8 months left

D-224

chapter 1 : D-224

'Sometimes Sabr (patience) and silence is better than expressing how you really feel.'

Yasmin Mogahed 

The waiting room was almost empty. Only a middle aged couple was filing the empty green sits of the room. There was no sound at all except the continuous whirring of a water fountain and the regular tick-tock of clock nearby. Even the carpet would absorb the noise of the rushing footsteps of a doctor or a nurse.

As the hand of the clock was slowly approaching its half, the man took his wife's hand and recited a short prayer :

 "Ya Allah pour upon us patience”

"Everything is going to be alright" his wife said in Arabic.

"Insha’Allah" the man replied "there's no reason. Allah will help us, He is with us"

As he finished his sentence, Dr Seanfil opened the door and nodded at them with a weak smile. His face was even paler than his white coat. After looking at each other, they both hastily stood up and followed him to his office but he stopped them :

"Mrs. and Mr. Khayr. Before entering I'd like to tell you that you have a courageous son. One of the most courageous I've ever seen actually."

This sentence immediately brought Mrs. Khayr, tears. They were so little and fragile on her cheeks and yet so salty and full of meaning. She knew it, she had felt it even before they took the appointment.

As they entered, they found their son, sat on a comfortable black sofa in front of the doctor's mahogany desk. A black stroke of hair was falling on his forehead, as black as the doctor's desk and his face was as pale and the doctor's. His gaze wandered far away, he didn’t notice his parents.

"Ahmad" his mother whispered.

He finally looked around him, only to find his mother silently crying, coming closer to him. As she sat, he held her hands and gave her a joyful smile. One of his, he only kept for her. However the wrinkles of his eyes weren’t as deep as usual, his eyes couldn’t express joy at the moment. Not at this particular moment of his life.

Silence, whispers, and sobs were the only things that could be heard today as the doctor explained their son's disease. Ahmad only kept in memory the essential. The little heart inside his chest was sick, tired and extremely fragile that's why it slowed down. It could stop in any moment. They have done everything, Dr Seanfil said but nothing could mend this kind of heart disease. He was so sorry, he repeated it throughout his entire monologue, but Ahmad wasn’t listening anymore.

Just like Ahmad, Mrs. Khayr couldn’t listen and her grasp tightened around her son's hand. She tried to weep her tears away but that wasn’t easy, they kept flowing this time. She tried her best and Ahmad had seen for the first time, his mother cry. Heartbroken he couldn’t say a word to comfort her. So instead he gently patted her hand with his thumb, looked at the window before the doctor who was in a long conversation with his father and made himself a promise : he would never, ever see his mother cry. Not because of him.

The silence in the car was heavy. No one could say a word after the news. The news. Deep down, Ahmad knew there wouldn’t be a chance to survive and yet he had this hope. Allah will help me Insha’Allah, Allah is with me and whatever Allah wants for me I will accept. I will embrace it. He kept this words stuck in his head till he heard the screeches of tires on the gravel. The sound of the arrival at home. The silence was suddenly cut by his father who hadn’t talked to him yet. He knew what he would say. My sisters.

"Would you like me to tell them now?" He asked in a croaky voice.

"Yes please" Ahmad replied, caughting himself whispering.

"Are you sure? We could do that a little later if you want."

He turned around and Ahmad could see the obvious small mark of tears falling from his brown almonds eyes to his cheek. He felt his heart flutter and somehow sensed its fragility.

"It's okay" he said in a breath before rubbing his moist hands on his jeans and going out of the car.

His parents followed him a moment after opening the door. As soon as his father unlocked it, his little sisters immediately rushed to them. While Hafsa hugged her father and Shams, her mother, Firdaws stood in the door frame of the kitchen. Arms crosses, anxious look, she asked a silence question to her older brother : so? Ahmad slowly shook his head desperately and took his shoes off, not wanting to see the sadness in her eyes.

"8 months left" Ahmad whispered at Firdaws before going to downstairs.

Hafsa and Shams were too young to understand what had truly happened this day, but they had known one thing : this day was sad and silent.