Renovatio

Md. Rakib

(Inspired by Fayeza Hasanat’s story ‘The Anomalous Wife’)

The sands of time lay still
Frozen for who knows how long
As if waiting for her
To make the world flow again.

Then she marches
Just like before,
And she will go
To Shamudra.

The sands of life
Embrace her feet,
As she walks through the air
Of apprehension, of assurance.

She looks to the right and to the left
And then behind,
To make sure no one interferes this time
Of her return home.

She looks ahead, finds the Sun
As if it has been waiting to tell her
Nothing else to be done.

She stands before the vast gate
Of her primordial home
To a place she wasn’t allowed,
Kept in the deserted prison
Where she was thirsty and longed
For that vortex of the tiny whirlwind,
Which now pushes her
To cross the water
And take the steps toward eternity.
“I
will
fly
in
the
mirrored
sky,
Laughing
lavishly
like
lilies,
All the water
My domain,
I become all
And all who are wronged
Become me.
I
Am
A
Pebble,
Make
Small
Ripple.
A million
Pebbles like me
Waves they make
Wash away the stench of conformity.”

Then there was a screaming silence
As the sun slowly sets
Closing the curtain.

* * * * *
“No more a source of pride, only disappointment
My better half is nowhere to be found,
People search for her
While I lay anxiously
In this empty bed
For the news of her arrival.”

“Has she not embarrassed me plenty?
Have I not suffered enough?
I have spared no expense
For the best doctor money can afford
And this is how she repays me?
For curing her, making her whole
Let her come, I will fix her myself.”

The bell rings
Beckoning the good doctor
He opens the door
Expecting his wife
With the police,
But this time
He was greeted
Only by the sullen faces
A face that he wore countless times before.

* * * * *

“Why?”
A question he asked himself a thousand times
Probably a bit more
Yet no answers he can find
Only, “why?”
He thrashes around
In grief, anger
Embarrassment.

“How can you do this me?
How can you leave me like this?
After all the sacrifices,
Everything I have done
For you!”

He smashes the wine glasses
Even the bottles were not safe
This empty house shall know
The prosperous dragon’s wrath.

“I gave you a life
Fleeting even in dreams
And now you betray me
After all these years,
You made me waste”

He goes to her desk
Here she wrote in secret
Away from peering eyes.

He smashes his hand on the desk
Then the other one
Empties all the drawers
Throws all the meaningless papers around
Then suddenly some yellow pages fall on his head.
He recognizes them
These are from the place where his wife was supposedly cured.

* * * * *

“I have saved countless lives
Thanked by faceless mouths
Yet I failed as a doctor
A husband, a partner.

My eyes refused to see
Ears deceived me,
My brain conspired
With the rest of my body
I did not know
They did not let me.”

What wonderful excuses
This man, no, this dragon gives
As he reads the letters
He does not understand
Blames everyone and everything
But himself.

He finishes reading all the letters
But he feels confused
As the last entry is from some time ago
When his life was perfect and happy,
He searches everywhere
For another
But fails
Like he failed his partner.

He sits on the bed
Surrounded by debris from his wrath,
Wondering what to do
He picks up his pillow
To sleep from exhaustion,
A piece of paper falls
And he reads the words
Like something from a holy book
These are the whispers of her dying breath
That she told to the Sun.

“I did not understand Labonyo
I did not even try,
I saved lives all my life
But I refused to save yours,
Not truly did I try
And now I’ll never get the chance.”

He goes to the beach
Tries to imagine where his wife might have gone
In her last moments,
But he cannot as she is a familiar stranger.

Suddenly he sees footprints going towards the sea
He follows them and stands before Heaven’s last light
These are not Labonyo’s footprints
But it doesn’t matter, he just believes that they might be.

As he stands before the ocean
He hears a distant but familiar sound
A sound he in another life rejected
Pushed away from his life,
Now he wants to hear it from near
Embrace it with all his might.
He tries to listen ardently
With all his might
But all he hears is a silent chorus.

Inundated with Heaven’s last light
Happy, sad, angry bathed with emotions untold
We are here, we are present
And we are reborn by life beyond life.