DIARIES OF A DEAD WOMAN
SANDAHL AHMAD
PROLOGUE
Where am I now, where was I before? There’s no one to tell me now what I used to be in the past or who I am now. My past self is gone. I’ve moved on a long way away from where I was and who I used to be. I don’t know much more now then I did then, but what I know has changed everything for me, literally. My life is nothing like it used to be. I still can’t believe it- is this all real?
Sometimes the other world, a world where my happiness lies, seems like an illusion, a beautifully vivid dream. Other times I feel as if this one is the illusion and not the reality. I thought I’d found myself but now I’m lost again. I can’t understand who or what I am, what I was born for, or who I am to become. It’s all so confusing and so frustrating. It’s never-ending; it keeps on going. I can’t bring myself to believe it so I’m writing it down here; maybe I’ll understand it better if I do. Here’s to trying to fathom the mysteries of my life.
It started out years ago when my best friend gave me a gift…a gift that was singular indeed.
CHAPTER I
It was just cold enough to make my breath come out in smoke, but it wasn’t too cold. It was pleasant after the endless heat of the City of Lights.
I live in a vast and seemingly enormous city. It harbors people of all sorts, there is no uniformity within it and people are as indifferent to each other as they can be. However, the society of my city is very complex. People are nosy by nature, they must know everything about you and they relish a chance to point a finger. Your respectability and so-called honor are forever at risk. Privacy is a pleasant and far off dream.
Even then, in the same society, there are friends the likes of which you can’t find anywhere else in the world. Each person is an individual and each one is bound by hundreds of invisible chains. The chains of religion, the chains of ethics, the chains of strong family values and the chains of the twisted morals of this twisted society bind every individual in this society.
Society and your status within it are matters of great importance here. The higher the social status of your family, the more people you have licking your shoes. I know what I have said until now makes this city a harsh, materialistic and unloving one and it is like that in many ways.
You must wonder why I love this city so much then. There are endless problems related with living here.
Frequent power breakdowns have become a norm; many people have no drinking water and live on sewer water. You will find sewers overflowing all over the place.
Roadblocks are conspicuous if they are not there. The roads are so bad that it’s like having dirt roads with ditches in them for the most part. Poverty and riots are an integral part of the city. On the surface, people are kind and helpful; the second you turn around, you will find they have stabbed you in the back. The population is almost twenty million and the traffic on the streets is unbelievable.
Mine is a city that is awake at all times. Thus, it has been given the name of ‘City of Lights’. In spite of all that, there is a high degree of crime and theft and robbery are common. The police are worthless and have no love for anything except bribes.
Here, men either have a lot of respect for women or they treat them like dirt. Dating is out of the question for all of the “respectable” youngsters. However, I believe there are more couples here than most of the rest of the world.
Corruption is manifest in this city in everything form education to politics. The word ‘competition’ came into existence because of the people of my city. The city races along with its people; we hardly ever have time to stop and chat with the neighbors. Then again, families are mostly close-knit and relatives visit each other all the time. Also, the joint-family system affects a lot of the people in my city.
All the materialistic values of the people in this city are prominent but there is more behind these values that doesn’t meet the eye at first glance. My city is full of people who value love, though in many cases they condemn it, too. The care, the love and the hospitality of these people is beyond that which you will find anywhere else.
Still, with all of its flaws and shortcomings, I love this city with all my heart. I have lived in many places in the world. I have traveled ever since I can remember. My family has what can only be phrased as ‘wanderlust’; we love to travel. Even then, this city is where my heart is and home is where the heart is.
There is an excellent motive for my loving this city, a motive that brought me back to the world that was once the only one I knew.
Why am I telling you all of this? It’s for a very good reason. Like I said before, this city harbors all sorts of people, people from this world…and people from the other world. This is where it all began and this is where it will end. I hope my city will survive this war. It is a complex city but I love it. I hope my love for it will last too.
It was a cold, clear morning. “Hi!” Anna cried as she ran up to me in an excited state as always.
Anna and I had been best friends for around a year by then and we absolutely adored each other. We met each day as if we had not met for years, like long-lost sisters who were overjoyed at finally finding each other.I was a prefect in school and did not have to join her in the assembly lines. She had to go join the assembly as soon as we had greeted each other. That day, I was unusually late for school.
After the assembly finished, I walked over to my place of duty, a slope by which all of the senior students’ lines passed. I stood there and performed the ritual of a prefect’s daily duties.
When Anna and some others of my large group of friends passed by (the remainder of my friends were also prefects), she gave me a wave and a smile, while everyone else just smiled.
At that instant, I knew something was going to happen. Why I thought that I don’t know, since this was a daily ritual of hers. But I knew suddenly that something was very, very wrong.
I waved, smiled back and returned to my job just in time to see a group of my crazy guy friends walk past, most of them having something or the other wanting in their uniforms.
Of course, when I called out to them and scolded them for not wearing a tie, or proper shoes, or for not having an ID card or their badges, not one of them took me seriously. They just smiled and walked past- they knew me too well to think that I could be truly angry at things like that.
It’s not often that my anger gets the better of me, but when it does, the whole world knows about it. As usual, I just smiled back at my gangly friends as they passed, shook my head and waited for the next line to come.
When I finished with my duties, I returned to my huge classroom to find that the first period teacher had already come.
My weak memory does not supply me with the details of the lesson, except for the fact that I yawned through most of it, sharing silent jokes with several friends at the back of the class. Other than that, there is very little of that very ordinary morning I remember.
I recall having a couple of interesting lessons later in the day, along with the feeling of relief and freedom I experienced as the recess bell rang. All in all, it was an ordinary day. Yet, the feeling that something was wrong never left me.
It was also a part of my prefect vocation to make sure my classmates did not stay behind in class during the recess time and that the classroom remained empty throughout the half an hour of respite that every student cherished each day.
We all emptied out of the classroom about five minutes after the bell had rung, Anna tugging at me to give my friends a rest on the lecture they heard every day. It took me shouting every day to make them leave and stop chatting standing right there in the classroom.
By the ‘we’ mentioned above, I mean my group of friends. All lively in their own way, witty, of above average intelligence, a couple of them actual geniuses, some excelling in sports, some math whizzes, each of them very different from each other, my friends were not classified as ‘jocks’, ‘nerds’ or anything else. The only classification my friends and I ever bore was ‘cool’. Of that, there was no doubt.
Also, my friends were also singular in the fact that, despite being of opposite sexes, our friendships did not have any of the boy-girl stuff in them. We were all purely and uniquely just friends.
We all spent our recesses walking around the school, talking, laughing, teasing each other, fighting with each other, and sharing secrets, gossiping, or making fun of each other and everyone else in sight.
This recess was a little different. Just recently, Anna and I had broken all contact with our previous mutual best friend. Our ex-best friend had changed so much that she did not remotely resemble the person Anna had been a best friend to for many years and whom I had befriended only a year and a half before. Therefore, it was simply a little strange for just the two of us to wander around alone; later, people became so used to seeing us together that they thought we had had a fight if we were not together.
After a lot of hurt, fights and bitterness, Anna and I had suddenly become very close to each other; it was a little hard to understand how it had actually happened.
Before, we had been at each other’s throat; she because she was overcome with jealousy due to our mutual friend’s spending more time with me and I because of what I misinterpreted to be arrogance. If there are two kinds of people I can’t stand, they are snobs and liars.
However, our friendship had developed almost magically into something very few people share. In other words, our friendship had bloomed so far as to make us become inseparable.
She and I had become almost telepathic; we could always tell what the other one felt or thought. We knew each other so well that we could blindly trust in each other without a second thought.
That day though, I was off in one of my weird moods. I have always been very adept at tuning out people and my surroundings whenever I wish. On that fateful winter day, I was tuned out of my environment and oblivious to everything except for the occasional chat with one of my friends.
I cherished my friends more than I cherished anything else in the world. I loved everything about them – their imperfections only made me like them more. Warm-heartedness, kindness, intelligence and wit were common traits among all of my friends.
Even then, they found me strangely distant that day. I believe they put it down to the flu I had managed to acquire that very morning.
Anyhow, my friends, kind souls that they are, let me alone because they sensed that that was what I wanted to be. And they were right. Anna was the only one I wanted to be with right then.
However, trying to make me feel better, she forced me to come and hang out with two of our other friends, Anita and Rena. Rena had to go somewhere just as we reached them.
Anita was a prefect like me. Unlike me, however, she had been placed in a very busy area and couldn’t move an inch from where she was supposed to be.
Anna had been secretive the whole day, acting very excited about something. In my bad mood, I had not roused myself enough even to ask her what she was so ecstatic about.
I didn’t have to wait very long to find out what was going on. As soon as Rena left, Anna produced three plastic wrapped necklaces. They were the rage those days.
Different colored plastic stone-like pendants hung from thick black strands of string. Anna gifted a gray-colored one to Anita, kept a green one for herself and gave me a bluish one.
My favorite color is blue and Anna had known that I would instantly fall in love with it. Hers was shaped like a heart and mine like a teardrop. I was enthralled by it the instant she handed it to me.
It wasn’t that the necklace was breathtakingly beautiful or that it was completely different from anyone else’s. I sensed a power there, a power that instantly repelled and attracted me simultaneously. Also, anything Anna has given me has always been precious to me.
I took it and immediately wore it. Anna was delighted that I liked the pendant so much. I sensed some sort of power there in her pendant too; it radiated from her stone. Anita’s didn’t attract me at all. It wasn’t special.
That day, unknowingly, I accepted a destiny I still can’t believe in, a destiny that scares me even now. A destiny I don’t think I can handle. I’ll tell you more when I have the time.
CHAPTER II
From that day onwards, I began to wear that pendant almost constantly. My family noticed, my friends noticed and all of them were mystified as to why I wore it all of the time. It’s not something I usually did. Back then, I normally didn’t wear jewelry at all. Therefore, my pendant did not go unnoticed.
At the time, it seemed absolutely fitting that people noticed it because it was usually the only piece of jewelry that I wore. Now, I’m not so sure. I know now that the pendant had a power of its own. It attracted people to itself. The weak-willed were not only captured by it for a few seconds; they wanted to touch it. The stronger-willed were fascinated by the pull of the pendant, but they didn’t want to touch it. They sensed that it was not meant for them.
They were right- it was meant only for me. How Anna came by those two pendants, I don’t know. She said she bought it from a ‘thela’, or a street vender.
There are thousands and thousands of such ‘thelas’ in my city, and they are never found in the same place twice. Not only that, she had bought them in the holiday season, when there is such a large crowd in the bazaars that you can’t see two feet in front of you. There is too much human traffic for you to be able to see your own mother if you aren’t careful.
Thus, even if she had run across the same street vender every day for the rest of her life, Anna would never have recognized him. As it was, the pendant meant for me, the responsibilities I had to shoulder, the call I had to follow, found their way to me.
The necklaces had the same effects on Anna and me, though we dealt with them in very different ways.
Whenever we wore the necklaces for over a day at a time, we began to feel drained and tired. We began getting sick. We had premonitions that invariably turned out to be right. We saw dreams that shook us and were almost always symbolic and, in turn, correct. I had visions. My dreams were symbolic outlooks into the future, as I have now discovered with the passage of time.
Anna didn’t have as many creepy things happen to her as I had happen to me. Either she didn’t notice anything more than that, or she chose not to tell me.
Anna was the first to take off the pendant and put it away. She advised me to do the same. The pendant had a life of its own; it was sucking the energy my body had out of me. It was using me as a large battery.
I got very sick. Anna made me take it off. I did so reluctantly.
I had constantly worn it, so my pendant looked worn out. My mother was annoyed by it. I finally stopped wearing it when I got too sick to think straight.
My illness mysteriously disappeared within twenty four hours of taking it off. No more headaches, stomach aches or any other ache. I regained my taste for food and my zest for life.
I realized then that the pendant was stronger than I was. It was simply a tool for me to use when I was ready to use it and wanted to use any sort of power.
It took me a long time to admit it; it was so weird to think of magic actually existing. As time passed by, I realized, slowly, that magic does exist; it exists in small things and minute ways that are barely noticeable and then it exists in ways we couldn’t miss even if we wanted it to.
I know, I know, I sound like a broken record; a bored teen who wants something exciting to light up her life. Believe me, it is exciting, but it is far from fun.
I wouldn’t be writing this if years of ‘coincidences’ hadn’t taught me that there are a very minute number of coincidences that are really coincidences.
I have always been a staunch believer in fate and destiny. I never believed in magic, not even when I was six and watched a ‘magician’ doing tricks on stage.
But my life, and my own experiences, made a believer out of me. Magic exists, as sure as science does.
I am a science student, and a believer in its principles. I believe in handling things logically, but I also know that there are exceptions to every rule a scientist ever made.
There are ‘frames of reference’ to every rule. Take a teensy step away from a certain frame of reference, and the rule ceases to apply. It becomes incorrect, illogical and, therefore, unscientific.
Science has many benefits, but it works better with non-living things like computers and robots, AI, the Internet, the biological sciences, the chemical sciences and the physical sciences. Even then, it remains ever unsure.
There are new discoveries made every day and old theories that were believed to be worth worshipping are proved incorrect. A lot of natural phenomena still baffle every scientist in the world.
Metaphysics and research into the capabilities and complexities of the human mind over physical and emotional matter are very obvious and important examples of the frailty of the current scientific theories and ideologies.
The dual nature of light is another good example of this. How can light travel in both waves and energy packets? As of not it is not completely clear, but it is still an accepted phenomena.
Every science student I’ve ever known asks the question, how is one possible when the other exists? Logically, only one should be able to exist. Why then is the dual nature of light logical?
The next thing the students say to themselves is, ‘Forget it. I’m just not good enough at this stuff to be able to question this. I need a lot of other details to do that. Why don’t I just accept it?’ With that, the student accepts the theory and moves on. Why? Because that’s the way it is.
Light does exist in dual nature. In the same way, the human intellect is adaptive and, in most cases, accepts everything in life without really questioning it.
Why do some people live lives of luxury while others have to beg to pay for their next meal? Why do some people get to sleep in the VIP suite of a five-star hotel while others have no idea where they’ll be able to sleep that night? Why do some people have great physical beauty and others have no an iota of it? Why do some people get all the brains and others are only dunces? Why do some people fulfill their dreams whereas others just die trying? Why are some people healthy despite all they do and others ill without reason?
The answer to that is simple: it’s the way it is, God made it that way. I guess that life would be extremely monotonous without the variances in human beings all around us.
In the same way, if the world was uniform everywhere, with the same landscape anywhere you turned, it wouldn’t be very interesting, would it?
Why am I rambling on about this? Why am I giving you this long lecture? I’m doing this because I want to explain a very simple thing to the reader- that I accepted all the strangeness in my life that my gift brought with it.
I had always been aware of my ‘unusual’ abilities. I could always deduce a hundred things about a person’s personality the first time I met that person.
Some would put this down to good social skills or experience. However, I have been able to do this from the time I was seven. At least, that’s as far back as I can remember. I have a horrible memory.
I guess this ‘gift’ (I sometime prefer to think of it as a ‘curse’) doesn’t cover memory problems. Sometimes, I can remember things from years ago. Other times, I can’t remember something from just yesterday.
Anyhow, besides being able to discern a person’s characteristics, I could catch other people’s thoughts and emotions as though I was some sort of a satellite that catches this stuff like real satellites catch TV channels. I could sometimes relay my emotions and thoughts at will to others. Most times I couldn’t.
Slowly, all of that faded away as I began to discover the ‘pleasures’ of teen-hood. Being a teenager mostly sucked for me. I hated it. My life sucked.
That’s what you probably expected to hear from a person whom you probably believe to possess prominent mental disabilities. However, that necklace served to both diminish and expand and illuminate my various psychic abilities. It became a tool, a channel for my energy. Only, it didn’t suit me and resulted in my sickness.
You’ve probably come to the conclusion that I’m crazy. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I am crazy, and I’m the first person to admit it. Nevertheless, I’m not stupid (at least I don’t think I am) and I don’t lie until and unless I absolutely have to. There are only two conditions in which I lie: to save my skin or to save someone else’s.
Since neither of those conditions applies here, you can safely believe I’m unhinged, but I am telling the truth.
As I was explaining before I began rambling, I have always had abilities I can’t explain. I have always been able to do these strange things in my waking hours. Then, there are the dreams.
It was the dreams that made me really start to accept that I am different. It has happened not once, twice or thrice, but hundreds of times. I can’t remember how many times.
I see a dream of no real distinctiveness, except that it is realistic, contrary to most of the fictitious dreams I have. A few days later, sometimes the very next day, I see something that I have a feeling I have seen before. Then I remember that I have seen it, in a dream. Way out, right?
You can scoff; I won’t blame you if you do. I mean, ‘prophetic dreams.’ Yeah right. It’s impossible, a fantastical, illogical belief, along with being blasphemous and all of that. However, as dumb as it sounds, it is the truth.
Your disbelief is not misplaced. I mean, I didn’t believe it myself. It took me a long time to embrace the reality. Next step: panic button on! What the hell is happening here? Why am I a freak of nature when no one I know is? Why the hell am I like this? ESP and all, fine. That’s acceptable. Scientifically proven to exist. But seeing the future? You’ve got to be kidding!
Only thing is, that is what happens. I see the future. It’s usually some little happening in someone else’s life or mine. I say usually because it is not always like that.
Sometimes, I see something really important. Once, I even saw a friend in major trouble for cheating in an exam. The next day, I found out that he was really planning on it. I made him give up the idea of cheating because I knew exactly what would have happened if I had not stopped him. He would have been expelled.
That may seem like a trifling thing to you, but you did not live my dream as I did. I knew every little detail of a plan he had not revealed to anyone except another classmate I never talked to.You may say that I knew because I had it in my subconscious that he was going to cheat. However, I had not talked to my friend at all for the previous two weeks. We had had a fight. Only my conviction of his likely expulsion and reconciliation with him stopped him from cheating.
So you see, freaky things like that happen to me all the time. Unbelievable, isn’t it? You got that right, amigo! You may think I’m hallucinating or what I’m really seeing are delusions. Perhaps you find me neurotic or psychotic; I don’t really care. You may think what you like but I’m just going to state what I believe to be the truth of the situation.
Another thing that happened and made me feel guilty for a long time was that one night even before I went to bed, I began seeing visions of my grandfather. He was dead and in a shroud, about to be buried. I was absolutely convinced that he was about to die. However, I was not really disturbed, as I’d been having premonitions like that for almost a month by then that he would die. That night, I had dreams concerning him and him only. In the morning, I woke to find that he was indeed in the hospital and in a critical condition. He died later that same day.
I held myself responsible for not having called him in the night when I had had so strong a premonition. If I had, we would have discovered that he was indeed having a stroke, which then developed into a fatal heart attack. When I lay, uneasily dreaming of him, he was fighting for his breath. When we arrived at the hospital to see him, I knew in my heart that he was dead. I didn’t want to admit it to myself- I loved my grandfather very much.
I miss him still. A few days after his death, I had a confused dream in which all my friends were at some sort of a party and I saw my grandfather’s face for a split second, smiling. Maybe it was a symbolic dream, maybe not. All I know is that my grandfather wished to convey his love to me.
For a short time, I felt responsible for his death, feeling that I could have done something to help. However, after actually thinking about it I realized that I could not have done anything. It was meant to be- fate had intervened. Whereas I can see the future, I can’t always change it.
There’s more. For those of you who don’t believe in things you can’t see with your own eyes, perhaps you should stop believing in the layers of air all around us, the atmosphere you can’t see, the smells you can’t see, the feelings you can’t see. For those of you who are monotheists, stop believing in the God that you can’t see.
I believe in genies. I don’t mean the genies in the bottle or magic lamp crap; there may be some entrapped in bottles or something. However, for the most part, they are a good and free race of beings.
They are everywhere, although they don’t like being seen or felt by humans. They certainly don’t like it when I feel them go past, or hear them moving around or saying something in a strange language I can’t understand.
My sister, Hanna, and my best friend and brother, Xavier, (who is not blood related to me in any way but is like a brother), are a different story altogether. The genies love talking to them and asking them for help.
Whereas I can hear them and feel them, they can see them all the time. You must think, okay, a family of freaks and her freaky friends to go along with them. Great.
Yet, my mother does not believe that genies exist all around us. She believes they exist, but she would doubt every word I have written here. I don’t really expect you to believe: my own mother does not believe me.
However, if this were not true, I would not waste my time on this. If you suspect that I’m another of those frauds, who is doing this for the fame and money, you are still wrong.
People like that would be telling you about seeing stars shooting around the ceilings of their rooms, or making electric sparks of a thousand different colors come out of their hands at will.
Telepathic people do exist, so do Tele-kinetics. I’ve heard of people who could use the expression ‘mind over matter’ literally. The yogis in the Himalayan Mountains are famous for their ability to fly.
Maybe some of the people who tell you about seeing other worlds in their minds are not lying either. I don’t know. All I do know is that these abilities exist as surely as waster exists, or earth under our feet exists, or a rainbow you can’t touch exists, or feelings exist.
They are because they are; they have their own roles to play in people’s lives, however important or insignificant they may be to each individual, or to a community as a whole.
As long as civilization has existed, people have been in awe of the supernatural, thus the miracles each of God’s Apostles had. People have always been fascinated by, afraid of, respected, desired to stay far away from, or tried to destroy the supernatural powers some of us are bestowed with.
Notice I use the term ‘supernatural powers’, not ‘gift’. Why do we use the term ‘supernatural’ to classify such powers? Why not outright call them abnormal, as all those not possessing these and some of those who do have them, believe them to be? Also, I said ‘we’. Alarming, isn’t it? The prospect that there may be more crazies like me out there?
However, it is my belief that there is a large community of gifted individuals, however invisible it may be. Much happens in this world that is not out in the open. I guess such an organization is one of them.
After you’ve read this I don’t know how much longer I’ll be allowed to live, even as a ghost. The Organization I speak of probably has no name, and I am not exactly an asset to its secrecy when I tell you this, am I? In addition, some occurrences in my private life force me to tell my story as soon as possible. I believe my days are now numbered.
My topics do change abruptly, don’t they? Well, I told you before, this is all about me and my feelings, my frustration, my anger, my unease, my peace with myself, my desire to know more, and to know those that are like me. To summarize nearly nineteen years of life is not easy. Therefore, excuse my wandering thoughts and little speeches.
I guess you are by now tired of my endless description of an average teen’s thoughts and feelings. Or rather, the thoughts and feelings of those teens bestowed with a gift from God, a gift meant for some end. Only, I don’t know yet why I have the powers that I do. I don’t understand them or my life.
I used to wish more than anything that I had a teacher who could tell me what to do. I found one, and another mentor, but am unable to tap into their knowledge- again personal problems.I’ll write more when I am in a more constructive mood. That is, I’ll write more when I am not prone to speech making and strong opinionating on matters based on facts. Later, I’ll tell you why I decided to write this. For now though, ciao!
CHAPTER III
Hello again. I’m back. This time though, I will not be explaining who I am or what I think. This chapter is devoted to the strange happenings in my life that almost seem to make this world become a lie.
These things make me think that maybe, just maybe, it was all a dream, a fantasy. However, I know in the depths of my heart that it was no dream. Let me start from the first strange occurrences that I recall. The first I remember transpired when I was a student in the eighth grade.
At the time, I was required to study the following subjects: Mathematics, English Language, English Literature, Islamic Studies, Urdu, Pakistan Studies, Art, Computer Studies, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Out of these subjects, I excelled only in the English and science subjects. Art (of the painting and sketching sort) is certainly not an area of distinction of mine and, at that time, my Mathematics and Pakistan Studies were not exactly models of perfection. Computer Studies has never been my area of distinction either.
However, I am happy to say that, with the exception of Art, I have become quiet adept at the other subjects now, though I never studied the field of computers after the above-mentioned grade.
Anyhow, even though my math was pathetic at the time, I had a knack of studying exactly the right thing for every test and started to get better grades than my fellow students.
This may have been due to hard work or attentiveness, but I don’t remember having done much of either thing, especially in math class. The math teacher was a complete horror for my already weak mathematics skills.
Then I slowly came to realize that I not only studied exactly the right things for math tests but also for all the other subjects. Somehow, almost magically, I always knew exactly what I had to study for any test and always obtained better marks than the other students did as a result.
I obtained top marks in Chemistry that year. Why is that so weird? Well, let’s just say that I did not study as much as I should have that year.
Next thing I knew, I began tuning into people’s feelings. I would begin feeling things I had no right to feel, because there was nothing to cause them. Then I would find out that someone else had gone through something to cause those feelings.
Pretty soon, I was picking up emotions like an antenna picks up radio channels or TV channels. I became so good at it that I could pick up a certain person’s emotions, and then thoughts, at will. I could block out those I did not want to know about.
Then I began to delve deeper into people’s brains, mostly my friends’. I began to be able to find snatches of their memories. One thing I have learnt is that the brain is an enormously complex thing; it can not be ‘read’ in the conventional sense of ‘mind reading’. I also found out that I didn’t want to know what people thought- it’s horrible to find out other people’s real feelings about you. Besides, some skeletons remain better off buried in the closet.
Soon afterwards, I began to get premonitions about things. I would know when and why something bad could happen and that I should not do it to stay out of trouble. Then, I began to know when or why a certain calamity could befall one or the other persons in my life. I warned them off but only a few would listen; their loss.
One significant thing is that all of these abilities came to me one by one. The more I used them, the stronger and the more important they became. However, only one ability would exist at any one point in time, not all of them together.
Subsequently, I began to be able to use my brain to force others to do things without their knowing about it. I have found that those without strong faith in god or in the supernatural abilities of human beings have weaker resistance to being pushed into doing something they don’t want to do.
Anyhow, for a short period of time, this ‘power’ was highly beneficial. With its help, I thwarted many disasters such as being caught bunking class. My principal went on rounds of the school whenever she got the chance, and I was able to change her mind as to which direction she would choose to begin inspecting the school in.
These are things I have not told many people, for fear of being ridiculed more than I already am. Yet, there’s still more to come. As time progressed I completely lost all of my abilities. My sixth sense deserted me.
That was one of the scariest periods of my life. I had grown up with these miraculous gifts of god and suddenly they were gone. It was like losing a hand or foot. I was extremely unsure of myself.
Also during this same period, I finally got over some personal issues. I was an empty shell for quite some time since I no longer had the luxury of my old friends comforting me- we were all going to different educational institutes now and I could not share my problems with anyone. I missed my friends terribly in my time of need. Unexpectedly, Hanna came to my rescue- we became friends and are now almost best friends.
Confidence returned in abundance when I regained my powers after about six months of no activity. I was seventeen when my powers returned but they had changed again. Now I began to see visions in my waking hours along with my dreams. I had already gotten rid of the pendant Anna gave me as it always brought me bad luck and emptiness.
Previously, I had only seen one vision like the visions I saw now. That was an uncanny vision I saw when I was sixteen. In the middle of the day, sitting, as usual, in my corner at school, I got a splitting headache. There was a hot white flash in my head and then I lost track of everything around me.
After I saw this vision, I thought that I had merely been hallucinating or it had been something I ate last night. Yet, the haunting images that were etched into my memory told me otherwise.
Another flash of pain and I saw an entirely different locale also overshadowed by dark clouds above and a storm brewing. Here, there were several of the same birds flying near the clouds as if daring them to rain. For some reason, the temperature was low but it was a humid day. Don’t ask me how I knew the weather, I just did. The building was a huge red brick structure and widespread with a stone courtyard. I got the feeling that it was a European or Russian locale. I am no master of architecture so I don’t know which one it was.Lightning struck somewhere in the distance to the sound of thunder. There were dark windows everywhere in the building. It was deserted just like the first building and it was even more bleak and uninviting. There was a stair case beckoning all intruders into its darkness.Then I saw the third and final building. It was a light tower, but an extraordinary one. It was dark there too but as its light beacon swung out to sea I saw that the tip of the tower had a huge ruby and an emerald gleamed below it. Another flash of pain and I was back in school with a headache that lasted all day. Figure out that one if you can. And no, I did not watch a movie or read any novel that had a liking to these images within it.Now, I began having more frequent visions that opened another chapter in my life. But this is enough for now. Ciao! CHAPTER IV Hi there, I’m back again. This time, I have a new flavor to add to this chapter of what lead to my death: a teacher.One of the few things I had been praying for constantly was a teacher who could explain my ‘unusual capabilities’ to me. Finally, I got one in a surprising way.What I haven’t yet told you is that these powers were growing stronger by the day and I could not control them at all. I certainly was not able to use them at will, except in some life and death situations.Yet, somehow, I knew a change was coming, and it came.My powers began to get completely out of hand. I asked Hanna, Xavier and Anna for help but none of them could help. Xavier and Hanna wanted guidance themselves. Two or three months before my birthday, a person literally changed my life and personality completely.This is the special person in my life, the one my every hope and thought revolved around. He’s no prince charming, but he is one of the most amazing characters I have ever known. He is everything a good human being should be and wise beyond his years- and that’s saying something. He is also the best man I have ever had the good fortune of knowing. For me, he’s like a guardian angel.
He was the first person I had told about these powers who was not repelled or scared for even an instant. I was surprised by his calm and cool reaction. He just encouraged me to tell him everything and listened with a knowing smile and a shine in his eyes. He made me feel like there was nothing unusual or scary about these abilities at all.
When I was done, all he said was, “I already knew you had these powers. You don’t know your own worth yet and you don’t know what you’re capable of. Right now, though, you must concentrate only on your studies and pray regularly. There’ll be a lot of time to teach you all this later.”
I was dumbfounded by his apparent non-reaction. I was also very thankful that he had not burst out laughing at me or begun to skeptically ask me things. That was the day I found myself in another human being. They say that there is no such thing as a ‘soul-mate’ or ‘the one.’ I believe they are complete morons who were unlucky enough to either never fall in love or to never have valued or known the value of that love.
I also realize now that the moment I fell wholly in love with another soul is the instant he accepted me for who I am. I cannot express my gratefulness or my joy at the knowledge that there was a person who could love me without being repulsed by anything in me.
I hope every one of us is fortunate enough to experience this. I also pray that no one ever endure as much pain as I endure every moment because I will never have that man in my life again. Complex social standings don’t allow me to love him, don’t allow me to marry him or to be with him in any manner.
Love is one of the few things even the most capable minds have been powerless to entirely and specifically describe. There are just so many varieties of it. It is the most powerful emotion or motivation there is, even though it has contenders such as greed and loyalty for the infamous post of ‘emotion able to drive anyone beyond reason.’
True, real and sincere love is a rarity. Yet, every one of us has such a person, if we only look beyond ourselves. The love of a parent for a child and vice versa is imminent in normal parent-child relationships. Love between siblings is also usual. Love between friends is also something most people can accept.
Why is it then that the majority of us cannot accept the concept that a man and a woman may genuinely love each other without thought of what can be gained form one another? There are many varieties of human beings on the planet. Each of us has a different reaction to every single individual, never the same reaction. Many people cheat on one another, betray one another or hurt one another. Yet, the right person never would. And it is my definite belief that such a person exists for all those capable of loving. I know from experience the truth of what I have stated.
Also, the statement that it is better to have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all is complete BS. It is better to have a heart of stone than to love someone with your entire being and know that you will die without them and that they will never be with you.
You must be wondering what all of this has to do with anything. The truth is that it has everything to do with me and my life. The love that I’ve just finished lecturing on is my very reason for still breathing. It is the reason I came back to life. It is why I wake up every morning instead of giving in to the temptation of simply shoving a knife through my heart.
With the exception of a few friends, my sister and my special one, no one would believe I’m the one writing this down. The reason is that only a few people know the real me, and out of them most have the censored version of my personality.
There are only five people on the planet who know me, really know me. Felix, Anna, Hanna, Xavier and Anita are those esteemed and extremely patient individuals. They all have hearts of gold. Felix has come to know me better than anyone by virtue of the fact that he is my ‘one’. Hanna and Anna are close seconds and Xavier and Anita closely follow.
Besides them, there are very few people who have even come near to knowing me because most people cannot accept me for who and what I am. It can be very painful at times because I trust someone I expect will understand and then that person doesn’t. It happened to me pretty recently and I also got a big shock.
You can never really know a person, even if you know them your whole life. However, the shock is wearing off and I’m glad to say that I’m on even better terms with that person than before. He is my cousin and friend. I’ll refer to him as Michael and I’m glad to say he is number six on my good friends list along with another cousin, Storm. She is up there with him too.
At the moment they, and another cousin, Alex, are on a trip out of town to participate in a wedding. I’m sure they’re having the time of their lives. I wish I could have joined them, but I did not have permission to.
I recently saw Felix after months, at Alex’s engagement. Alex and he are best friends, even more so since Felix told Alex about me. Alex gave a mixed reaction, but I know that he now cares about me even more than before. Even then, he has never brought up the subject with me.
I feel mortified at the thought that I will never again see or hear my loved one because my mother is dragging us back to the States this summer. Right now, it’s winter and 6O C at night. I hate winter, but that’s for another day. All I’m saying is that I believe in miracles and in God’s powers. I pray for my personal miracle to happen every day. I don’t think God’s interested in helping out right now. If I don’t get some sort of divine intervention soon, I’ll lose everyone I love, just like that.
I have a confession to make. I dread writing this autobiography of sorts. I can never be as precise as I want to be yet I fear I’ve revealed too much. Writing this is as hard for me as it is to dig through a mountain with a spoon.
Still, I know my time on earth is about to end and that I am most probably breathing my last few thousand breaths as I sit here typing this. My greatest fear throughout my life has been living and dying alone and unloved. This I will say, I am very lucky to be loved and cared for by many people of outstanding character and generous hearts. Yet, I will die alone as I live alone even in a crowd. The ones who were with me have gone, leaving me to cope on my own as I always feared they would.
Some people have lightened up my life and given me acceptance and love where I only expected rejection and hatred. They are a beacon of hope for me in the darkest time of my life. I’ll introduce them as the events I plan to relate unfold.
I have discovered a hard and bitter fact of life. It has been as big an inspiration and revelation for me as discovering how little I know, how little any one of us ever knows even if we spent every second of our worthless lives seeking knowledge of all sorts. There is only one thing that remains absolute and constant and that is change. The tiniest of changes can have profound effects on one’s life- they’ve had more than their fair share on mine.
My discovery was simply this: we are all alone no matter what we may do or how much we may be loved. In the end, we are helpless before God and the fate He has written for us, and we are alone. However, how we deal with being alone is up to us. You can be a sniveling cowardly baby like me or you can build on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses as Felix taught me.
I have lost, failed at, and destroyed every accomplishment I dreamt of achieving. My future is bleak. Like I’ve already said, my days are numbered. And this is the only way I will be able to leave a part of myself behind. To haunt others, or to comfort them, I know not. All I know is that I don’t want to be erased completely. Sure, my death will be a source of comfort and ease for everyone around me. Yet there are some things within me that will never cause any pain to anyone with a heart capable of feeling sentiments other than fear, hate and greed.
My message is one many people have tried to send out and have failed to integrate into the very beings of others. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed (PBUH), Buddha and other spiritual leaders of the same rank are the only ones I recall who were successful in bringing this message across. Nonetheless, our bloodthirsty species has successfully warped their message of peace and tolerance and violence only as a last resort to defend oneself or one’s very faith.
Suicide bombers have given the extremely erroneous and immoral impression that the Islamic religion allows this sort of practice. There is no honor of any sort allotted to those who are cowardly enough to not only commit the forbidden act of suicide but to harm innocent bystanders in the process. In the eyes of God, this is one of the lowliest forms of cruelty. Not only that, because these actions cause dishonor to Islam and other Muslims, these people are more hated than the ones they target.
They are similar to the Nazis that followed Hitler; they follow false leadership blindly under the notion that they are committing acts of great glory and heroism. They are brainwashed and have lived lives dedicated to killing other human beings.
Even animals kill only for food or defense. Humans are indeed the cruelest of all animals.
Again, I’m digressing. “War is a mean and contemptible thing.” This statement has struck me as true to the very core. War brings nothing but grief to both the victors and the conquered. There are material gains, but there is no such thing as religious war in the world of today. All wars fought in the name of God are despicable and hypocritical. They are territorial wars, not religious ones.
Islam is the most forgiving and tolerant of religions. It teaches acceptance of all, regardless of race or social status. It teaches equality. It teaches peace and honesty. The warped acts of faith carried out by mislead souls are not taught anywhere in this religion. Islam is pure; it is simply the path of the faithful.
It is the absolute belief in the Oneness of Allah, the name by which God most refers to Himself. He has 99 names in all, describing His unique attributes such as All-Hearing, All-Knowing, the Eternal and the Ever-Living. He is a being unto Himself. There is no one like Him and there can never be anyone like Him. He is One, He is alone. He has no beginning and no end. He has no family. His beloved are the prophets He sent to His creations as a mercy on them. The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is His beloved and the last of the prophets and messengers. God loves all of us and knows every thought we have, every word we utter, every deed we do in our lives.
“All the world’s a stage.
And all the men and women merely players;”
I don’t think even Shakespeare knew how profound and true his statements were. This world is merely a testing ground for us all. What we do in this life determines how we will be treated in the next. By the next life, I don’t mean reincarnation. I mean life after death. We will all atone for our sins and good deeds in front of God and all mankind and genies on the Day of Judgment and receive what is just.
These are some of the basic beliefs of Islam. No where do they advise killing innocents or forcing others to do as you see fit, unless they are harming you.
I know I’ve been lecturing on a topic of very little interest to most. Yet, religion has had a humongous effect on me and the way I think. It, more than all my grammar school education, has taught me the true value of life and that we must remain constant in our beliefs if we are to accomplish what we set out to do.
It is another matter that all battles cannot be won. Nevertheless, the war does not have to be lost. I lost, I failed, but even then I know for a fact that this is not true in all cases. My example is insufficient and inadequate. I failed as a result of circumstances, shortcomings on my part and bad timing. However, whatever happens, happens for a reason. I guess my loss was good for me in a way I cannot fathom.
A friend once told me something she read somewhere. I don’t recall her exact words but it was something like, “If something happens the way you wanted it to, that’s good. If it doesn’t it’s even better because then God’s will is involved.”
Thought provoking and scary, isn’t it? It gives you a sense of both helplessness and significance in the role you play in this universe. All of us carry a world inside of us, yet we live on a small insignificant planet in a gigantic cosmos. We have accomplished incredible, awesome, remarkable feats. Yet, we are still troubled by the common cold and mosquitoes. Poverty and power-hungry politicians and rulers govern the way we live life. Where and to whom we are born determines so much of what each of us becomes or accomplishes.
What I’m trying to say is this: no matter how small a role we play in each other’s lives, every moment is a gift of time to the other and a piece of one another joined together. However, no matter how important or powerful we may be, we are helpless before God. Without His help and will, we are reduced to human vegetables or nothing but a rotting corpse. Within a few years, our insignificant selves are forgotten and we matter no more except to a few people, and that’s if we are lucky.
Even Felix is gone now, happy in his own life without me. He is slowly climbing the ladder of success and achieving all the goals he had. I am happy for him and I hope God blesses him with the best in life. I’m just wondering how long it’ll be before he finally tells me to get lost because it is impossible for us to be together. It’s been weeks since we last talked so maybe he has already decided I’m not worth it. I don’t know. All I know is that I want his safety and happiness, that’s all.
I just wish it could’ve been different and I could’ve been allowed my happiness. I know I would’ve been grateful for it. I guess I didn’t deserve him after all. I suppose he’ll forget me soon enough, God knows he has a hundred girls falling all over him as he is a very available bachelor.
Yet he pledges his everlasting love, his loyalty and his complete devotion to me. He is amazing, and at times too good for his own good. He hardly ever thinks selfishly and I for one am shocked when he does.
He’s no angel. He has his fair share of imperfections such as moodiness, being overly serious at times, taking life too seriously when he should not and not seriously enough when he should. He is obsessively possessive about me but he would never hold me back from following my heart and fulfilling my dreams. That is a rare mix, but one that comes from selfless love. He can also mull over the same thing for hours on end and be as stubborn as any ass when he feels like it. He hardly ever gets angry enough to raise his voice but when he does, he is devastating and vicious.
One good thing about him, though, is that he apologizes for whatever he does wrong, for hurting me in the slightest way or for being even slightly insensitive. He is extremely sensitive and vulnerable, just like most other men are, though they do their macho best not to let it show. But his sensitivity extends well beyond himself. In fact, for the most part, he spends his time worrying about the well being of others and healing whatever wounds he can.
He is a kind, compassionate, generous and caring person. No one who really knows him can deny that. He is overly conscious of his responsibility towards anyone he may have any sort of relationship with and he just cannot hurt anyone, even if he knows he is being coldly and selfishly used by others.
That drives me nuts at times, being the self-centered person I am. He can let himself be a complete doormat at times, when he knows he is being walked over but does not feel any anger, just hurt. His trust in the innate goodness of all human beings, no matter how screwed up most of us are, is excessively optimistic. He just cannot accept that people are capable of horrible deeds, though he sees them done every day. He acknowledges how hard and cruel the world is, but he won’t believe that some people are beyond salvage they just do not care about anything or anyone but themselves.
I really don’t blame them. Life is tough enough to make all of us acquire such an attitude towards others. In the beginning, it is a simple survival technique in a dog eat dog environment. Some of us find other ways of coping with it, but selfishness is, admittedly, the easiest method of dealing with difficulties when we are made to face them.
However, it can become so habitual that it overcomes all of our other qualities. It eventually makes us cold, hard-heated, utterly ruthless and uncaring. That is not to be desired. There is a fine line between selfish enough and selfish to the point of being hateful. It is different for each of us and I guess we must all find our individual balance on it.
CHAPTER V
It is now years after the beginning of this sorry tale that I narrate from the grave. A scary thought, is it not, that the one writing all of this down for me will have no recollection of what she is doing? She is aware that something strange has come over her, but she cannot understand or fight it. Perhaps, after reading this, she will understand. I do not wish to harm or scare her; I simply want to use her to relate the events that drove me to my gruesome end. Since the fact is that she is my younger sister Hanna, I don’t think she will mind.
Continuing my story, I was able to communicate with Felix shortly. It did not solve any problems. It just gave me an even greater amount of indigestion. He suggested that I return to the States as my parents demanded and wait for him there. Besides the obvious impossibility of his making it there, there was also the inevitable probability of my father forcing me into a relationship with another man, engaging me off to whoever suited his fancy.
Personally, I didn’t care for the odds of that working so I considered an end to it all. It was the end I was sufficiently convinced would be a satisfactory termination to all of my parent’s problems with me.
I seriously contemplated suicide. I told both Felix and Hanna of this. They both reacted predictably and asked me not to do it. Felix’s bid was that if I kill myself, what was possible then would not be possible at all. I told him I don’t give a damn. I just did not feel like continuing my pathetic excuse of a life.
As far as my sister was concerned, she just told me she loves me and would commit suicide herself if I did. That would have worked but for one thing- I had a feeling she would kill me herself if she caught me attempting to kill myself. She can be so frightening when she’s angry- she’s awesome in such a state.
Anyhow, my life that means less than a blade of grass in a humongous green meadow was worth a lot to the man I love and the sister I love and the friends I love, and to those who brought me up. In retrospect, I guess the bitterness of rebellion from me was just too much for them to handle. What they saw as teenage rebellion and inexperience and a breach of their trust in me was simply my love for another human being they did not choose for me, but whom I chose for myself.
They resented my way of thinking and freedom of thought. They detested my ideals, and scoffed scornfully at my ethics, beliefs and principles. Since I did not share their way of thinking, they chose to treat me as an immature, brainless invalid they were taking care of and paying dearly to do so.
“Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.” – Horace Mann
Ironically correct, is he not? Does anyone have the right to try and control and manipulate the lives of a person capable of making his or her own decisions just because they think differently? Who gave us the right to play God? I don’t think anyone did. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain
I must say that most of the people on this planet are small, if we take the above statement into consideration. Mark Twain was really onto something here. I know four really great people on the planet and all of them have always encouraged me to follow my heart and realize my dreams. Other than them, though, only a few teachers have ever made me feel I am capable of achieving great things. The majority of those I’ve come across only make me feel worthless and incapable of doing anything right.
The few great people I’ve met have given me a great deal of strength to defy the world and all those who seek to restrain me from being who I am. My parents seek to control me, not gain my love by setting me free and letting me make my own mistakes. It may be because they love me too much or it may be their fear of my failing, or of their own failing as parents. Either way, they show no belief in me or my capabilities.
Felix, Anna, Hanna and Xavier always encourage me to do what I thought was right and to rely on my own judgment. They always trusted me enough to let me make my own choices. They became my inspirations. As Oprah Winfrey once said, “Understand that the right to choose you own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.”
I guess my sacred privilege was taken from me, so I chose to end my life. I chose not to live in shadows, but to become one with them in death. I know that many people see that as cowardice. I see it as a compromise with my restless and frustrated spirit and my family’s wishes. Some people would call it selfishness.“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” –Oscar Wilde
My parents asked me to live as they wished, because they had sacrificed so much for my sake and given me life and everything I had in that life. If it was selfish of me to want to live the way I wanted to, it was selfish of them not to let me. However, that’s all in the past, because I am literally history.
My loved ones are the reason I’m writing any of this down. I want them to know why I did what I did, to understand why I had to end it, why I had to let go of my life. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
She was a pretty bright lady, wasn’t she? Though she was long gone before I ever came to know of her, her words were an inspiration to me in life, as they are now in death.I did what I thought was right and I don’t regret it now. I guess I’m damned to live as a ghost for eternity and to end up in hell after the end of the world, but for now, I am attempting to find peace in myself by giving myself and those concerned with me some closure.I was greatly blessed. I had a nice home, a nice family, great friends, a chance at a great career in my future and the best man a woman could wish for. I had high tech gadgets and cute loving young cousins that I absolutely adored. I had great clothes, jewelry and everything that a human being needs to be healthy and happy. But I was never happy. I guess you could call in pure unthankful behavior, but it wasn’t. I was blessed, and I never forgot it. It was hard to forget it when I lived surrounded by those much less fortunate than me, who had to work 18 hours a day just to put food on the table whereas I could take getting three square meals and a few snacks a day for granted. I never had to work for money a day in my life. If I did, it was by choice, not by necessity.I’m not saying I was a spoiled rich brat, because I wasn’t. All I’m saying is that I had a lot of financial support from my parents and I never really needed anything I was unable to get, except the man I loved so dearly. All I wanted was to be able to see him and talk to him and be with him and that was the only thing I could not have.My parents never gave me acceptance and understanding. I always had a sense of inadequacy when it came to them. I never found unwavering support. I always had to prove myself to hem. I just never came up to the standards they set for me. I could not be the perfect daughter they wanted so very badly. I regret only that I was never able to gain their respect or unquestioning loyalty and love. I guess I must have been a pretty lousy daughter. No surprises there, considering that I was never good at anything a single day in my life.I believe Hanna has a very busy day tomorrow. She is turning out to be a genuine, no nonsense and great brains, businesswoman. I am so proud of her for everything she is. She will always be the sweetest cutest thing I ever saw. I will never forget the first time I picked her up in my arms when she was 3 months old and I was only 4. I can tell you, it made my mother’s heart stop when she saw me holding the baby.Hanna had been crying for Mom but she was busy cooking and could not pick her up. I waited for five minutes, but then I could not take it anymore. I could not stand seeing my baby sister cry. So I picked her up and held her, just like that. The most magical thing was, she stopped crying as soon as I did and just stared at me with these beautiful big brown eyes of hers. I guess I fell in love with my baby sister that day, and I never fell out.
Anyhow, I’ll use my channel to write more later. Her hands hurt right now. She is not that great a typist. Au revoir for now.
