On the Empty Seat of Life
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For decades, I wore the robe of السفر and gathered the scattered pieces of myself and my memories. I placed them in my suitcase beside my coat, a melody I once adored, and a poem that always brought me back to the first buds of love in distant fields.
I crossed the gates of life and sat by the window, looking out at the years that had gone and the years still to come. The train of life moved on, sometimes swiftly, scattering grey strands across my hair, and sometimes slowly, lazily, as if passing over my body only to leave me in fragments, falling into the dust.
Beside me remained an empty seat, cold in a way that felt unbearable. No one could stay in it for long. Throughout the journey, many came near it, only to leave it empty once again.
At first, I blamed them. Or perhaps I blamed the maker of the seat, or even the road itself. But after many stations of life had passed, I came to understand that I was made of my own winter. I was not a breeze in the heat of summer. I was a roaring flood, and so everyone chose thirst rather than risk drowning.
And whenever the train tore through the stillness of night with its rumbling noise, I folded away more pages of life, pages filled with ink. Yet life kept handing me fresh white pages. In time, that empty seat became crowded with my papers, until it could hold no more visitors.
So I spared them my winter. I gathered in my storms and my flood, and I melted into my own pages, pouring out ink until I became a book covered in dust on a high shelf, resting in silence and peace.
Will a hand ever reach out to wipe away its illusions, or clear the drops of ink from its surface, so it may return in the color of light, with the thirst of the earth?
And on its cover, I wrote one note:
Beware of drowning in the flood.
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