Notebook
Posted by Kaleidoscope on June 29, 2008
Author: Shai Copyright © 2008
Location: Kuwait
She caught him, cross-legged, frantically writing hasty words on a worn-looking notebook. There was a stubborn looking crease on his forehead, and for a second, he held the end of his pen within the cage of his teeth. Squinting at his writing, it seemed he kept chewing on it. His hand, the one not holding the notebook steadily, was busy inspecting the papers back and forth.
She stayed there silent, watching her husband. Her breath caught, and for a moment, just a brief moment, she forgot about the sounds of the monitor, the constant beep, and the almost transparent gown enveloping her husband’s frail body.
It took a mighty effort, gulping down the sick tide of grief that washed over her features. Her vision swam, and her heart, her heart it seemed, wanted to squeeze itself until it stopped beating along the beeping sounds of her husband’s heart. She put her hands against her neck, trying to ward of the rush of agony, the sobs constricting her windpipe, trying to stall it. She needed to be strong. She needed to be.
She left him, the second time this morning. Didn’t announce her arrival, until later that night, excusing her absence with laughter, mundane stories about this and that. Entertaining him with the normal chaos at home, while rearranging the flowers beside his bed.
“I miss you,” he said. And for a minute, she stopped breathing.
“What are you writing?” She asked fondly, trying to hide the tremors on her hands, by playfully snatching his notebook from his lap. She didn’t miss the way he tensed, even though they both knew she wouldn’t open it without his knowledge.
“You‘ll find out soon enough,” he said. With a small side tilt to his mouth, sad in its angle, broken.
She never hated her husband as much as at that moment.
***
I remember the first time I saw you. You had your sunglasses on (big and round, glossy), your keys in one hand, several notebooks stacked and teetering dangerously in the other. You kept trying to close the car’s door, lock it, balance the phone on your shoulder, and rearrange your hijab at the same time. You got the door closed with your right hip and you locked it, only to puff irritably when the key fell on the gravel beside your feet. First time I heard you swear, too.
You forgot your bag inside, it seems, and it took you a minute, muttering something to the other person online, to close your phone. You bent low and put everything on the floor, folded yourself upright, hands on hips, and just stood.
The wind kept flirting with you, pushing away at your hijab, and you let it. Your scarf, light blue as the morning sky, kept trying to untangle itself, and for a minute, I saw your neck, a silver chain, sparkling along your pulse line.
First time I fell in love with anything.
***
“Good morning, love.” She says as she enters the room, hating the hospital sick smell of it.
He smiles, tiredly, opens up his arms, and waits for her.
Hesitating, she turns around to look at the nurse collecting the remains of breakfast on the table. But as soon as the door closes, she rushes over to hug her husband. Puts her arms around him, close to his heat, his smell. He doesn’t smell hospital sick, he smells like her husband, like home. He’s breakfast in bed, and expensive dinners. He’s late nights and early dawns. He’s winter, her blanket against the cold, and summer, lazily lounging in their beach house. He’s everything. He’s everything she knows.
She clenches her eyes shut and steels her resolve.
“So,” she says, “how about I get you something good to eat?”
His laughter is the best thing she has heard all year, and the trigger for all her emotional failures, it seems.
She can’t stop the tears from flowing.
***
You have always been a picky eater. You hate cucumber, except on your eyes. You can’t stand tomatoes, except when they’re mixed with your eggs (and they have to be very minuscule pieces, or you won’t touch it). You love ketchup though, and daqoos. You don’t eat meat, or fish. Except when it’s steak, and when its from McDonald’s, respectively. You love achar, and hate hashoo. You like diet Coke with your food, even though you know its bad, and how you go on and on about how none of our kids will ever drink that. And I quote you on this: “It’s the devil’s drink that freezes your intestines and bloats your liver.” Then you proceed to take a sip.
***
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“The doctor came to see me.”
“I know.”
“I …”
“I know.”
***
I can never find the words to say. They’re not enough, or maybe they’re just enough to hold one meaning. One feeling. And, I have plenty, multitudes, all colliding, overflowing. You’ll have to put up with a lot of words, love. This notebook. I have so much to say. I have so much to tell you.
Posted in Shai (Kuwait) | Tagged: Kuwait, prose, Short Fiction | 1 Comment »
What do they see when they look at me? Do they notice the slight disdain curling around my lips, the proud arch of my eyebrows, the disapproving glint in my glare? Is it my face, or is it displayed on my badge, on the flyers I am handing out, on the man I am representing?