Azeema Anhar

I try to remember the smell, the scent of an empty room. What I recall is not the void of objects but the absence of people. I fail. I remember only someone missing from our bed; an extra space left unused, a bed sheet half soaked in tears. A house fully drenched in sorrow, sighs and cries echoing all around the walls. Walls that stood there guilty, guilty for failing to shelter my heart. I remember being held in unfamiliar arms, arms that I wish were of my father. But I cannot remember the smell.

I try to remember the smell, the fragnance of wet rain, a downpour that numbed my skin with every drip. I fail. I am unable to recount how that day went when my father was buried, under that soggy blanket of soil, layers upon layers of it. A body wrapped in drenched clothing. Not the same drenched clothing I was wrapped in. I was cocooned in something rough. I remember wishing he was wrapped in something softer. I remember wishing it was him wrapped around me instead. But I cannot remember the smell.

I try to remember the smell, the smell of the exhausted hallways of the clinic; where all the sick, the scared and the dead pass through. Where in a homely room needles passed through my father’s arms, arms kept too busy to be holding me. Instead they were wrapped in tubes and beeping machines. I remember him forgetting me, from the pain of being chained down on his bed. I remember waiting for hours for his eyes to open so my mother’s could close for sleep. But I cannot remember the smell.

I remember simply the scent. The scent of a man, a man I called father. I try to remember the man, the figure who held my hands, pinched my cheeks, stroked my hair. The man I called Father. His face, his words, his voice – I try to remember. Yet a blur is all I get, only flashes interrupted by a numbness. But his scent, I remember distinctly and with surety. I remember breathing it in when I brushed against his shirt. I remember catching a drift when he walked by me. The man smelled like cheap perfumes, cigarettes and soap.

My father – a man buried deep under the soil layered with memories. Memories I hold in my heart, a heart that has grown older than his ever could. Soon it will stop beating. Visions, sounds, smells – I care not what I will leave behind as my memoirs. I only care about what I live with. And I shall live with his scent tingling my nose until my last breath.