Solitude
Lost Hope, Silent Grief
https://unsplash.com/photos/the-sun-is-setting-behind-a-tree-with-no-leaves-x1zNTAMUEjg
On the edge of an undefined village, where loneliness and darkness hug each other, there once was a young girl, named Amina. Her heart was painful with a very deep loneliness and for her, it had become almost hardly possible to be disentangled from its coil.
One silent night, while Amina was walking alone on the streets where she sought now and then for some people with whom she could talk, she encountered Ibrahim, a kind person with eyes that showed a little flame of fellow feeling. In his mere presence, the faint inner peace she used to pray for, the absence of the heavyweight that pulled her heart spiraled downwards, spread like a contagion she could not escape from.
Through those intimate encounters, he and the sky became the most amazing part of her day, keeping her connected with a feeling of belonging, that she had never known. Nonetheless, their feelings of happiness did not last very long as tradition and moral obligations stepped in to escalate the rift between the two.
Perhaps one of the most striking points in Amina's life is the part where her father, a representative of society and its norms, marries her off to a wealthy stranger halfway across the globe. Yet, their tearful pleas and protests didn't move the thrashing will of their families. So they were helpless because they knew that it was inevitable.
Days passed and grew agonizing every day; Amina's heart was filled with more sorrow. "Oh my love, oh my one woman who'd make me whole again," she would ask the night whisper, with her voice choked with tears. "It's you alone who can relieve me of my sadness and there's no one else on earth that can save me so create some magic and dispel my discontent."
In the absence of the village life, of which she could only ruminate, her despair kept deepening. "I am anxious over this loneliness, world depicted by this village, and the hurt in this heart with the weight I am carrying," she thus said to Ibrahim. "Do not let me die. With each effort of escapism, they pull me much closer under their control."
It was not only Amina who took the pressure off Ibrahim, Ibrahim was devastated as his wife had sorrowful keeping within. "My most dear Amina", he muttered, as if the words were coming from deep within him, he continued in a trembling voice. "I was not expecting these words; they strike through the darkness hitting the core of my soul. Without getting complicated, I will do everything I can to eliminate this hurting or how else it would be perilous to you."
Especially, however, life was not on my side. Amina, who was as beautiful inside as she was out, had taken ill and departed from this inconsequential world before she could say goodbye to the one she loved deeply. In her dying seconds her last thoughts were colored with Ibrahim’s image and how her love for him prevailed beyond her life and even death.
Amina's cruel destiny made Ibrahim sink into the depths of suffering. He moved along the different paths of the village, thought being heavy because of all the phrases that he did not say, and all the moments during which he did not share anything.
Unable to suppress a heavy ache, Ibrahim looked down and saw a teeming city of people bustling about and lights of houses but the streets were now empty and houses were dark. Not only did Amina live and the village suffer death, but he also died a part of himself with her.
Every morning, as he turned in the bed, he saw the vacant space, only to be reminded about the love that he had lost. A sudden sadness had engulfed them all. One by one, they watched him float through the streets, identical faces hiding their grief beneath now melancholy grins.
In silence and from the confines of his home, Ibrahim was sedentary by the light of the candle burning, immersed in thoughts of Amina. He was tracing the lines of her face in the soft light of the room, missing so much – her stroke of hair, her laughter, her presence, all of her. Closing his eyes, he could barely tell the difference between her being by his side while her warmth was penetrating deep into him and her real-life companion.
Despite the darkness, he found solace in the tales of joy that came to his mind when he reflected on their years together. These moments would be indelibly etched in him - the romantic walks through the moonlit village, the soft murmurs of secrets shared with the starry sky as a background, and the stolen forbidden kisses concealed from the public gaze. He reached out to her wherever his heart was troubled, but she remained gone, a lingering hurt that threatened to consume every single one of his pores. However, his love and hers would remain through the ages, a malediction that could never be extinguished.
The changing seasons took people into the icy coldest winter. Ibrahim had an irresistible attraction to Amina's grave (the only place close to her that felt most comforting). He, perhaps, took a stance beside that patch of cold soil that now marked the resting place of her tragic ending. The earth was a sure reminder of the harshness of reality.
"I’m missing you, the love of my life," he would whisper, while air clouded through his breath on a cold winter day. Every day without you seems to me like eternity whereas your peace gives me the strength to move on.
As he sat there and distant murmur started to become a blur in his mind, and only Amina’s calm smile caressed his heart. In those instances, sometimes he could even believe he could hear her voice, mellow and relaxing, calling him from a distant beyond.
However, even as Ibrahim was able to experience some consolation during his visits to Amina’s grave, he could not seem to stop the great weight of mourning that was crushing him. In his solitude, there would be times he would drive the streets of the village alone, his footsteps maneuvering through empty silence, his heart filled with longing for the love he could not hold anymore.
Nevertheless, the fading hope that was about to finish him was hard to just ignore even if Ibrahim clung to that small glitter of hope which lived inside his soul. Indeed, as he went on, he understood fully well that it was beyond this little village that Amina did exist still as a spirit, keeping him reminded with love without limitation.
Hence Amina's visage turned into a phantom wearing the crown of diamonds, disappearing in the years that went by, yet her light burned within his heart a bright flame in his darkest shadows. Nevertheless, he knew that their life was over too early, so he relived in that thought, whose only evidence was the love that would endure forever etched in the history of the village.
As the sun was heading for the west, Ibrahim was standing at the edge of everything, his heart feeling empty because this was the only one he had ever experienced and the one he had lost with her. Yet under that celestial ceiling, all seemed right in the world. Khalid clenched the belief that even from the other side of the horizon Amina's love will shine upon him and spend in the darkness.
And so in this small place without a name that had only a very little light but a great deal of darkness, two souls became inextricably connected through loss. Where their love was then a bittersweet memory of what they had been together that they had kept in the hearts of all who knew them. It was, after all, not simply a love story that ended up being lost but a little piece of the community taken away from the village permanently.
