In A Thousand Rooms, Holding A Million Lives

By Sara Fathima

I have lived as long as time, I've loved a million souls and seen life blink out of an eye. It is not because I'm immortal, it is because of the things I've seen and felt in my mere 20 years of life. I have memories that aren't my own but they cut deeper.

It's been so long, I do not know which memories are my own and which are not, but it doesn't matter because they all hurt, every second, with each breath they squeeze my heart.

I used to think of it as a gift but it is no gift.

It is a curse to know things that others don't. It is a curse to remember what others do not, what they cannot. But it is all I have. I can't forget, I owe it to those lost souls to remember, to feel what it felt like. I don't know their names; I don't know what they look like, but I know every corner of their mind and heart better than my own.

I first saw a glimpse of the past when I was 5.

I was so confused, I thought it was a strange dream.

He was a child like me once. He stood in the same room as me in the past, I don't know when, I don't know how, I just know what it felt like. I stood in his place and all the emotions he felt came rushing to me.

Anger.

Shame.

Hatred.

Pain.

Love, so much love that his heart wasn't enough to hold it.

My vision was blurry– he was crying. I heard an unfamiliar voice but he knew the voice, it was mom, his mom.

I told you to stay away from me!

I felt a sharp pain on my cheek– she had slapped him. I cried then, like he had before in the same spot.

Your father is not coming back. Can't you see? He has left us. He doesn't want us. He doesn't want you. We never wanted you. If only it wasn't for you, we'd still be happy. We'd still be together.

Another slap,

Then another,

Then another.

I fell to the ground. A hand grabbed my chin.

I felt spit that wasn't my own all over my face.

It is all because of you. Don't you forget that. You'll never be happy for what you did to me. God sees, God hears, he will tear your heart like you did with mine.

With that she left. I stayed there. I wept for hours on end, the sorrow of another heart burning my own. I felt disgusting for doing that to my family. How could I? Why did I have to be such a nuisance? If only I wasn't there anymore. If only I was never born. If only I was dead.

But I was terrified of death— he was terrified of death. I did not want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to be happy but it hurt so much to hear her say it. It was all I heard. I wanted to live but I felt, even in my innocent and young soul, that I wasn't wanted.

So much love but no one to give it to. So, I hardened my love and hit myself over and over.

By the time the vision stopped and I was me again, my eyes were sticky with tears. I hated the way he felt. I still felt it all over me, the ache and longing of a child.

I thought it was a one time occurrence, a wild story that no one would believe but I was wrong, I was so wrong. Every time I enter a new room, I get to see a piece of the past. None of them good, all of them soul wrenching.

I tried to cope with all the things I felt, it was easy at first, to separate my own thoughts and feelings from them but with time, it all merged into one, big rotting pile of emotions that only I could see and feel. I loathed it all so much, a part of me still does. I was afraid of going to new places, afraid of what I might see.

And so, I stayed away from new rooms. With that I could limit my glimpses but one can only run so far.

When I entered my new classroom and sat on my desk, I felt myself falling and then just like that I was once again someone else. My arms were covered in cuts and wounds, ugly scars all over my skin. I was hunched and held a pen.

I was writing something—

"I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. I've tried, I promise that I have tried but I have nothing left in me anymore. I have nothing left to try for. I don't see myself happy. I don't see myself loved. How is it so hard to love myself? Why can't I just love myself? I do not know what is wrong. It was all good one day and then all I felt was pain and sadness. I can't escape it no matter what. It beats in my chest like a second heart. I do not know what I have become. I don't know anything about me. It is as if this sorrow, this pain has wrapped itself around what my heart used to be, around what I used to be. I've tried to cut through it but it is so dense, I don't see an end in sight. I'm terrified of what I might find beneath all those layers. I'm terrified of what I see in the mirror, terrified of what I have become. A switch was flipped and the light was shattered and now matter how much I try I can't turn it back on. I love you all, I've loved you more than I've ever loved anyone. I know it wasn't supposed to end like this, I know I wasn't supposed to be like this but it is out of my control. The weight on my soul is suffocating me, I cannot breathe. It is so hard, it is so damn hard to live, to breathe. I know we had so many dreams but I think they were always supposed to be just that, dreams. I think this was always what was coming. Maybe I was never supposed to be happy. I was just never meant to be. Was always meant to be wasted potential and I cannot come to peace with it. I'm sorry for it all, sorry for every tear that I've brought out. I'm sorry to me from all those years ago. I'm sorry I couldn't be what I was supposed to be. I can't bear all this pain anymore. My heart and mind have turned against me, I've never hated anyone as much as I've hated me. I love you so much, no matter the words said. Always remember that."

Then, with the letter buried deep in my pocket and with a blunt knife going deeper and deeper in my heart and choking sobs, I got up and walked up to the rooftop.

There was something pulling me forward and something else pulling me back. My mind rejoiced and then wept. I felt so much pain, so much black, disgusting hurt, I wanted to puke, I wanted to run but I couldn't. How could a person live with this? How could anyone not tear such a rotting heart out? They drove me mad, all the things I felt and the things I knew I never would.

As I leapt to my death at last, it all cleared. There wasn't an ounce of regret, just resigned heartache and what could've been, what might've been if it wasn't for it all, if it wasn't for me. If only—

The earth took me in and with half thoughts and an unlived life, I finally entered death.

I don't remember much after it ended, I was back in my seat as me. My body shook uncontrollably, I got up and ran home and cried for days. Everyone asked what was wrong but I didn't know how to tell them. I suddenly spoke a language no one could understand, each word borrowed from a different person.

I stopped avoiding them after that, I had to know, I had to feel what they had once felt, they deserved to be known. Because we, humans, all we desire is to be heard and to be understood. I felt this desire in every memory that I collected, in every life I lived. They all just wanted to be understood. All that they ever did, every whimper and every scream was to make people see, to make people know what it felt like to drown. Every emotion, laced with the same wish. Every sob filled with the same yearning. But it isn't enough. Words and cries aren't enough. The only way to know and to understand is to live it, is to feel what they felt.

Maybe the reason why I can only see pained memories is because that's when a person is most vulnerable, most open. Maybe the reason I only feel soul shattering grief is because that's when the need to be heard and accepted is the strongest. It is a gift, it is a curse but it is a chance to know and love, give them all that they deserve. They would never know, the pain that they felt would never go away but maybe I can take half of it, even if it is after all this time.

It was my responsibility to give them what others in their life never did. I realised that no matter how much you say, “I know how it feels.” You never truly do, not unless you feel the hurt and the shame and the anger. Unless your heart cleaves itself in half and your soul shrinks like theirs had, you just can't know.

I stopped pushing it all away, I embraced the emotions, I lost myself in their burning life and drowning faith. I wandered in search of new rooms, in search of hidden memories lost to time, in search of new pain of old lives. I found a purpose. It hurt. It still hurts to carry all this weight but I'm nothing without it. I'm nothing but a tapestry of all the emotions ever felt, with woven hearts and black tears. A painting with layers upon layers of grey skies and dried flowers. A world with red oceans and drought lands. A heart with indelible marks and a mind with never ending chaos. I'm nothing if not a barrel filling up, nothing if not a book about forgotten history.

I'm a child weeping for my dead parents. Screaming at the sky and crying in the rain hoping that it is all just a dream, waiting and trying to wake up from this cruel nightmare.

I'm a lover holding on to love that has long disappeared, cursed with the inability to fall out of love and move on.

I'm a father watching my children turn into strangers, unable and unwilling to hold them close and telling them the one thing they want to hear, "I'm so proud of you. I love you."

I'm an old woman holding on to faded memories and dying beauty, wishing and praying for just another taste of the past, of what had been, of that delicious youth, forever drowning in nostalgia.

I'm a man with dementia, feeling my mind turn foreign, filled with nothing but shame for forgetting faces I once loved, for forgetting names I had given.

I'm a mother watching her children die in war, begging for just another second, just another smile and just one more hug. With a sour taste of unsaid words forever lingering on my tongue.

I'm a man on his deathbed, feeling nothing but regret for all that I did and all that I didn’t. Realising all too late that none of it ever mattered, this life and the hollow promises that came with it, none of it mattered.

I'm no one on my own but everyone with all that I hold close to my heart. I've lived through all the pain and emotion ever felt, I've cried a million tears and felt my heart break a thousand times. I have felt the weak bones of old-age and the ferocity of youth.

One day I'll have enough of it all, it'll all die. I'll burn for it all, like I was always supposed to. The tapestry with the woven hearts will get tangled. The painting will crumble and the world will fall. The heart will tear to pieces and the mind will shatter. The barrel will overflow and the book will end.

And when it is all close to the end, I'll think of all the people I got to be and all the memories I got to carry. When it all ends, I'll take with me their wandering souls and their unfelt love. Maybe it'll all die again with me, maybe they'll all be forgotten once again. But I hope that one day, even if it's after a hundred years, someone else picks up the book and we are felt once more, I hope that someone else feels what it felt like to feel. I hope they know me and all the people I got to know. I hope they remember me and all the people I remember.

But till then, I'll be hidden in a thousand rooms and in me keep hidden a million lives.

By Sara Fathima