Liman is a wise man, and he also looks like one. Liman has a white, long beard, white hair though half-bald, and a hunchback. He always carries a long stick that helps him continue forward on his slow walking pace. He wears a long, blue robe above a white, long-sleeved shirt... the material of his clothes is very light cotton, given that he is used to the weather from his natal Beirut suburbs.
Liman grew up in the mountains of Lebanon. He was born to a Lebanese mother and an Algerian father. His parents met during the Lebanese Civil War. As a typical mountain boy, Liman attended a tiny wooden-built school every morning. He was a playful and a loving child, although he distinguished himself by his high curiosity. After school, Liman would go for walks around the mountains, meeting old men who mostly dedicated their lives to farming - they taught him many things about life. Liman remembers very vividly the day he went for a walk crying after school given that a group of older kids had stolen and pinched the soccer ball that his mom had just given him for his birthday.
"Listen to your heart, son. The mind helps, but your heart will make you human," said the old man. Liman did not have the humor or patience to think about what the old man was recommending, but the phrase must have stuck in his subconscious. He recalled it for the first time one year later, and it is since then, that Liman reflects upon this question and asks himself how he can listen to his heart more often.
At his 64 years old, Liman often thinks about the time in his life when he yelled to his older sister. It was one day after school. Liman was coming back from school - 17 years old at the time - and his sister was lying in the hall's couch. Ala was 20 and had down syndrome. On this day, Ala was having an anxiety attack and she would not stop talking about the purple doll she had in her mind - she kept describing all details about the life of the doll, and desperately claimed the doll to come back. It was not a good day for Liman, and he reacted aggressively to her sister's anxiety. As she kept talking out loud to her imaginary doll, Liman burst out yelling with all the power of his lungs. "Shut the fuck up! For once, shut the fuck up! Don't you see how desperate you are! Stop bothering me! Stop making my life so miserable!" Ala stood quiet, looking at him, frightened.
All Liman wants is peace within. This is why he keeps trying to listen to his heart more and more... nevertheless, some days he thinks that the harder he tries, the further he gets from actually achieving it. It becomes an obsession, some days. It seems to be like the seasons in the mountain... during part of the year, the sun shines brightly and the green of the pine trees is so vivid. Other times of the year, things are dark most of the day, days are cold, and icy raindrops fall from the sky; it is really hard to see any green in the trees around. Nature in the mountain seems to be similar to nature inside him.
Liman has a particular ability to observe. Ever since he was a kid, he realized that he was able to grasp small details within the happenings around him. The sound of the fallen tree leaves in Autumn, the noise of squirrels cracking on nuts, the 20 different tones of green that one could observe during Spring in the mountain... on the other hand, Liman always had a hard time expressing his feelings. It just seemed to be his nature, he never had to talk about his feelings at home, there was never a need - this is where his reality as an adult originated. Many times, he would sense so much around him that he could feel it inside his lungs with every breathe; but that was it, a very strong feeling. When his mother or friends asked him what was going on, he would just go into a mental stall in which he had to choose between keeping the great feeling inside him, or struggling to describe it and get frustrated on the way. That was his most basic nature.
Liman, in the end, was quite a contradiction.
