A Date Not Granted
Noshin Nisa
I’m sitting at the airport, waiting. I’m trying to pass my time by reciting what I’m going to write in my diary once I’m in a proper writing environment. The fragrance of the flowing, rippling sunshine and cool, shimmering, shadowy, velvety wind is tickling and teasing a new season to come, which I probably won’t be here to witness. I noticed this wonderous nonsense while I waited for a flight. A few days ago, I saw an interesting video of a few bright, happily-dancing, smiling people, singing about how one does not need permission to be happy, to be who they want to be, to fly, to sing and dance and laugh and love. Well, now, thankfully I, my family, and many others have got the much-awaited permission to get on a flight to fly from our hometown to somewhere, apparently safer, as they say, to further give us the permission to exist and breathe, while even breathing felt like a punishment for the past few days. Not that everything was amazing before the problems started. But at least I had the luxury to overthink.
That other day, the last time I was with him, he, whose name I don’t want to utter but also cannot forget, holding hands, not really holding, but just gently touching and softly clenching, wandering in tiny, strolling rhythms, soft, breezy sprinkles in the eyes, tender, quivering, fluctuating smiles and musically nodding heads with matching heartbeats; rain pouring on the steely street, wriggling through the metallic buildings, creating a bluish spectacle. Nothing was going on here though, just some love, only for once in forever, without any worries of separation or fear of endings, there was only the young bliss of companionship. But it was a brief one, because it had to be spoiled no matter what.
It had been scarring me for such a long time. I was sorry that I had this horrendous secret that ate me up every moment. I was never proud of feeling that way yet the feeling would not stop. Yet I always wanted love, to be loved, especially to love him and be loved by him. I had been afraid it wouldn’t last long, I would be left behind; rejected and lonely, and would be literally ending myself by my 40s. For the present, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling, so I wanted to stop feeling that way. That day, I told him about all of it, all of the embarrassment that never goes away. Nothing that I feared happened yet the possibility of the fears being real also never left. But that day it was all pin-drop silence, he didn’t say anything. He just held me as I quietly sobbed all my pain out, and a wave of tearful peace veiled me. He then smiled and the day ended peacefully; we left for home. It was nothing but also everything. That was the last time I felt anything. My present state had no such feelings, only scattered thoughts.
One of the most recurring thoughts had been how hollow my new year’s resolution of an art museum date sounds like now. I wanted to plan to do that on a slightly rainy, slightly sunny, yet partly gray, partly golden, soothing, breezy day. I wanted to wear something artsy and flary to match with the art pieces. I wanted him to come to pick me up from a windy area, where my hair would be flowing. I wanted us to hold hands and slowly walk to the museum, while chit-chatting about our pretentious homework on art history as the glistening winds and cloud-bursting daylight would be splashed on our eyes. I wanted to feel mesmerized with him after entering the museum in the antique-like quaint fragrance. I wanted us to amble through the alleys, watching the artworks as if walking through a colorful, liquid yet airy dream, sometimes whispering and sometimes staying silent, a whirlpool of scented, breezy colors softly embracing us together. This was silly, I know, but it was my little world in my head that was my refuge, the only safe place, despite being a fantasy, that gave me comfort at the end of hours of overthinking on how to survive a lonely woman’s life. Nobody had the right to ruin this for me, to take it away from me. But it all got ruined, it all got snatched away from me as if punishing me for an unknown crime that I could never think of committing. It feels silly and funny now, but also desolate and cold.
The next day, he was shot dead. I should have felt something about that, surprisingly I didn’t. It was just a strange pinch; something switched off, and then, relentless numbness was all that was there. Right in front of my eyes, I saw multiple humans hanging out of a flying plane and falling on the ground from the sky, dead. I felt nothing, I was so empty. I didn’t even close my eyes to avoid looking at what was happening. All I could think was that it was such an unexpected flight for them from the city and back to the same city in an instant. My insensitivity only surprised me, but did not make me feel sick and terrified to the core like it should have. As if some invisible cords inside me stopped working. My nothingness scared me yet didn’t at the same time, as I was unable to go through the wall of numbness.
I could remember what being disgusted actually used to feel like. The night before the day when those people unleashed an unabashed hell, carrying those huge guns while mindlessly chanting and screaming like children running around with toys giggling, I had a nightmare that genuinely made me scared and repulsed. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of what was about to happen in the country. But the nightmare of sleep was nothing like the nightmare of a warzone that everything turned out to be in reality. My nightmare was much fairytale-like, it was all calm and sweet and pink and bright. And I saw an enhanced, yet distorted version of those people I saw in that video. They were singing about nobody needing permission for happiness and positivity. They were in my nightmare to flood me with an avalanche of glaring positivity that would eventually bury, suffocate and eventually kill me. They were so satisfied by spreading their haunting rays of happiness. Their glowing faces gleamed even more and blinded me even in my sleep. Their gigantic grins were happy yet also nerve-wrecking. Perhaps, because it was my dream, only I could go through the terror of their propaganda of positivity, but all other blurry figures around me were jumping and clapping with lurid, hypnotizing, buzzing sounds of laughs. As the passive main character of my nightmare, only I realized that the happiness propagators were villains in disguise of heroes, and everyone else was trapped. Then, they realized that I wasn’t trapped, as I wasn’t hysterically clapping like the others. They squinted their eyes as their grins enlarged. The howling sounds of the surges of positivity muted as the noise of others clapping still continued. One of them waved their hands in a strange upbeat manner, and waves of a green and fragrant freshness started rushing towards me. The fragrance was enchanting. The spell of happiness was working I realized, and the surges engulfed me, as I gave in to it with my tired, withered soul. I was floating in intoxicating bliss, until I understood that it was devouring me, and I was sinking to extinction. Some delicacies have an extreme disproportionate sweetness that may cause headaches afterwards. What those waves made me feel was a headache, hundred times the original intensity. The gel-like surges combined with the clingy, nauseatingly sweet headache started suffocating me. I heard the sound of claps and giggles and whistles and cheers as I was getting suffocated to a slow, heavy, numbing yet warm death caused by the garish, forced positivity.
It was just a dream. I woke up in reality to another nightmare, a collective one, for everyone to witness with a shared unhinging terror where simultaneously everyone or no one was the main character. Here, the villains did not bother to disguise themselves with deceiving facades. They were no less menacing however, with their familiar darkness, contrasting the ones from my nightmare with demented gleefulness. These real villains were as predictable as they ever were. Still, we all acted so shocked at them causing harm. Now however, that shock and terror became familiar and we waited for a flight. We wished to go to where we would not be foolish enough to expect freedom, but at least we won’t have to be shocked anymore. Nonetheless, farewell to my permission for an art museum date!