned to Moon,
Eternal Oasis soon.
Now, in the hour of your Eventide,
Here I am, still by your side,
Praying that you safely reach the shore.
Singing the song you’d always sing to me,
I’ll carry your legacy
Along the journey of my life.
You’ll live. Forevermore.
In memoriam Didi, August 10th, 2024.
Beloved grandmother, I’ll carry your legacy of language, music, and storytelling.
You’ll be on every path I walk, you’ll be in every word that weeps from my pen, you’ll be in the chords of the instrument I play, and in my heart, now and forever.