دربٌ من الكلمات التي لا تنكسر

إليك،

“قررت أن أهرب من الكتابة، لأنها لا تهرب مني أبدًا. تتكرر الكلمات ولا تتكرر المشاعر. من أين تأتي المشاعر بكلنات لا تمتّ لها بصلة؟ إلى أين يقودني هذا الدرب الذي لا لون له ولا نهاية جليّة؟ إلى أين تقودني الكلمات التي تتلاعب وتبتزّ مشاعري؟ 

أصبحت في دوامة، لا أعلم أين بداياتها من نهاياتها. هل تتوقف قريبًا؟ هل يهدأ حبل أفكاري؟ هل ينقطع؟ ألا يحترق تحت قيظ هذا الصيف؟ لماذا أصبح الصمت مبتذلًا؟ والكلمات مهترئة؟ لماذا تهزأ بنا الكتابة وتقاتلنا وكأننا عدوها الأول والأخير؟”

كتبت هذه الأسطر وتركت قلمي على المنضدة الزجاجية أمامي. فنجانان من القهوة التركية تُركا على أوراقي، لم يكونا لي، ومع هذا فإنني لم أكترث بأنهما قد يتلفا هذه الأوراق. أوراق فيها كلمات مكسورةـ وحروب لم تنتصر بعد، وأزمات لا نهاية ولا بداية لها. 

جلست بكل ما استطعت من الاسترخاء، وتركت أشعة الشمس تتخلل جسدي وتمنعني من قيلولة صغيرة، بعد أن سهرت أكتب وألقي بعشرات الأوراق في سلة المهملات بجانبي، وقد امتلأت هي الأخرى بالكلمات. شعرت أن الغرفة قد امتلأت بكلمات لا أقدر على خوض حرب معها. فتركت كل شيء وأغمضت عينيّ. تأملت الدرب الذي أنا فيه وما إذا كان الطريق لا يزال يسمح بالعودة وسلك درب آخر. درب خالٍ من الصراع مع نفس الكينونة والوصول لنفس النتيجة.

فتحت عينيّ مرة أخرى، أتأمل طلاء الغرفة. لماذا اخترت اللون القرمزي مع الأسود؟ كنت أحب هذين اللونين، ولكن لعل اعتياد نظري إليهما قد قتل ما فيهما من سحر. نظرت إلى المنضدة مرة أخرى وإلى مفكرتي، على أمل أن تكون الحرب قد اشتدت بدوني. ولكن بلا جدوى. 

أمسكت رأسي بكلتا يداي. استجمعتُ قواي التي تكاد تخور منذ الليلة الماضية. غُصتُ في هذه الحرب مرة أخرى، ناسية ما في نفسي من أحلام، من دروب قد أهرب إليها لتنقذني مما أنا فيه، ناسية تكرار أفكاري وكلماتي وفنون قتالي ضد الكلمات. ناسية أنني أكتب. لأن أوراقي ليست إلا أرض المعركة. وليت لي أن أقول إن قلمي هو السلاح. فهو سلاح مسكور لا يقوى حتى على كسر حرف واحد. 

استجمعتُ قواي وبدأت مجددًا من “لماذا تهزأ بنا الكتابة؟” ناسية أنّي أنا والكتابة سواء، وأنني لست الوحيد الذي يريد لهذه النهاية أن تكون.

ولكَ كلّ ما فيّ،

نون

The Saddest Song

Dear you,

She sat on a chair across from him, holding her cello in her left hand and her bow in the right. She swayed when she played as if it was a dance song, but it wasn't. It was the saddest song one could hear.
He sat across from her on his grand piano, touching the keys softly as she started playing two or three notes before him. He moved in the space he had on the chair and played with smooth fingers, gently touching the keys and letting them go, in an attempt to console them in this sad song.
She wore black and he wore navy blue, because dark was the color of music. It was the color of classic and of every key in their instruments.
When she played, her hair moved with the moves of her cello. And they would look at each other every couple of notes, perhaps as some sort of a sign to keep going, to keep playing their saddest song.
And sad songs never end. They keep playing forever and ever in the backgrounds of our lives. But we never listen to their beauty and realize that they could some day end.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

The Summer Sea

Dear you,

At some point, you realise that nothing satisfies you, and you have no idea what you really need, what your standards are, and what pushes you away and what doesn't. Life is contradicting, and we all are full of contradictions. But the best way to live is to be in peace with all of this inside you.

I miss the sea. The different shades of blue that change the deeper you go in. I miss how my dress would move by the winds of summer, and how my eyes would fight the sun, but would still feel good about its rays.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

Song from a Secret Garden

Dear you,

In the most desolate, quiet dim-lighted room I find, I hold my violin case, place it gently on the bed, and slowly unzip it. I take out my violin, my bow, and the shoulder rest, and take my position in front of the mirror, while the music sheet stands before me. I feel like touching the strings with my bow to play a random note in my head, but my hands always take me to that rhythmic music that magically holds me captive every time: Song from a Secret Garden.

I start playing, and, once I reach the B flat on my A string, I wish I could play it with a vibrato that would make it just the way I want to hear it; perfect. But my hands start shaking and I forget the music. I forget that I am not yet ready to make these moves. No move is ever right when it’s played at the wrong time and with the unskilled hands.

I stop for a minute, gather my strength, as if it was a war between my hands and my violin. I recall the rhythm in my head, and, most importantly, I try to keep the music beating, in the same way my heart pulsates. I start again, with yet the same pace but a little more strength and confidence. My fingers skid across two angry strings and a sad one, turning melancholy and anger into one single emotion that human dictionaries have failed to find a definition for. 

Once the music starts, no interruptions will ever take you anywhere away from that mesmerising world. You are there, and no human being can follow the same path you are taking, unless there are strings being touched next to yours. The dim lights of the room do not matter to you anymore, and the voices heard from a distance can barely make an echo in your ears. Nothing can detach you from the place you have gone to, and there is no turning back.

“I’m a speck of a violinist,” I tell myself, and I wonder how long-time violinists feel if this is just the beginning of magic, and nothing stops it until it runs out. But does magic ever run out?

I keep playing for as long as I can and as loud as I can. The strings start making red marks on my fingers, but that's alright, as long as the magic never ends. And my shoulder aches. I didn't know music could be so heavy. But heavy hearts need more than light music.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.

Too Early to Tell

Dear you,

Do you ever wonder if you are the villain of the story and you never questioned it until it was too late? Do you ever, like, think of yourself as someone worthy of others’ feelings, but then suddenly you are struck by the idea that you have not even been that good to them? Do you deserve all this love? How many times did you envy this friend or that for having things you never had and probably will never do? How many times did you question your intentions in the last week? Or month? Or year? Do you even remember the last time you talked to yourself honestly, and asked it: what is going on in here, really?  Am I being honest, loyal, or the slightest bit of sincere? Do I even have a good heart? Do I wish people good so that they say I’m a good-hearted person, or because I really want them to have a good life?

Do you have an answer to any of these questions? And, is it okay if I have an answer to none of them? How bad is it that you do not know whether or not you’re good inside? How rotten and corrupted your heart and thoughts are? Do you wish you knew more? Any answer? Just one?

Do we end up in this life having so many questions unanswered, and leave them to the next generation, in hopes that someone would figure things out more than we did; did we even figure anything out? Is it still too early to tell?

When is early? And when is too late? Do you know? Because I don't.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.

ذكرى عابرة

إليك،

ألا تخشى أن ينساك الآخرون بعد الموت؟ ألا تخشى أن تصبح كلماتك ذكرى عابرة لكل من عرفوك عن قرب وعن بعد؟

لماذا تخاف؟ ما الفرق إن تذكرك الآخرون أو نسوك؟

ولك كل ما فيّ،

نون

Renaming Concepts

Dear you,

He sat on the table across from me, barely taking his breaths and looking at me. “I’m sorry I’m late.” He said it while he placed the copies of his book on the chair next to him.

“It’s ok. I was working on my draft story anyway.” 

“What are you writing about?”

I laughed because I didn’t really know what I was writing about. I knew I was writing about someone I didn’t know existed, but I couldn’t let him know he may have been the character I am trying to plot.

“Oh, it’s not big of a plot. Just trying to write how writers’ block feels to writers.” I lied.

“That is a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Kind of a paradox of sorts.”

“Yeah, that’s true. It’s exactly like writing about how deafening silence can be; it cannot be written in words, but is only felt.”

He was silent for a moment, looking deeply at me. I felt as if he was trying to strip me off my words, or drown my imagination with his fixed gaze. I do not know how someone can fix their gaze at you for so long you have to look away because it feels like you’re being stripped naked.

I looked away and continued. “But perhaps there is a way out of this. Maybe we can say that, for example, writers’ block is just another step in a writer’s world, to reach for something higher, to make a comeback with stronger thoughts, wilder imagination, and deeper characters. Maybe it’s us that think it’s a boundary-- or a ‘block.’ Don’t you think we should name it differently, like writer’s quietude, a state of calmness before the storm? I mean, do you ever stop writing just because the words do not come out? You don’t. You open tens of pages and leave them unfinished. That does not seem like a block to me.”

He smiled. And, oh God, the way he understood every word I said.

“I love the word unfinished, and the way you use it. It’s a tricky use. Are we ever finished in this life?”

“No, we never are,” I said, looking at him, and ended the conversation as soon as I got the chance to, because it was scary.

How can someone understand you so much it hurts, or it scares you? I was scared that the next moment he would know what I’m thinking of and tell me the exact same thing. Am I looking in the mirror? Because it sure does feel so.

Do you know how it feels to look in the mirror and have the same thoughts in mind as the person on that other side?

I hope not.

Yours faithfully and sincerely

N.

Where Did He Come from?

Dear you,

I woke up in the early morning today, waiting for him to text. I knew he would. I do not know why, but I just did. And he did. 

"Buenos Diaz!" He said, and it was the most beautiful, heartwarming good morning I ever heard someone say. 

"It's días, good morning!" I corrected him jokingly.

I pictured him while he said it, with his round face and funky glasses. He had greyish eyes that seemed to be changing colours depending on what he wore. He would smile all the time, to me, to friends passing us by, to strangers. "Everyone deserves to receive one warm genuine smile once in a day at least." That was his way of living, his motto.

"What about you? Do you ever receive any?" I asked, while looking at his sealed lips.

"I feel even more happier when I do not think I have to have something in return, too." He said it without a single pause nor hesitation.

It was this beautiful soul that was the hope I had in life, after losing what I never imagined I could live without. 

And, for a change, it felt different to have someone care that much about me, for the first time in so long. He kept our conversations up and alive during his nightshifts and his 24-hour shifts. He said he loved medicine but it was writing and literature he had passion for. He loved Kanafani and spoke to me about how much of a genius he was. 

"Are you kidding me? Kanafani is like my undying crazy love story!" These were my words when he first told me. But he also said he loved Shakespeare and was impressed by how he created expressions in the language that we still use to this day, and he told me about his new book. He was a mesmerizing writer, a writer who knew where life was leading him. I was drawn by curiosity to find out more about that mysterious creature that reminded me of myself. He spoke to me of literature like no one else does, and our conversations were going without an end. Of course, does literature ever have an ending?

He seemed to be a replica of my own being, and that was scary. I am not sure I am up to finding myself wholly in someone else, but I am sure this is going to be one hell of a journey.

And it surely is.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.

The Bigger Pictures of Growing Up

Dear you,

I look at my life from a distance, from that bigger picture in that old, or even antique, frame. I realise I've been nothing but a runner, and not the good type of a runner. I look at the crosspaths I've ran to, and I come to the realisation that I never took the time to sit there, at that edge between the two or three or four paths. I never sat to sort out my life, slowly and wisely. 

I look at how I ran, barely looking at what I wad about to be, and at what I was about to indulge myself in or immerse my soul in. I look at my face and it is so thin and pale. My jaw is tensed and I feel myself clenching my teeth so bad I almost hurt myself. I hear the sound of my heart beating so fast inside, and my chest is rising, falling, rising, falling with the same hurried and hysterical pace as if it was an adrenaline rush that does not go away. And so it seems I have been running for far too long, too long I forgot how to inhale and exhale deeply. And I most certainly forgot how to heave sighs, whether sighs of relief or sighs of pain. I didn't have time, because I was just running, only running.

I felt my body about to collapse, but that did not stop me from taking one of those paths I knew nothing about. I wanted to take risks. I loved to take risks. I mean, what was the worst that could've happened anyway? But there was so much. 

I stand here, thinking of what I've become, and I tell myself that it is okay to make mistakes. But I am not sure how far we can go. I am not sure I went too far.

Tell me, did I go too far away from my dreams? Is it not too late? Or is it? 

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.