Thirty-seven
[Leen]
How am I supposed to describe the day when I can't even know if it's morning or night?
They're just hours passing by.
Pain is shredding my body apart, and I can almost hear the thuds in my head. Darkness has changed from a description into a reality, a matter I can almost touch, something I am breathing and I'm living in. I'm too lost and I have no idea how I'll carry on living.
Mom feeds me some warm soup that I don't even know what it consists of until I had to deeply focus; I still can't get over the fact that I can't see, I still can't decipher it.
I hear the door being open then shut and someone walks towards me.
"It's me Salam, Leen," she says taking a seat next to me. "Are you feeling better today?" Focusing on her sound again-as it's the only thing filling my universe right now-I can know she's been crying.
I'm really tired of crying and having everyone crying around me. Mom, Salam, Jenin, even Adam and Abed, it just makes me feel worse, it just makes me cry more.
"Alhamdulillah," I reply plainly.
"I've brought you some chocolates!" she tries to sound joyful. Tries. "You must be bored of all the soups and hospital food," she says placing a chocolate bar in my palm and wrapping my fingers around it. I sense the paper in my hand and a faint smile cracks my lips.
"Thank you."
I haven't heard Adam's voice in a while, I wonder if he's still here. People have been coming and leaving constantly and I don't know who's opening and closing the door anymore. I want to know if Adam's here but I'm too embarrassed to ask.
I'm blind and I don't know if my husband is here, can you please tell me?
I'm tired of pitying myself, I don't want others to pity me as well.
"When will I be going home?" I ask no one in particular.
"The doctor said you can be discharged next week." That's Adam's voice! I can't help turning my head to where the sound seemed to come from.
I hear footsteps approaching my bed and someone sits down, "Do you want anything?" His voice. That hope I've been clinging to. That voice I keep waiting to hear all the time. That face I miss so much...
"I want to go home," I say barely holding my tears in. "I'm not comfortable here, I don't know what's happening; I don't know who's here and who leaves," I start crying. Mom sniffles next to me and I sigh. "Please stop crying!" I snap although I don't mean to.
"It makes me feel worse," I explain, "it tires me more."
"I'm sorry," mom says with a muffled voice like she's covering her mouth. Then I hear her footsteps leaving the room. Adam takes her place next to me saying, "I'm here, okay?"
"Okay," I say. "W-Who's also here?" I ask, turning red from embarrassment.
"There's also Salam, Mariam, Abed and Jenin," he says. "The others come and go, and those who are here right now."
I don't want to even think about how I'm making them sit awkwardly right now, sniffling cries and swallowing tears and watching some pitiful scene of a girl who's trying to see the world with her husband's eyes.
I remember once Adam and I were having a late night talk on the balcony; it was a harsh winter night and we were wrapped in jackets and blankets and yet refused to go inside.
"Cold weather amazes me," I said.
"Why?"
"I get that feeling when I'm too cold that coldness has filled me, stuffed me, and there's no place for anything else, but somehow I still feel so empty and lonely."
He looked at me with bewilderment, "that's... strange-"
"Weird," I correct him and we laughed at my silliness.
"Maybe you should be a writer," he said a little more seriously then.
"A writer?" I asked in amusement. "Why?"
"Ummm," he wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders and breathed deeply, "you always look at things differently."
"How?"
"The way you describe normal things in a different way, it's like you see them differently from the way we do. You always have so much to tell, and talking to you never gets boring no matter how I get used to it. I enjoy listening to you talking about small things and tiny details, it makes me feel as if I'm seeing the world with your eyes, from your perspective. You make me look at it from a new dimension."
My mouth falls in an awe, "And you say I should be a writer?" I laugh, "Listen to how you just put that!"
At that time, Adam said he was seeing the world with my eyes. Both of us stayed silent at the night, under that sky, thinking about what he'd just said. It was kind of romantic then, and it was weird too. It was a talk produced in the middle of the night, on our balcony, one winter night. A talk that wouldn't have left the barrier of his lips on any other time, in any other situation. But there it was floating out of his mouth and into my ears, it happened to have one of those weirdly deep conversations that make no sense most of the times in real life, never thinking it would become a reality. Reversed though. I wonder if Adam is thinking the same. I wonder if he remembers that night.
A few days pass, and I'm only counting the days and hours till I leave the hospital. The stiff atmosphere kills me, and the smell of pain and death surrounds us all, it's suffocating and unbearable. I thought being blind is something I'd get used to, but it doesn't seem like so. I'm still so lost, so not knowing what's happening around me. Those are the people I've known my entire life! My family and my best friend, and there's my husband, I've known him for over two years now. How do I seem to not know them enough? I thought I knew their smallest details like how they eat and when their smile is genuine and what the look in their eyes mean, but that's not all. I have never thought there's something else I should know, I have never thought there's something deeper than what we see. I have never imagined I'd become blind and realise that. I, now, realise that there's yet too much to learn about the closest people to me, there's too much I don't know, and too much I should know to recognise them.
***
My superficial wounds are getting gradually better, and the throbs in my head are eventually disappearing with medication.
"You can leave today," the doctor smiles as he scribbles something on his notepad-I hear the sound of the pen.
"Thank you so much, doctor," says Adam and I can hear the relief of a smile in his voice.
I think that not being able to see for close to 2 weeks is starting to put my other senses to use. I can hear better, because that's obviously that only thing my entire focus is poured into. And I can also differentiate between things by touching them, I'm not really good at that, but it's getting better. I'm starting to feel things.
Adam opens the front door and sighs putting our luggage down causing a thud.
"Welcome back," he says helping me walk inside.
"It's been a while," I smile at the darkness around me. Home. Maybe even in a world of darknesses you can still find a place to call home, a darkness familiar enough.
I walk slowly dragging my legs around and sense the walls until I make it to the staircase. My feet hit the first step and I carefully lift my right foot up. I don't lift it high enough so it hits the same step again and I stumble. I gain my balance and find Adam's hands around me immediately.
"What are you doing?" he sighs. "Be careful, and you should've waited for me."
I let him walk me upstairs and seat me on the couch. I lean my head to the side and wait for him to come back; he said he'll bring some food from the kitchen downstairs.
I couldn't even go upstairs. I couldn't climb the stairs on my own. In my own house. How am I supposed to do anything at all? Look at this emptiness, this dullness of sounds even. This big house with so many things to do, there are huge LCD screens everywhere, bookshelves and music players, a swimming pool and a bed of roses I just grew a couple of months ago. Adam bought some new X-Box games on his last trip and we kept talking on the phone on how fun it will be. We didn't even get the chance to try them. We were supposed to go to the North Coast this fall and enjoy the cold weather by the sea. We were supposed to go for an Umra in the winter, but how will I be able to do anything at all without someone taking care of me? And Adam can't be with me all the time there.
I keep remembering our timeline of plans, starting with the games we were supposed to try last week and the new K-Drama I've downloaded so we can watch to the trips we were planning and the one dream we were dying it would come true-making an Umra together. Now that we could finally plan it, now that it was a couple of months away, I don't even know how things will turn out now.
Adam comes back and hurries toward me when he sees me crying, " What's wrong? Are you hurt? Do you feel pain anywhere?"
"Every time I think about it, I can't stop the pessimist thoughts that my life have stopped."
"It only got harder," he says, "it didn't stop." He takes a seat next to me and sighs, "There's something I should tell you."
"Go ahead," I nod. I don't know where to look! My eyes are fixed on a big hole of nothingness, I try to trace the sound with my gaze as much as I can.
"I quit my job," he tries to sound nonchalant, but the sorrow in his voice is so intense it takes my breath away.
"Y-You... what did you do?" I say almost inaudibly.
"You heard me," he forces himself to laugh. "Maybe it's better for everyone at last! I get to stay with you and stop worrying and nagging you every time I call, I can take care of you and you won't put yourself in danger anymore," he keeps on trying to sound cheerful, "maybe Omar also finally gets to fulfil his dream and we'd work together! There's nowhere to go expect our company anyway."
"Are you even in your right mind?" I hear myself suddenly shouting. I get up and renewed hot tears are filling my eyes. "You gave up being a pilot! You gave up your job? Your dream! You've been suffering Omar's harsh words all your life for the sake of doing what you love, what you think will make your father proud! Now you so easily give up on it!"
"Then should I give you up?" he snaps. "Should I not take care of you and put you in danger again? This is not the first accident you have, remember the one when I was abroad?"
"It is my fault! I made those mistakes! I'm the wrong one here! Why should you give up everything because of someone else's faults?"
"It's not someone else, it's my wife for God's sake!" Our voices are getting louder, and I can't control my tears anymore.
"Your wife is stupid! You know what? You are stupid too for letting her ruin your life!"
"Yes let it be, I don't care about being stupid! And she did not ruin my life! She gave it a better meaning! I would rather give up all my dreams than lose you."
"I can't believe what you're saying! You must be out of your mind! Do not do that! Do your job!"
"I already have a job in our company, a job that has been waiting for years," he breathes.
"What is it? A CEO? Adam, you're not a businessman, you're a pilot!"
"I should've studied business long time ago, anyway! I'm just correcting an old mistake!"
"Who do you think I am?! Who do you think you're talking to? I, more than anyone, know it all! We've had a million conversations about that! Do you think I don't remember? Do you think I don't know you enough so you can fool me?"
"I'm not fooling anyone!"
"Yes, you're actually fooling yourself! When everyone stood against your desire to study aviation, you still planned it well, you never gave up. You studied damn Aviation Engineering which is so damn difficult and you were great at it! You looked for the closest thing to your dream no matter how difficult it is, like you knew you will learn aviation one day, and you did. You've done too much and you've gone so far, how can you just let it all go?! Doesn't it hurt?!"
"No," he says, and I hear his footsteps going further.
He stops in his place, probably remembering I can't see where he's going and I might panic. "I'll sleep for a while," he says.
I sit on the couch on my own, catching my breath, processing the new information Adam just threw like a bomb. How can I ruin his life this way? Why didn't he think of himself even for a second? Mom or Salam could've just stayed with me, why did he do that?!
And why does he just leave every damn time we talk! Why does he run away from his problems?!
~~~
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Nouran.