HIM.

“The hypnotizing sound of Umm Kalthoum’s voice as she sings ‘Alf Leila we Leila’ in the middle of the night when there’s nothing else but her, you and him.

The smell of cigarettes and smoke that you hate to the bone, barely covered by the traces of a mint Chiclets gum that he always chews afterwards, he carries a pack around everywhere he goes, of both the plague and its temporary cure.
The touch of his calloused hand as I held mine against his, the feel of his skin as I compared my smaller palms to his own, I vaguely remember asking how he kept them so warm.
The sight of a blinding smile that wasn’t there before, but is now all that I recall from the days were the line between everything and nothing frequently blurred.
A figure that always was, and always will be, taller than mine and could’ve easily engulfed me in warm hugs, ones I did not necessarily ask for often yet is now all I crave.
I first met him in the days of March, the ones Dickens wrote about so eloquently; “When it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

I believe I met him in the light, his summer, but it’s impossible to place anything from there. His summer was a mystery; a closet full of hidden skeletons I do not dare to unveil in fear of discovering something that changes everything.
Autumn, that’s where I knew him best, my only glimpse into who he was, or who I think he was. He used to dye his hair black every month, perhaps an attempt to strengthen an illusion, one of youth and vigour, or perhaps he just hated how those white strands looked. If I’m honest, I hated them too. I thought of them only as a reminder of how the strong body is now beginning to frail, and even at twelve, I couldn’t bear the thought of what that meant.

Maybe he wasn’t dyeing it to console a fragile ego, maybe he was doing it for me. I wanna think he was doing it for me; trying to save me from the constant realisation of how limited our time together was, of how the mere presence of those silver strands is enough evidence of his mortality, a symbol of what he knew would always make me cry.
I wish I could say I witnessed his winter, a time where I’d naturally anticipate an end, expect what would’ve seemed inevitable, but there wasn’t one. I wish he did have a winter, but his winter never came.

He only had one third of an autumn, only a few years into what should’ve been at least two decades. It’s obvious that I didn’t anticipate the end. I don’t think anyone did.

I’m not sure if anything I write or say would ever do him justice. At times, I believe he’ll always be a missing puzzle piece, a part of me that I’ll never manage to quite figure out. And yeah, I get it, the amount of carefully recounted stories and awfully considerate eulogies will never really tell me about who he truly was. And I’ll be okay, one day, with not knowing the truth, but I’m pretty damn sure I’ll always want to seek it. Be it because he deserves to be remembered by that truth, or because I deserve to know it.”

21.3.2019
S.H