By Kachya Othman
Life always takes her back to the valleys of pain. Without her knowledge, although she is strong, her bones have demolished and the heart keeps bleeding. There are cavities in her bones, like those done by a woodpecker to form an eternal nest, to make it a home for dark days or a nest for production.
On the day of his birth, he was like a sun rising sheepishly on the meadows with springs. With his beautiful eyes, he lit the days of his life and declared the birth of happiness with his birth.
Like any mother, she forgot her pregnancy pains after the first touch of her baby’s face, seeing him in front of her eyes after a long wait.
He came like a shining planet, his skin, white and soft, lit his mother’s remaining days. For his beauty and remarkable aesthetic that took people’s attention by surprise, she decided to call him, “Hasan”. Yes, that is the most suitable name for the madness of beauty in his cheeks. His first cries were unforgettable. It was like flying rhymes from symphonies of lover’s music. As for his eyes, that is a different story. Their brown colour springs from the colour of wet ground, his long eyelashes, as if grown from the springs of that ground.
family and friends started to come and look at that beautiful face. Also women, one after another, were praying for him to be safe from evil eye.
However, in his forty-fifth day of life the shock came. Since that day, the white clouds in his mother’s sky has changed to an eternal darkness. She started to go from a doctor to another, aiming from clinic to another just like Hajer’s effort between Safa and Marwa to rescue Ismaeel peace be upon him.
After all, the heart of the mother does not strain the care towards that who were created from her womb and got his soul from her soul. Like lavas, her heart bombed blood into her body as she listened to doctors uttering to end her silence. Every second passed, Hasan was fading away like a rose that was cut away from water to live spitefully in the middle of green valleys.
Every second passes and the happiness departs her modest home. Every second passes and her hands taste the poison from the hand of a doctor who stood speechless in front of Hasan’s eyes. Until the doctors declared one day, that time has passed without doing the necessary and cure has become impossible. Nothing capable anymore of removing the sadness from her and his heart. The shock of that news has entered her heart and made her loos hope for any possible life. Paralysis and brain damage attacked his weak small body without signs of mercy.
An illness has thrown its nets on a poor child, who does not understand pain. The days became identical. They pass like clouds quickly. As for Hasan, that poor paralysed child was hardly growing every year. And poverty has invaded that house and depraved the boy from even seeing a specialist.
Fifteen years has passed and he is still paralysed and unable to utter a word. His parents have tasted all types of deprivation and need and tried to change such black days into hope in the eyes of that small child who is swimming in quagmire of poverty.
In his fifteen-year and the third day from October, his soul decided to depart this life. To leave the sadness that was written on him since his birth. He wanted to go away and for eternity stay in care there without much thought. As his heart was tearing apart for his parents as he watched how they became due to his illness. As God never forgets his creatures, his soul departed in a middle of the night to bring sadness for his parents’ hearts as the soul of their child left them sheepishly. It was like the blackness of that lonely starless night while the moon was hidden from the eyes.
*Editing : Gerges Moujaes is currently continuing MSc in Local Economic Development at the London School of Economics
*Translated: Amir Darwish
Hikayetna 