The Infantile Misfortune

Manal Amin al- Asas

The place was narrow, dark and filled with the scent of a boundless depth. I lived in that tiny space, in conditions into which I was thrown. However, small things are as important as the big ones, because the most precious gifts of the oceans live in a tiny shells.

I often heard the sighs of my mother, when I demanded my right to move. Not knowing, that freedom arises in the narrowest of places, she complained about me having fun in her tight interior. She often said:“the boy is the same as his father – he causes trouble all the time“ Her husband answered: „I would like to steal the time from the eternity's purse, only to buy the day that is still asleep, in which I will see my first-born son, born from my woman; the boy, who will carry the name of my father – Sad Allah¹“ Then the mother asked, hiding her disillusonment behind an insincere smile: „ And what if it is not a boy, my husband ?“

I had waited for the answer from her loving husband, but some strong voice interrupted my small ears in capturing his words, so I thought, that my name will be Nahs Allah². From that moment on I had dreamt of becoming a boy. I had waited weeks for a god-given miracle, patiently looking for some divine intervention.

But my patience did not change anything, so I had raised the white flag over my fate and had given up my own femininity, for is not giving up a women's duty ?

One day I thought that I see a drizzle of lights. It came from somehow angelic hands, which caressed the outside walls of my asylum. How beautiful are the places visited by the multitudes of angels. So many times I wanted to kiss these hands, if it was not for that thing plastered to my face.

I had moved my leg to create a bulge, for that hand to read it out as a sign that I feel it. But some human hand, gripped me tightly and it hurt. Then I felt all the particles spread all over my body. Then I realised that adults do not understand the language of feelings, and that was the only language I knew. So then I was forced to use the speech I had acquainted from the outside world. It was a speech which is centered not around tiny feet but around something called „words“. The ones who use it can only speak. So I tried to speak like them, but I could not, because of that thing plastered to my face.

Mother did not listen to me when I kept silent, so I was infected by sadness a year before I was born. It hurt. I have rejected this pain with all my strength, but there are many things that we reject in order for them to become the main points of reference in our later life.

This is how my story of pain started. It became my friend, since I was in my mother's stomache. I felt its sweeteness, because the sweeteness and the essence of pain are contained in the pain itself. It was that voice which hurt me the most, the one shooting society's arrows by saying: „How is my son doing ?“

And that breath, which contaminated the interior of my mother, when it came close, whispering into her mouth.

How many times had I dreamt about spitting in those lips, which spoke only of a son, a boy, a hero and  heir to the throne, but the thing plastered to my face did not let me do it.

The date of departure was near. I had to gather my scattered senses, then focus on my targets and gather a reserve of humaneness – for me to remian a human being, in case when humanity would be gone. Because maybe one day humaneness in the world will be as common as water floating in the air.

Tears had burn my eyelids, from the love to the place, which I was about to leave. I thought that this compulsory migration is the moment of my death. I am not given the right to receive nor to reject. To reject this world, which hangs names, as it were icons, upon the altars of customs – and we all know how absurd names are.

The flame of my tiny body hurt me more and more, as if an infantile fever consumed my flesh. I had started my journey through darkness. My head was pointed downward – so the up was really down and the right was really left. I had to choose this procession, because death is a choice and so is life, and I chose suicide.

I had hit my boarders with my head, which resulted in a carnal schock ripping my mother with pain. She had screamed louder and louder, until she woke up my conscience – there is no greater danger from that of our conscience falling asleep to the sounds of groans asking for help in the chamber of human mind.

I had been falling into an abyss, which starting point was the illusions and the ending point was the fear. I had fought with this downfall by trying to lift myself up, but anything that we do trying to oppose something will only push us further in that thing's direction.

My humiliated bones queavered and my duty was to start crying; to make an offering from tears to our Lord Fate, to offer him my cry as a melody, which will make the sound of his life pleasant, to lay my head upon a bloody altar awaiting me, because I was born a woman.

The doctor grabbed my legs, everyting seemed to be upside down, so the things were more beautiful and more attractive. Then he spanked me, for he wanted me to give a sign of my presence, but the pain choked my scream as I heard the steps of my father and him saying to my mother : „Al-Hamdul li-Allahi ala salamatuki“³ and then to me: „Where are you, dear Sa'd? You have finally blessed your father's heart with happiness.“

I have looked into my mother's face, which reminded me my own, with some slight differences. Her facial features became alarmed: and she herself shrunk when my father said: „Was the doctor mistaken during the USG test ? Is it a girl ?“

His voice had an empty sound, repeating: „a girl … another girl … this is a seventh daughter“

What hope had I sow in him, and what disappointment do I reap.

This bitter surprise has bent his back, he fled the room leaving only the worst words unspoken.

They have wrapped me into clothes of the long-awaited boy and lay me in bed, which they left in the corner of oblivion.

I have grown older and my pain with me, until the world seemed to be a black spot and those words had slowly killed my soul.

Many times have I tried to scream, to say something, but the silence was always stronger, becuase she is the deaf tounge of sensitivity.

I have my years and still my words are soundless. No one was able to learn the truth about me, though silence often lifts the veil from the face of the truth and then they call it wisdom.

After the rust has consumed all my dreams.

I stand over the traces of Eve's campsite.

Though it was not her fault that she was born

In the times of Adam, his masculinity crushed my femininity

1.Most Arabic names have a significant meaning, Sa d Allah means God's Happiness

2. A wordplay, there is no such name in Arabic culture,though theoretically it could exist; it could mean God's Misfortune
3. Arabic language is full of honorific phrases, we might even speak of a linguistic ceremonial. This phrase is used when somebody comes back to health or from a long journey. It may be translated as : „Thank God you're OK“

„The Forgotten Faces“