A fit of coughing came over me as some saliva went down the wrong pipe. The white visitors thronged around me, concerned and anxious. If only I could have choked in that moment when I was surrounded by such emotion and solicitude! If only my spirit could have departed and circled up to the ceiling, looking down on my body, as all of you bent over me in compassion. Don’t they say that when the soul departs the body, it is so light that it floats up until it bumps against the ceiling and, as soon as a window opens, the spirit passes out into the sky?

———

Death is a window looking out upon open sky.

My father played all his cards at once—the balcony card, the window card, the endurance card—and dived forward, swimming through the air. His soul did not float up to the ceiling of our apartment, but rather it left him even before he smashed into the ground. Perhaps even now it is hanging in the air. My father plunged to his death after having eluded it so many times. He took that last step and disappeared. In order to die, we don’t need anything more than a step. Death is a threshold, and it takes but one step to cross over. My father now dwells beyond that threshold, and here I am, approaching him now. If only you would reach out your hand, Father, and pull me firmly toward you. You don’t need any great strength for it. Indeed, you don’t need any strength at all, for I am already leaning toward you, not resisting or holding back. Take my hand, Father. It’s all over for me. I’m done. Finished. Spent. I’m an empty bag, Father, with shape and form but nothing inside, swept by the wind high over scenes of life, where I have no place to go and no business being.

“Father!”

“Yes, N? Don’t yell!”

“Sa’id has taken all the balloons! He is blowing them up and popping them!”

“It’s okay. I’ll buy you others.”

“But I don’t want others! These are my balloons! Let him pop his own balloons and leave me alone!”

Thurayya entered the room, and Sa’id looked over at me and smiled. I fell silent, and my father fell silent, while Thurayya approached to take her child by the hand and lead him out of the room. She was afraid for him because of me, even though he was twice my size and twice as old. Tears stained my cheeks, and my father didn’t know what to do. Then he smiled and came over to console me. I dodged him and went into the corner of the room where I could secretly kill Sa’id and his mother with my bare hands. My father left the room slowly, as though he did not want me to notice him leaving, and I took my revenge on him too by calling him a coward. What kind of man was he to fear his wife and a child? Why wasn’t I lucky enough to have a tough father who would rebuke Thurayya, punish Sa’id, and give me back my rights, which were constantly trampled in that house? I was furious, and I pressed my fingers into my palms so hard that the nails dug into the skin.