“Oh look. Stuffies.” Areum stops and points. We look. We don’t know who Jack is, but we buy stuffed animals from his gift store, ostensibly for Ghufran, but the truth is, we all need a hug right now.

From the Book of MEMORIES

SEVDA

CITY OF ORIGIN: MARMARIS

Listen.

This is a story about a careful construction of helplessness. Of futility

dressed in blue.

I? Merely am. But you? You are plural. You are in my hair, in my eyes. You are of tomorrow and you linger from yesterday. You remain while I become ephemeral.

You appear in front of me with your hands already dipped in blood and ask,

“How shall I break your heart today?”

And I, dressed in blue, stand up to die.

These are the wanderings of a mind prone to winter.

You see? I built this helplessness in three stages.

First: I let myself love you.

Then: I perfected the art of crying without tears.

And finally: I learned to like the space a broken heart occupies in a chest.

I.

Why can’t we look into mirrors without flinching?

Why can’t we look at our reflections without finding things that could be thinner, smoother, or prettier?

Why is meeting our own eyes in the mirror an exercise in despair?

Why are we never enough as we are?

II.

Here, have this with your cup of tea:

They come for you in the dark or in the light, but only when you are alone, isolated from anyone whom you can call an ally. Even though you want to yell when they take you, you are too frightened to make a sound. Because what if this is your fault? What if, somehow, you are the architect of your own misfortune? What if it was something you said or did? Or didn’t say and didn’t do? What if it is the clothes you are wearing or the smiles you gave them or didn’t? You know what people will say.

It is too late when the pain becomes worse. Your lips already know the shape of silence. Your voice has shrunk to a gasp. You are left with a mouth full of screams and a silence that binds them within you. The screams you didn’t scream echo in your mind and in your body. They remain long after the incident. They pollute your days. Take the luster from your sunshine. Until all you can hear are the screams you didn’t scream. The rest of the world goes on, oblivious to the din in you.

The Reappearance of the Boy Made of Stars and the Plight of the Girl by the Oleander Lane.

The City of Byblos, now known as Jbeil, is about thirty-seven kilometers from Beirut. We cannot, of course, travel there in any other way except by the Between.