The streets are usually empty at that time of night. It would take him no more than ten minutes to get there. Some nights, when the pain is not as unbearable as other nights, he would drive, get drugged, and drive back home in less than an hour. His head light and eyes barely open, he would slowly make it, taking the Services Road. The reflective knobs splitting the two-way road help him stay awake. Once or twice, he almost entirely fainted and driven into an incoming truck or a wall. He figured, it would be an easier way to die, if such a think happened.
Just like the pain, these drugs they’ve been injecting him with for all these years, have become part of him. Without them he cannot survive. They are his only hope of a few hours comfort and painless sleep. His already diluted blood saturated with these poisons.
It’s been a week already. His condition has been fluctuating over the past few days and this morning, things don’t look any brighter.
At 11 a.m., he receives the call. He knew it was coming. He picks up his mobile and answers. He waits and he listens. The bosses think it would be best for him health-wise, as well as the company work-wise, for him to stay home. He is fired.
“Ok. Yes. I understand. I agree. Of course. Yes. Thank you,” he says.
This is the last nail in his coffin.
And the pain is there. Gnawing at the remains of his soul.
How can you beat something like that? How can you convince yourself to keep going, to care, to dream? How can you allow yourself the sin of hope, when the dark side of your soul knows it will all go in vain, just like it just did for Sadiq?
Sameera makes her way back into his thoughts. Sameera was his lover. They were going to marry. They were convinced they were meant for each other. Sadiq has never allowed himself to love this much this deeply before or since. But as hard as he tried to resist it, he found it easier to fall deeper in love with her. He remembers her tanned skin. Her dark, chestnut hair. Those round perfect eyes.
Then, he learnt that she was a carrier. And their dreams of a life together shattered. No body, especially Sadiq, wanted a child that suffers from that same damned illness. His line has to end where it began.
He knows that there would be no reason to feel pity for himself. There were many like him. He’s come across many of them over the years. Teenagers with crushed spirits. Young men with lost hopes. Men with no faith. Only pain.
As he puts the phone down to his side, it hits him. All he has worked for all his life has been destroyed. It was all a waste. What was he thinking? That it will all be good and rosy? He prays for death. For God to release him. He feels a tear trying to make its way out, wetting his eye. But he holds it back when a young man walks into the room. It is his mate, a brood smile on his face, and a tub of warm Halwa in his hands.
“Hello Zardo!” he jokes, with a wink. “How are you?”
Sadiq quickly wipes his eye and emulates a smile. No pity, no regrets. Only pain.
3
There was a time when life had limitless possibilities, when virtually anything was up for grabs. A time of hope and expectation. On his twelfth birthday, Sadiq announced to his father that he wanted to be a professional footballer.
“I’m good at it, father,” he said. “Everybody says that.” And he went on telling his father how many goals he scored at school the other day, and how he would shoot, pass and dribble in style. He didn’t stop until his father snapped at him.
“That’s enough! Don’t you understand? You can’t. You’ll kill yourself!” he said. Then added: “You’re not good enough.”
Those words hurt Sadiq, thinking that his father was against his dreams and wishes. He did his best to get over it though, putting it on the fact that his father never really overcame the loss of his wife, the love of his life. She died giving birth to Sadiq.
Two days later, Sadiq was in hospital again. He played a full match on Friday with his neighbourhood team. He scored twice. His team won. But his condition worsened the next day. The pain shot through his legs and arms, he couldn’t even bend his elbows or knees.
He understood then, what his father was trying to tell him. He never played football again. He never even talked about it. And the dream of one day playing for Manchester United or lifting the World Cup died that night, at the Sulmaniya Medical Complex.
“It was kids stuff anyway,” he would tell himself nowadays.
So, instead of working hard of strengthening his physique and body, he focused on his other abilities. He poured into his studies, year after year of school, course after course he took, piling up the diplomas and the credentials. Even on nights he spent in a hospital bed, he held a textbook between his hands and studied. It helped ease the pain a little. Took his mind off things. For a while.
But then – after earning all those high degrees and landing a decent-paying job – he realized that none of it will replace the feeling of helplessness, uselessness and emptiness. He knew that he’ll die young. And no amount of success could possibly make that any easier to digest.
“I will,” he said with raised browse, attempting to make light of it, “I can feel it.”
Imad, his friend, didn’t know how to reply to it. He simply drew an unconvincing smile and told Sadiq that we all will die someday.
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