Imagining In A Nothingness

By Inayah Fathima Faeez

I’m not allowed to go up to the attic anymore. It’s an ancient breath captured in the stagnant cold. I’m not allowed to disturb it.

The staircase ripples beneath the moonlight. When I plod to the top, the ladder is inviting me to climb. 

There’s an impenetrable chill that cascades upon me as I enter the room. It is tinged with shades of memories long forgotten. The first thing I see on the desk is a pocketbook, one that sighs as it opens. 

He enters the room again when the cries stop. The child is swathed in blankets now. A mop of brown curls peeks out of the top. He’s afraid, but Doctor Jean can’t do anything about it, because what a boy like him needs the most, is his mother beside him. 

“We’re all going to die,” the child says, in the strange dialect that the Doctor has learned. The Doctor has no reply to Mohammed’s little voice asking for a tomorrow where grenades don’t reign over the skies, where smoke doesn’t rule the land. 

“Isn’t this how we’re going to end? This is how things go.” Mohammed is sitting up, facing the window. His bandages have soaked through. “We’re born to see the fire and hear the screams and smell the ash. We’re born to die with it too.”

“Look there,” he says, and he points into the empty darkness outside, “Imagine if the land over there was covered with green with trees holding ripe mangoes. There would be the most beautiful flowers and children playing beneath them. Imagine a river, right there. Crystal clear, with children swimming amongst the fishes. Making paper boats. ” 

“It would be more than beautiful, my son.” 

 “You know those books you read, Doctor? Imagine I could read them. Imagine me walking in every morning with a white coat and with all the knowledge I need to be of some good to somebody. Imagine I could change the world!”

“And why wouldn’t you change the world, Mohammed?” The Doctor asks. Mohammed’s swollen eyes travel to the book lying open in the Doctor’s lap, in which the Doctor is writing something he can’t understand.

“Because that’s something only people like you could do. And children like me hear stories about it. I’m content with stories,” His eyes brim, “Imagine a world where my mother is still alive to tell me those stories.” 

The Doctor is done writing. His ink-stained fingers neatly clear his equipment. He tenderly places a hand on the boy’s head. 

“Good night Mohammed.” 

“Good night,” Mohammed replies. 

The sound of the doorbell carries through the hallway, and instantly, the door opens. 

It’s all the same – the hazel eyes blinking questioningly, the brown riotous curls, the cut of face. The Doctor feels sick as he notices. 

“Can I help you?” the man scans the smartly dressed man at his doorstep. 

“I’m Doctor Mark Jean, carrying a letter for Ahmed,” the man at the doorstep says tentatively as he slips out a letter from his satchel. 

“That’s me. A letter? I don’t remember writing to anyone.”

“You didn’t. This is from a little boy you know and have presumably forgotten. Mohammed.”

The Doctor watches the man’s face soften as he passes over the letter, “Mohammed…I-Of course. But-but how?”

“I was working in war territory a few years ago. He told me about you and wrote to you. And then well, I got injured, came back home.” The Doctor shifts his grip on the cane. 

“Is He-How is everything there now?” 

How is everything there now?

Before the Doctor answers, he hears a shout from inside the house. A little girl, four or five maybe, comes running up to the front door. 

“Papa?” she asks, sparing a singular glance for the Doctor, “I’m going out to the yard to play with Caira and Zak, beneath the tree.”

“Alright Mae, but I’m busy here, “the man says. 

“But we’re making paper boats! We’re sailing them out on the lake!” 

 “Not right now. I’ll come later.” 

“Who’s this man, papa?” she asks. 

“He’s a doctor and he wants to talk with me about something important.”

“A doctor? Wow! I want to be a doctor when I grow up.” 

Imagine me walking in every morning with a white coat and with all the knowledge I need to be of some good to somebody. 

The Doctor realizes. 

The girl pouts, “I’m going to tell Mum to come see. She plays with me, and she reads to me too. She’s not busy like you are all the time!”

Imagine a world where my mother is alive to tell me those stories. 

Imagine. Imagine, Mohammed had said, with no idea of the reality that was to him just imagination, a reality he couldn’t bring himself to believe, a reality that would never be real for him. 

Mae disappears back into the house. 

“I’m really sorry, Doctor. My daughter…” 

“I’ve got to go,” the Doctor says. 

“Is anything wrong?”

The Doctor has nothing to say. He turns and walks back down the driveway, back down to the gate. 

Imagine, he’d said. Imagine. 

It’s raining lightly when the pink and orange tinges return to the skies. It doesn’t stop me from emerging with a heavy pocket, a heavy hand, and a heavy heart. 

It’s a beautiful place where my grandfather lies, beneath the old tree. Today it is decorated with respect and remembrance. 

I shift the hand holding my umbrella to reach for the pocketbook. I slip it into the bouquet, between the white, tender petals, and I place it on the tombstone of Doctor Mark Jean. 

Imagine. Imagine, they say with hearts bleeding, unaware of some part of the world where people can smile, where children learn, play and grow. 

Where somebody speaks for them. 

That’s the bare minimum I can do for them. That’s the bare minimum I’m going to do. 

Imagine that, in some way, it works. 

By Inayah Fathima Faeez