The new visitor

All clocks seem well set around here. The summer has officially left us for this year.

For its farewell event, everything is showered with celebration confetti: Pure drops of rain that borrow the colors of nature, always-welcomed sun rays lazily lingering around, casting cheerfulness on the leaves that announce the tone of the coming season.

And I'm looking ahead...

Until it happens ...

So it’s been a while since I last updated my blog. I even wonder if anybody checks this blog anymore. But today I felt like coming back to say something about…. Life.

Hold on, hold on… in case you're not a fan of those pretentious texts that claim the ability of explaining the meaning of life, let me tell you that I’m not either. Neither am I claiming that I’m bringing up something new here. I’m just writing today to share one amazing almost startling (in a positive way) thing I realized today. This thing made me believe, more than ever before ,that there’s a word that just perfectly describes “life”.

Before we get to the word, let me tell you what happened a little over a year ago. On August 8, 2008 (08/08/08) and - believe it or not - at 8pm, I finally arrived for the first time to my dorm at MSU. All I had in mind were questions, worries, ambitions and hopes. I had thoughts about the people I parted with, and questions about where I would be in a year, in 2 years... But in such moments, you never know for certain, and you never imagine what would happen exactly (and I mean exactly) one year from then.

Well what happened one year from then was this.: OnAugust 8, 2009 (08/08/09) I simply was in Morocco attending the wedding of an extremely special person to me: my friend-sister S. Needless to say, when I parted with her in 2008, the marriage had not been planned. And even a few weeks before the actual wedding, the date was going to be different. But it ended up falling on August 8. Do you wonder where the 8 pm went? Well it was written on the wedding invitation cards! How exact is that?

Now maybe you’re thinking “so what? This is just a coincidence”. Well, maybe. But this just makes me believe that life is nothing but a series of…

Countdowns.

For those of us who are waiting for something to happen… let’s just go on with our lives and let the countdown work its way… the "Zero" moment will arrive. We just never know in how much time from now.

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S and MR ... may your years together bring along
countless moments of happiness.
Allah y7fedkom :)

Aren't we one after all?

Differences, faces, colors, names, sounds, questions and answers, smiles, meaningful sometimes, meaningless most for the time. Intrusions, apologies, misunderstandings, understanding, fake at times, real at others.

Respect, gazes, stereotypes, silenced or masked. Languages, reflections, tastes, traditions, religions, habits, so different sometimes, so alike some others.

But aren’t we one after all??

Better late than never?

Sorry but I saw you that way today. Just a flash ... quick but clear enough to make me shiver. You’ve grown old! That white colour you sometimes forgot, or of which you stubbornly denied the existence did conquer your hair… or what remained of it in fact. On that thing you were right fifty years ago when we were merrily walking down that street and you said, with cynical certainty, that this is the fate of all men.

You are here, not as strong as I last saw you. Life is strange and is capable of making the closest people strangers. I know you never wanted this to happen, but I did realize that time dared and left its traces on your face! Traces that show clearer and deeper when you smile; although you seldom smiled since you came in. You didn’t talk much either. You didn’t flood me with questions as you always did; maybe because you no longer have patience to deal with my endless, sometimes playful reticence to answer. But you had just to try, you know. Because I did change as well. Years have taught me a lot and one of the lessons I learned is to say what I need to say as long as it is possible for me to do it. Because if I don’t, I might have to wait half a century to get the chance to say – and it will be too late.

How endless were the times I imagined our improbable meeting. I would be stronger then; I wouldn’t silence my anger or hide my disappointment. Why be afraid? You’re gone anyway. I would shout, throw my anger at you, break, kick, and walk away. I would shake you and leave you speechless. Things you used time as a buffer to avoid. Doesn’t time bring forgiveness as they say? Doesn’t it bring oblivion? Wisdom? Or more probably doesn’t it take away power, determination, and courage?

Sorry, but I did see your trembling hands. Not of emotions but of age. You never trembled of emotions, even when you had to announce your departure – for good. You didn’t tremble or I simply didn’t see you tremble; just like you didn’t see me cry although my eyes were dry. Ah! Silly me! You probably didn’t tremble at all in fact, because you had that gift I never had: the gift of believing in the perfection of your soul.

I’m so sorry, for myself now, because when I did see you again, all I got from you is a bouquet of flowers, not even the kind I like – you don’t remember anyway, and an ocean of speechless tenderness showing from your eyes… but I doubt I will dive in it. I don’t know how to swim, you remember? And honestly, I can’t be sure that you would come to rescue me if ever I drown. You did let me down one day fifty years ago, and I’m not ready to risk my life again… my life which is ending soon, very soon anyway, because when you came today with your flowers and your ocean of tenderness, I was already getting ready to leave – for good. At last I got that chance I dreamt of for so long until I lost hope. You, standing there again, and I being the first to say it this time…

Goodbye.

R-147

That morning, she woke up with total amnesia. Her transition from the world of sleep into that of reality was slow, as if she were coming up from an endlessly deep black hole. At the second she moved her eyelashes, a flow of light flooded her eyes. But no thought crossed her mind at the beginning; a total blackout. Then slowly came questions: where she was, what day it was, what time it was. And why she felt that strong impulse to stand up.

She had to leave her bed; something urgent was calling her. She had to stand up, and she did, but in her mind first before her body made the slightest move. As she used to do every morning, she slowly sat in her bed, bent her legs and kept contemplating her pillow for long seconds, the time to regain her consciousness, and then made her first step out of the bed. Her feet touched the floor, and a new day begun.

This was exactly what she saw herself do, but only in her mind. She was unable to turn that daily waking up scene into a physical deed. There was something heavy tying her to her bed.

“My bed? This isn’t my bed!” she realised with the confusion of a half asleep mind. The colours of the blankets were different. Their smell was different. And light was not coming from her window as every morning. There was no window at all at her right. A slight movement up with her eyes showed her a totally different scenery from that she used to see everyday. Her blue lampshade placed at the centre of the ceiling was replaced by square sets of neon light! Light! Too much light was disturbing her eyes and the room was so cold. She needed to cover herself and hide the light attacking her eyes!

Again, her movement was heavy, slow, weak, negligible, inexistent. For a moment, she thought she must be still asleep. She was probably having one of those nightmares in which we are unable to walk or run as if our legs are chained. But the light seemed too real. Yet, the situation seemed just like a nightmare, and she didn’t know how to free herself from it. Fear started sneaking into her heart. She didn’t know where she was and why she was unable to wake up. She didn’t even know whether she was asleep.

But there were much other things she didn't know about. She didn’t know that she was probably never going to wake up again. She didn’t know that a lot of things had happened since she last fell asleep... three days ago while she was driving her car. She didn’t know that she had been in that bed for three days, unconscious, and totally paralysed. A lonely woman lying in some hospital’s room n. 147.