Hazy Consciousness

I’m not sure why, that night, I insisted on taking you to that small bistro on the pier of the stormy bay at the town’s northern edge. It was closed, as was customary on such evenings, but I asked George, who lived next door, to open it for us.

As usual, he giggled—apparently without reason, or so I always thought. He passed our order to his wife, Sedra, inside. This time, Sedra did not rush to greet us. Sedra is strange, but she is pure love.

I immediately noticed that “Auntie,” as George compassionately called her, was singing in the kitchen. Her voice’s echo filled the auras of the plants crowding the room. Sedra does not sing. But she does when the sea and the climate around things change. I remember only one thing from those first moments—George giggled much, and he was, that night, like a wizard or a homeless man or a man who had lost the keys to his home. He was worried, I swore to myself. But he was profound, like a delicious well. And I was in a hazy consciousness; a magical roar roamed inside my head.

“The Uncle” argued much with me. Tapped much on my shoulders with his heavy hand. I was drawing with a black pen on a tissue, endlessly redrawing lines as if trying to convey something important. It is impossible now to recollect what it was.

I remember now that you got up from your table at the window on the left and approached ours. You flirted with me—a kiss on my ear—and told “the uncle” to stay relaxed. You commanded me, “Enough, enough now!” staring at me lingeringly while returning to your table. I imagined you casting upon me—or upon the whole world—a look of everlasting compassion. Our destiny. Our fate!

I was listening to him and staring at your face that dwelled in a colorful darkness but not at a fixed distance. I remember, specifically, that moment when he was talking about a certain “end,” and at the same moment Sedra’s voice became higher, and I glimpsed the delicate fold of your elbow—a sudden enchantment seized my mind. Perhaps a fleeting dread, the realization of your profound beauty and utter distance.

I had never been accustomed to sharing the table with George and Sedra. They do not share their table with their visitors, not even with their close friends. But “Auntie” finally emerged from the kitchen, with a floral crown on her head. She carried food for all of us. We were, the four of us, at a table in the closed bistro on that rainy bay. And the roaring of the sea was mighty and startling, like an invisible display of a galactic carnival. The roar often drowned the details and joints of “the uncle’s” tales, making them wilder as their finer nuances faded. But George kept telling stories, and Sedra kept humming her sweet melody secretly. And I gazed in amazement at your divine face and, enchanted, through the window behind you, at the distant flickering lighthouse. I had all the patience of the universe after I cast time away in the waves.

Sedra had prepared for you a wreath of blue flowers—she was placing it on your head, and you were laughing. You covered your laughter with the palm of your right hand. I remember the many miniature rings on the upper segments of your fingers. And I moved closer to you to lift your hand from the path of light and bliss.

But the roaring overwhelmed everything; nothing remained but light.

By Fadi Abu-Deeb

From: Syria

Website: https://www.comingeon.wordpress.com