Waiting
The old man is here to visit his son, he does that every month. Now he must
be sitting alone in his son’s empty room gazing through his thick glasses at
the tarnished flowers woven into the heart of the Persian rug. Once again I
go there and stand by the door watching him in silence.
Each time he exhales—wheezing—he launches a desperate storm to drive
the ship of death from his shore of life. When he speaks, he mocks death
just by the movement of his lips. To stand on his feet, he pushes the palms
of his hands vigorously on the ground as he is getting himself off the chest
of his defeated enemy. As audaciously as he defies his destiny, his
opponent is inflicting lethal wounds on him with his every move he makes.
Time is on his enemy’s side and waiting is not the old man’s weapon of
choice.
Unaware of my silent presence, he attempts to drink his hot tea. He
stretches his trembling fingers to reach the tea glass over and again until
he finally senses heat with his fingertips. Contently, he lifts the delicate
amber glass to his lips, spilling a few drops in spite of his well-crafted
movements until he realizes he is missing the sugar cube. At this stage of
the battle, he is not willing to retreat! He holds the hot glass to his lips as
the other hand groping every flower in the worn-out rug for the silver box
inconspicuous to his eroded eyesight. His lips burn and his eyes tear as the
fingers caress each lackluster flower. The lint viciously clings to the deep
cracks on his fingers to drag him inside his grave.
He finally senses the old brass container tapping on its sides to validate his
triumph, cautiously plucks a cube and places it on his tong and downs the
first sip of his hard earned victory.
I rent a room in the same house as his son. Only once I have witnessed the
father and son unite. When he entered the room, the old man’s eyes
shone, a breath of life blew into his being. In their eyes I read a single poem
with two interpretations, a single love with two translations. Sometimes, I sit
on the ledge of the water basin in the middle of the yard and listen to his
son when he plunges into his dreams oblivious to my presence and his
own. He emerges from this world and soars into another so unknown to
me. He speaks of sick and famished children. He swats the flies off their
faces, cursing the black pests for snatching scarce nourishment from these
little souls. He trembles in the earthquakes and aid mothers frantically
searching for their babies in the rubble, pounding their faces in agony. He
hears the children’s heart beats when the bombs fall in the war. And
suddenly, his face unfolds with a smile and talks about spring in his village
when the drunken dew make love with the wild scarlet flowers in the dawn of
the meadow.
This young man is born anew in scent of spring, in ecstasy of rain, in
luscious meadows and in the colors of rainbow just to die in cold lonely
nights, in famine and in war. He is a fugitive, an outlaw and on the run in
the big city. That’s why his father comes here to see him here in this house.
The old man stays a day or two mostly waiting for his son and every time,
he takes me with him on a journey into his vague abyss of pain, a
treacherous waiting I share with a stranger for no apparent reason. And
once again, I’m here to replicate his agony on the opaque mirror of my soul.
The hands of the wall clock are chasing each other as endlessly as of my
torment. The old man is losing the battle of time and dragging me down with
him. We desperately waited for hours. He is on his last throe for his son,
his son suffering for others and I’m trying to comprehend the bizarre nature
of our nexus.
We waited in vain the darkest hours of the coldest night. When the time
passed midnight, I knew his son would never return. He was too delicate,
too pure, and too innocent to survive in this swamp. The old man’s eyes
finally turned into frozen marbles and his gaze fixated on lifeless flowers.