Chapter III: When A Man Dies

While I was writing the conclusion of Ahmed's death, I suddenly realized that the ending I have is for a much more complex story than I have had the time to write. The personalities, histories and relationships of the characters in my imagination are so vivid to me, but I haven't been able to convey them - yet. Plus, I hate the way the story ends. I've always had a problem ending a story, because it's always so hard for me to comprehend "the end" of anything, especially life. Still, I hope you don't feel like you've wasted your time with this, and your criticism is always welcome. I can only get better, after all. Presenting the last installment:

Don't read this crap. It sucks.

Ahmed slathered thick saliva over his dry, cracked lips, preparing to speak to his child when Shahina’s face suddenly appeared beside their daughter’s, rough and dark in comparison. In her eyes he saw the same iciness that had lain there for almost forty years, though fear had temporarily blunted its edges. He breathed, Shahina. Still, only silence emanated from his lips. He needed her to know that their marriage need not have been the prison she had always imagined it to be. He loved her, and it was this selfish love that had made him force her to stay because he could not live without her. He wished she could have allowed herself to grow happy with him, to be gentle with him, so that he would know the tears staining her cheeks shared his pain and warmth. Instead, he had hardened her soul and caused his oldest son a most unfortunate childhood.

But in this moment, he could not allow himself the slightest regret. He was beginning to feel light, weightless, as though his essence was no longer subject to the pull of the Earth but had gained authority over itself. He could feel himself disappearing; first toes, then legs, then hips. Abdul! Where was Abdul? He was panicking now; his unsaid messages burning holes in his chest as they fought to escape. He scanned the many faces that now surrounded his bed, looking for the familiar black eyes set above a hooked nose and the strong jaw that belonged to his son. The boy was now a man, but he still hurt like a boy; that hurt must not find its way back to Shahina. Ahmed knew that Abdul would do as he was told, would obey the last wishes of his father, even if his father asked him to do the impossible: love his mother. Finally, Abdul’s face pushed through the crowd. He grabbed his father’s left hand. “Baba?” he said, half-pleading with him to stay. Ahmed looked, and he tried again to speak.

He took many shallow breaths, and began to shake vigorously with the exertion. The family grew alarmed. What was happening, the straggling visitors on the edge of the crowd wanted to know. Shahina’s wits quickly took hold of her, and she began to chase them out of Ahmed’s bedroom. “Get out! What do you want here? Leave us, you bastards! Vultures!” No one took offense at her curses; after all, she was grieving. It was clear that the sadness was manipulating her mind, overpowering her sanity. They shuffled out reluctantly, stealing glances over their shoulders for one last look at Ahmed’s predicament.

Behind her, Ahmed could no longer feel his arms or his chest. Though his body shook violently he knew nothing of it, aware only of the calm that one associates with weightlessness. He had become an omnipresence—uncontainable, untouchable. The particles that comprised what he had once believed was Ahmed were becoming one with the Earth, with the curtains, the flowers on the windowsill, Mariam’s hair, the very bed on which his shriveled body lay. All the remained on the pillow was his head and as he disintegrated into the void that contained everything, he knew, he must say his last words or be gone forever, in silence.

He tried to ease the desperation he still felt, and prayed for a peaceful calm. With eyes that saw brightly, he looked up at the faces of his children and his wife and finally began to rest. He saw fear and sorrow in their tears, but he smiled. These were the people with whom he had shared his life, whom he had given life. They had shared everything with one another, from food to common colds. They had learned together, had grown in wisdom and knowledge to the jealousy of their friends and neighbors. They were handsome and they were healthy, and there was only one thing he wanted them to know. He smiled up at them, and as Ahmed turned to dust, he told them with his last breath: “Embrace kindness.” And then he was gone.

The entire house had grown eerily silent. The visitors, banished to the living quarters, listened for any sounds that would indicate what was happening in the bedroom. But the family never spoke. For long minutes, no-one said a word. Tears froze on cheeks and dried up under eyelids. In absolute stillness, they sank into their thoughts and stared at their father’s lifeless corpse, barely breathing themselves. Ahmed’s parting word enveloped them in a shroud of self-consciousness as they battled, each one, to unravel the complexity of that simple word, embrace, and determine the meaning it carried for their respective selves. Why would Baba ask them to do that, they thought. How could those be his final words? What on earth could he mean? The puzzlement was more than they could bear, and one by one, they turned away from the bed in disappointment and disgust, muttering under their breaths about how it was just like Baba to be so self-involved, even unto his last moment.

Soon, the only ones left were Mariam, Abdul and Shahina. They had been there with Ahmed from the beginning, and their pain at being placed in an impenetrable darkness was perhaps greater than any of the other relatives that Ahmed had left behind. Mariam still kneeled by her father’s head, but she felt drained, empty. All her efforts over the past few weeks to heal her father and comfort him seemed to have been for naught. When the end came, she was still not prepared. To her, all that mattered was that her father had gone and left her, despite her prayers, and his words were meaningless to her. He had left her nothing to carry her through the difficult months to come, and she was almost certain that she hated him for that. Meanwhile, the salient edge had returned to Shahina’s icy stare. She was bitter and angry, a slighted widow and no longer sorrowful. The lout had never even apologized for what he had done to her, or for the parts of her life that he had claimed. He had taken her youth, even her children loved him more than they did her, and now he had begrudged her even an ounce of remorse or pity, even at death’s door. As far as she was concerned, he had tried to break her for the last time, and she condemned him to a hell that was hotter and darker than the living hell he had subjected her to while she was alive.

And then there was Abdul. He never stopped looking at the little smile that had stayed frozen on Ahmed’s face long after the Earth had recaptured his soul. The long, deep dimples that had once garnished his cheeks when he grinned were long gone, swallowed by the wrinkles that gutted his entire face, but Ahmed remembered and loved it. It was a smile he had known from his boyhood, at a time when Ahmed’s arms were the only place he could find happiness, and when Ahmed’s eyes were the only ones that looked at him with compassion. Because of his father, the inevitable hatred that could only come from the anger he felt towards his mother was kept at bay; because of his father, he had come to know love and to feel adoration. Now his father was gone, leaving him in charge of a family that he was not sure he could keep together. He felt overburdened with sorrow, loneliness and a responsibility that he did not want.

But even in his most painful and frightful moment, at death’s door, Ahmed had remembered to smile at his son. He had sent a message to Abdul, a reminder of the love they had shared, and encouragement that he was capable of standing on his own in self-assured strength, to feel compassion and show kindness. When Abdul looked up from the small, shriveled corpse that had once been his father, he gazed across the bed and saw the dark figures of his mother and sister at the opposite edge. They stood apart, each in her private misery, weeping and alone. Ahmed’s words echoed in the room: embrace kindness. Embrace kindness. Abdul walked hesitantly around the foot of the bed toward Shahina, but stopped just a few feet away from her. His heart pounded so strongly, he could feel its reverberations in his throat. This woman, his mother, was despicable. The hard lines of her face, the way she had always ignored him except to torment him, the anger in her eyes whenever she looked at him – he abhorred everything about her. He saw her tears and knew they could only be for herself, not for anyone else, because Shahina was incapable of caring for anyone else. Yet now, she was his responsibility and he could not shirk her. Embrace kindness. But how? How could he forgive her, take care of her, when she had never for a moment cared for him the way a mother should?

The three stood, so frozen in their anguish and confusion that they never noticed little Mohammed slink into the room. With all the chaos, nobody remembered the child who had once deemed that Ahmed’s death would not come so soon, though his pronouncement had proved to be untrue. As the adults because absorbed in mourning and funeral plans, discussing politics and the latest gossip, Mohammed grew increasingly agitated and afraid, and so sought his mother, Mariam. Though he did not yet know that the cause of the negative feelings floating through the house was his grandfather’s death, his immature mind knew only that his mother could and would alleviate his feelings of invisibility, and her arms would shield him from that which he did not understand. He entered the room, focused only on reaching the safety of his mother’s side, but when he found her, he noticed with alarm that she was crying. He was confused and a bit afraid, but gently called to her. “Mama?” Mariam looked up at her child, her eyelashes wet and clumped together. Without stopping to think, the boy immediately wrapped his skinny little arms around her neck, saying, “Don’t cry, it’s all right, Mama,” repeatedly.

Abdul looked on at this simple, childish act of consolation, marveling at Mariam’s response. Moments ago, she had forgotten that anyone else in the world existed. Now she was squeezing her child as hard as she dared and, though she still wept, a miniscule smile had crept through the torrent of tears, mirroring her content at being comforted by one of her own. Encouraged, inspired, Abdul swallowed hard, and took the two steps that brought him to his mother’s side. Slowly, gently, he placed his hand on her shoulder. Shahina looked up, startled to be touched, and even more shocked to see that it was her son’s hand that rested on her. He reached down for her hand, and raised her up from the floor where she kneeled. Embrace kindness. The words reverberated through him, and he barely heard her sharp intake of breath as he drew her close to his body. Shahina crumpled, broken by this act of tenderness, and for once she tired of being resentful. In the wake of Abdul’s kindness to her, she softened. Years of neglect, hurt and regret that had never been addressed crashed over them like a giant, blue wave of emotion. Embrace. Together, they cried loud and long, rocking back and forth in their fully encircling clasp, each teardrop forming an apology that was years overdue.

They never spoke of forgiveness. Their future was uncharted, too unclear to know if they could ever attain true forgiveness. But they embraced, locked into this moment when they could finally be the cause of the other’s happiness, each the source of the other’s comfort. And Ahmed’s spirit continued to smile, his invisible presence moving over and through them, enveloping them with his eternal love.