“You’re dying,” I say.
The old man looks up at me from his bed. His eyes red from exhaustion. The loose skin blanketing his bones. He slowly pulls himself up into a seated position. I offer my hand to assist. Perhaps he doesn’t see it. Maybe he just doesn’t want it.
“You’ve come,” he says. I recognize the voice. Even under all that seems foreign to me, the voice is still there. And I hear thousands upon thousands of years of regret resonating through the baritone. Some of it my own.
“Don’t I always?”
He nods. Forcing a smile. “It means there is still hope for you yet. Just perhaps not this year.”
“How do you feel?” I ask, hoping to deflect the criticism for just a few more seconds. Thankfully, he indulges me.
“How do I feel?” he laughs. “I’m dying of old age!”
“You are indeed dying, Brother, but it’s not because of old age.”
“We’re brothers now?”
“I meant it as a term of endearment,” I explain. “Too little too late, I suspect.”
“Such is always the case with you.”
And so it begins.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
His face twists, barely disguising his disgust. “Who are you apologizing to? To me?”
“Of course.”
“I am not the one you need to pretend regret around.”
“I’m not pretending. I am truly sorry.”
“Well, then,” he laughs, “the regularity with which you are ‘truly sorry’ has rendered the difference between fact and fantasy irrelevant.”
“No, no, no,” I protest, “this time it’s different. It will be different.”
“Too little too late, you suspected.”
“And you said there was still hope for me!”
“See, that is your problem” he chides. “Always looking for absolution in the future. – And what if you have no future? What if, like me, you are dying?”
The old man begins to cough. He reaches for a cup of water. I grab the cup off the nightstand and thrust it in front of his face. He takes it. He looks at it. Studying it. My fingerprints polluting the vessel. He shakes his head and puts it back down.
“Your disappointment in me overwhelms your thirst?” I ask.
“Your disappointment in yourself overwhelms my thirst.”
I’ve lived these riddles before.
“Am I dying?” I ask.
“We are all dying.”
“But am I dying soon?”
“And if I could answer that question,” he begins to laugh again, “would that make a difference?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Then, yes, you are dying soon.”
I am not expecting this answer. Hell, I’ve asked this question a thousand times before and never gotten a response.
I pick up the cup of water and hand it to him again. He smiles. And drinks it down.
My eyes are closed as I pull at my hair. Why now? There is so much left for me to do. Left for me to say. How soon am I leaving? I am not going to let him see the tears in my eyes. Is this meant to be torture? Is he toying with me? I can hear the old man gulping the water. He finishes.
“Thank you.”
His voice snaps me out of it. I open my eyes to see him staring at me.
“You don’t need to thank me,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“I said you don’t need to thank me.”
“I didn’t,” he says, bemused.
“You just said ‘thank you’,” I exclaim. “I heard you say it.”
“But did you see me say it?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it was me?”
“There’s no one else here! And it was your voice! Are you saying I imagined it?”
“Perhaps you thanked yourself,” he offers.
“Now who is blurring the line between fact and fantasy?”
But he just stares at me. I can’t read his face.
“Fine. Why would I thank myself?”
“Because upon learning that you are going to die soon, you still thought to give an old man a cup of water before entertaining despair. Because maybe you finally rose above a world that places you at the center of it, and thought of someone else.” He jabs his crooked finger into my chest. Poking. Searching for a heartbeat. “And in doing so, you were finally good to yourself. If even for just a moment. Even if it’s too late.”
I am crying now. It’s okay that he sees this. I’m not crying for him to see. I’m crying because I can’t stop myself from doing so.
“I’m sorry.” I whimper.
“I know,” he assures me.
He tries to stand, his aching bones betraying him. I give him my hand to assist. He grasps it tightly as he rises. He is taller than I remember. He always is. He slowly approaches the window.
“Join me.”
I stand next to him. And look out into the sun. And the concrete and grass below. I recognize the streets. Every single one of them. They are not meant to intersect – their geographies prohibit it – but there they all are. The sidewalk I learned to ride my bicycle on. The apartment building I lived in during college. My grade school. The different houses that I called home with my family. The homes of friends. Of family. I see parks I’ve played in, libraries I’ve read in, mosques I’ve prayed in. I see the house where I met my wife. The hospital my children were born in. I see museums my parents took me to. I see the cement floor where I tripped and split my chin when I was seven. It’s all laid out in a grid that suggests that there has been a design to this whole thing.
The old man puts his hand on my shoulder. Squeezes it.
“There is magic out there, yes?” he prods.
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was so while it was happening?”
“No. I was too busy…”
“With what?”
“With distracting myself,” I admit.
“You are not alone with that affliction.”
“There is little comfort in knowing that at this late a stage.”
He laughs again. It sounds almost youthful.
I turn to look at him. There is no scorn in his eyes, no ridicule. Just an old man enjoying what little time he has left.
“Thank you for the water.”
And now I laugh along with him. The absurdity of it all. And just for a moment, we are both truly alive. With death knocking on both our doors, we are simultaneously dying and immortal. At least for this moment, this is not fiction.
And the laughter subsides. The weight of the moment upon us.
“You were thirsty. The water was already there. I just handed it to you. No need to thank me.”
The sadness returns to the old man’s eyes. He turns away and walks back to the bed.
“What?” I demand. “What did I say?”
He doesn’t turn to look at me.
“You think you understand thirst?”. His voice terse.
“Of course, I do.”
“And you understand hunger?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what this has all been about? About denying myself these things. Isn’t that the lesson of it all?”
And he turns. His eyes full of a rage I’ve seen before. I see it every year. I feel it every year.
“No. No. No! NO!” The old man storms toward me. I am on my heels. “You think I’ve come here to deny you things?” he yells.
“What else? That’s the point of it, no? What not to do! What not to touch!” .
He grips my shirt. Pushes me up against the wall, my heels dangling.
“I have not come to deny you anything! I have come to remind you of what you deny yourself when I am not around!”
He throws me back towards the window. I can feel my bones crack as I hit the wall. The old man’s strength is returning. He lifts me up and pushes me out over the sill. With a single hand, he dangles me over the world I know. The wind is howling beneath my feet.
“There is magic out there. Yes?”
“YES!” I yell up to him.
“THERE IS MAGIC OUT THERE. YES?”
“YES!”
“Then find it. Know it.”
“I don’t understand.”
The old man begins to loosen his grip. A finger at a time.
“If all you’ve gotten from me is hunger and thirst, then you have failed!”. He removes a finger.
“If all you’ve gotten from me is pain, then you have failed”. A second finger goes.
“Please,” I plead. “I’ve done everything I was instructed to.”
“And it wasn’t enough!” he condemns. A third finger.
I am dangling with only the space between his thumb and forefinger to sustain me.
“I am not hunger. I am not pain. I am not sacrifice.”
And he releases his grip. I squeeze my eyes shut. I would rather not witness my own end. But then I think better of it. And open my eyes.
I am not falling. I am still. Everything is still. The clouds anchored in place. Birds in mid-flight frozen. Below me, my parents are holding my hand as we enter a museum. I am holding one of my sons for the first time. My wife and I are watching another take his first step. I am in mid-trip on the cement floor, my chin yet to be split. And I am praying. In a hundred different mosques.
I turn to see my hand gripping the window. I do not remember putting it there.
I pull myself up, back in to the room.
The old man is lying in his bed again. Coughing. Dying.
I come and take a seat on his bed.
“It is always the same with you,” he says as he grips my hand tight.
“I know.”
“You come to your senses at the end.”
“It gets cloudy,” I explain. “Between the rules and routine and…”
“Regret?” he interrupts.
I grow quiet. Some questions are better left unasked. For fear we might get an answer.
“Do you think, perhaps, we don’t all deserve solace?”
The old man sits back up.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe. What you consider fact or fiction or metaphor…”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve stood still before?” he queries.
“Yes.”
“You’ve let the moment overwhelm you? You’ve let the majesty of it drive you to tears?”
“I have.”
“And you think that clarity is only offered to you?” he chides.
“Of course not.”
“Then what? To people who only believe as you do?”
“No.”
“That is all I bring – the space to be clear. To be grateful. But the work is still yours to do.”
“I already know that,” I respond.
“But…?”
“But I still falter. I still lose time. Every year, I lose time.”
He smiles at me. A generous grin. “You are not alone with that affliction.”.
I return the smile. “There is little comfort in knowing that at this late a stage.”
He begins to cough. I hand him the water again.
“How are you?” I ask.
“How am I?” he laughs. “I’m dying of old age.”
“You’re twenty-eight days old.” I remind him.
“Well,” he says, “for me, that’s a lifetime. At best, I have a day or two left.”
“And me?”
The old man looks at me for a long time. And then finally offers me the reprieve. “I don’t know when you’re going to die. No one does.”
“I don’t want to find myself here again. But I make myself that promise every year.”
The old man rubs my head. I’m a kid again.
“Well, maybe next time, before we start this whole journey, you’ll take the time to memorialize this moment. And maybe you’ll share it with others.”
“Maybe I will,” I say.
khurram mozaffar writes 