UZAIR
Week after
I jolt up from the bed. I get hypnic jerks, but I think everyone has those, or that's just what I think. I don't know what's worse, waking up from nightmares or waking into them.
I have never felt this way before. Broken was every part of me. I have always thought of myself to be a very strong person, but I guess I never realized where all my strength came from.
I can't handle this.
How am I suppose to just go on with my life? Being a person who's dealt with great losses in life, this is the one which hit me the most.
I get up from the bed and walk to the living room. Seat me on the sofa. I can hear the sound of their voices, the laughter, for a moment it's like they're actually here. But as I try to move, they're gone.
I walk around frustrated, looking at the mess that I've made. The rotten apple on the coffee table. The muddy shoes near the dining table.
After my parents passed away, Yaqtan was the only person who was there for me, he's always welcomed me with open arms.
I look for the TV remote for a while, I switch it on, raise the volume as high as possible. Some way to shift my thoughts elsewhere.
But despite my efforts to distract myself, all I could think of was screaming. A woman screaming through my mind. Darkness and weeping. That's all that is to my nightmares, haunting me and never making sense to me, ever.
I try to picture what I had dreamt today, but just, as usual, I can't remember. It's probably the meds.
I check my phone, a couple of missed calls, most of them from the office. I decide not to return any calls, I'm not ready to go to work, not ready to go to the place where Yaqtan and I worked.. spent the majority of our time together. I'm not ready to go for a checkup either, I think of the hospital and I think of the last time I saw him.. the condition I saw him in.
The picture is crystal clear in my brain, and as soon as I think of it, I feel tears on my face. I'm crying again, and my body shivers, I've been like this for the past week. I try to control myself but I can't. I just sit there and cry. A person like Yaqtan is gone, just like that?
I finally get hold of myself as I pop in 2 pills and gulp them in. I feel better, but I know, those nightmares will haunt me again, day after day. It's been weeks, months and now years. They're not leaving me alone.
I walk past my dressing room mirror and catch how I look... Outgrown beard, dirty clothes, zits on my face from not showering for... How long has it been? I can feel the stink. If I shower will the feelings wash off with the dirt?
I peak into my wardrobe to look for what to wear and in an instant, like a punch in the gut, knocking the air right out of me. Yaqtan's jacket. The one he lent me before he left for good.
I rush towards the door, wanting a gush of fresh air. His presence inside my house is suffocating me to death.
I walk out, trying to get my thoughts and feelings in order. Thinking. Reminiscing. Yaqtan and I. We've been friends for as long as I can remember. We were always inseparable but after the passing of my parents, Yaqtan's family took me in like one of their own. That's when we started living together and we lived like that until he got married and moved out. Even after that, we met quite a lot and ever since he joined my firm, I saw him every day. Now, life without him feels like a boulder over my chest. Crushing my soul a little bit with every passing day.
I shrug out of my thoughts and try to focus on where my aimless steps have taken me. I look up to make sense of my surroundings and find myself in front of his house. I don't know how long I've been standing and what I'm even doing here.. but I'm here and I'm unable to move.
I gaze at the door and stand there, while flashbacks run through my mind and all the good times spent here, spent with him, fade away from my sight. My vision blurs, as the tears come again, flooding my eyes.
"Sometimes crying is the only way your eyes speak, when your mouth can't explain how broken your heart is."
