dormiveglia

It’s been a long time since I left the horrors away. Those things tangled and chased me like a nightmare, and it was one infact.

Now at here, in San Francisco, the sky is always blue and bright. The sun is shining hundreds of millions away.

I know I need to face it but I didn't expect it to beso early, that I don’t know if I am already prepared to face it, to face mypast.

I sat on the park bench for a long time, watchingthe kite fly way up in sky like a bird (Hawk or petrel perhaps?) that fear ofnothing.

I don’t know how long I sat there. But I still can remember the White dove fly over the sky when I leave.

I think I was ready then.

-

Some times I dreamed about past.

About Hassan and I, neighbor’s shepherd dog. About those insults and the hug between us, and the big tree bearing fruit.

I can’t say what I feel when I woke up, right now I can’t even say if it’s a break or nightmare. And I don't even now if it’s because I don't want to know.

When I woke up I stare at nothing. My brain would be empty like full of air, draw in blank for hours.

It’s hard to express when your experience of actually feel the scaly bark touch your foot and the leaves fall on face but that was not real and was just memory. They stay in the past and hide in remote memory for so long, that everything seemed so clear but also like covering mist.

It is just right there and waiting for you to remember, or come in your dreams just like what happened on me.

Then they will blur quietly as an old photo.

The old photo album was opened in my brain.

I can actually ‘see’ it and even ‘feel’ it, when I woke up from the nightmare when I was lying in bed.

I fell those sere grasses under my back. Worm wriggle in soil and make a little bit of sound, I can heard it through the ground. And pass the obstacle that between us.

I feel rain fall on me, on my chest and arm.

I feel the wind blow over and fly away in the sky, carries a sense of sadness and the raindrop.

Then the rain stop, I get up then fell in a muddy alley.

I can’t get away. I run, and run again, and then I come out from my memory, the photo turns upside-down again.

I didn’t care about it, I didn’t car anything that time then, I just breathed. And then I know I was alive.

The night was quiet.

A little bit of too quiet actually.

Then--funnily and ridiculously, I called my Baba in to mind.

But perhaps it is not that hilarious and it does make sense. Because what I remembered is when I was very little and sat beside the dining table, I was waiting and wishing if Baba can come home and have diner with me.

I sat there at my place. Waiting.

And he didn’t show up.

I beg to god, for his mercy and let my Baba comeback, but that never come true.

For a moment, thinking if I have upset him so many times so he didn’t come back, but then I told my self it’s not that way and my Baba is just too busy for the orphanage. So I can hate them instead of myself.

I wait. Eat diner. Then I leave.

And surrounded by silence just like every quiet night I have in thereafter.

Suddenly I heard a toot sound from outside of my window, I look out then I saw the light twinkling, shining from cars headlight and other houses.

It’s beautiful.

Suddenly a piece of memory crushed on me.

-Past

“…Then the mighty warrior cut of dragon’s head bring the beautiful princess back to king.”

“Then they all have a happy ending?” Hassan asked with expectation.

“Of course they have.” I said.

I looked at him, his eyes shining like little star on sky and staring at me.

I saw hope and wishes and happiness.

Or perhaps I didn’t saw joy in it.

I forgot perhaps.

-Now

I can’t say I’m completely forget the memory, I don’t know, I’m a little dizzy like there is hundreds of bees fling in my brain.

And in a second I remember something Hassan said.

“So why are you doing this such useless thing.”

Did he say it or is it my strange understand?

I am confused.

I stopped thinking about that and started to put my focus on something else: Like flowers on the ceiling or the cup on the table, or just the shadow behind my body… that didn’t work well.

I threw my self on bed and pillow, covered my face with hands also with a sigh.

Still it’s too hard to analyze.

Many complicated stuff squeezed it self in my one brain, made me feel ill and crazy.

That was so long time ago, it was long enough to burry every details in the horror and pain. It is still very hard to remember even wen I stay alone.

I put my hands down, then I stretched it to empty air, like trying grabbing anything that actually exist.

But there was nothing.

I can’t close my eyes suddenly.

Gunfire… explosion… boom…

Crying… screaming… yelling…

I try to pull my self out of the memory I somehow get in to. But I just feel sick and I want to vomit.

I have great power of memory. I think.

Otherwise how can I explain the guilt I felt every time I remember Hassan? How can I explain every time when I remember the day I climbed out of the heavenly fuel tank and smell the fresh air and I feel deep bliss, then the moment of blood splashing out in a chaos.

I remember what I thought that time: I thought of nothing and every thing.

I could have screamed, I think I didn’t.

Something is squeezing my chest again, and again I cant breath.

I tell myself to go get some sleep, have a rest. And leave them away, even just a moment.

I’m begging me stop this. ALL OF THIS. 

I was begging I think.

Begging for god’s mercy, for anything—for god sake I hate myself.

I never felt so clear that I have betrayed the blood in my body, betrayed Hassan, betrayed Baba, betrayed… myself.

I suddenly hate my Baba. But most then is hate myself most.

I betrayed the land that gives me birth.

Everything happened in the past crash my mind, I saw the curly alley that’s always winter, I saw the face and its muscle moving when he live with Ali.

Then I found out I am crying.

For the mistake my father made, for the mistake I made in the past.

I’d never been so sure about one thing.

I need to take that boy with me.

I will raise him. In the name of the same blood in our bodies, in my family name’s glory I will care him like my own children. I would raise him like a person. 

A human. 

A man.

In the past I always dreamed at night.

It is beautiful and happy. But it is just a dream.

I dreamed that I let Hassan shot Assef’s eye, I dreamed that I punch on Assef’s nose and blood dropdown to the ground, we fight with them then I and Hassan support each other and go home to get the prize we both deserve.

The prize that I finally deserved.

We run together when the war come, Baba and I, Ali and Hassan, we went to America. On the way Baba and Ali stand for that woman together.

We settled at a little house, and live together.

Hassan and I grow up together, go to college together.

Hassan married before me, I married one year later…

I dreamed everything that I didn’t have. I dreamed every mistake choice I made and choose another one.

I fell in sleep again and again.

Then I woke up.

The sun shining in the sky, the light went through the window.

I go down the stairs and saw Sohrab siting beside the dining table, he heard me coming down and turn round, then give me a big smile.

I also gave him a smile.

It has been seven years since we comeback to America.

Whatever happens I will still keep going.

With all the pain and mistake.