mahsa_sarrami
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- Sep 20, 2012
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- 2013
Here is a part of a story that I'm writing, it's just a first draft, and not edited, there is still long to go, Do you have any suggestions, thought and ideas on how it should carry on? or just any criticism or comments are welcome 
as I said it's very rough but would really like to know what you think, any comment is appreciated
“Ma’am would you like some water?” Slowly and cautiously I open my eyes and stare at the fresh drips of water swirling down, as they condensed on the side of the glass. The corners of my lips rise in acknowledgement and I unarguably take her offer. Even the water feels sumptuous, as it travels down my throat, soothing the thirst. Parents are helplessly trying to entertain their kids, their impatient kids, their kids who have filled the room with cries and whines. Walking, sleeping, laughing, pondering, waiting, they’re all waiting. There shouldn’t be long left, two or three hours perhaps, no longer than three. It can’t be any more we’ve been traveling for long and it’s dark. The only lights are those reflecting on the faces of the few passengers that are watching movies. I envy that ability; they allow movies to portray images in their mind. I can’t. My thoughts are too demanding, too hard to fool, too hard to distract.
On my right a woman moves her daughter who must’ve fell asleep during a movie. She caresses her body and pats her gently. The movie is still playing. An action movie, I wonder why a kid is watching such things. The mother doesn’t look comfortable. Her back is bent. Her neck is awkwardly resting on its side. Her hand though is elegantly holding that of her daughters, touching her soft skin, simply protecting her and reassuring her. The girl, she’s in comfort. My eyes leap to her face, desperate to understand. Revoltingly the thought wraps around me, and I thrash out of it in a desperate plead for an unknown cause.
I turn and look out the window. My lips tremble and I lose my self in a sense of suffocation from the vastness of the darkness. A few stars dance independently and their exquisite shimmer against the dark intensity of the serene water and the boundless sky is remarkable. I stare a moment longer absorbing the darkness, the interminable silence and the inevitable enormity of the ocean and the sky. It makes me feel very small, very lost, yet for an obscure reason that precise feeling isn’t altogether daunting. It’s familiar. I’m penetrating deeper and deeper into a world, an unknown one, in the hope and search for answers. Yet it’s very quiet here. While carrying thoughts memories and lives, the ocean beneath, the placid water, sways in an inconceivable eloquence.
The girl’s neglected headphones, hang loosely close to the floor, yet the blasting noise, from the movie can be heard. Why would kids watch such movies? I retrieve back into my own world. I finally manage to block out the muffled noise of gunshots and screams. I allow my mind to direct me once again and guide me to the past. A place that I never left…
Images, memories, people, houses, voices they come rushing back circling and isolating me. Yet again the cold stream of visual images shawl around me. I remind my mind that my soul is brave enough to endure. Although unwelcome, the ambiguous familiarity of the memory is a relief so tremendous that I manage to overlook what those memories may contain. Involuntarily I can feel it creeping upon me. I still remember that day. Better than I remember today.
The country was spreading and stretching. Its people were getting further and further from one another, more alien by the bliss of the second which was there only in its absence. Chaos had become our lives. Lives were only attached to one another by a thin thread. Time didn’t even glance at the cries or the prayers of the people, it progressed and transformed uncaringly. As it did the threads stretched and stretched and got thinner and thinner. Mums from their son, Wives from husbands, brothers from sisters, friends from strangers, the dead from the alive, they were all held by a thread so fragile, that reality became hazy. Life and death became an illusion. They were only separated by a single instant, yet that same fragile thread was the thing that was pulling them all together, all towards death, an inescapable death. As time passed, as clocks ticked, as bells rang, as the seconds transformed to minutes and minutes to hours, we waited. We watched. We watched the bombs. We watched the bombs explode. We waited, and we witnessed. We witnessed the threads break, and the people separate. We witnessed death. Just as a spider’s thread is ruined by a single drop of rain, lives were blotted by a single drop of a bomb. Even if the spider’s thread doesn’t break it burdens and sags down, and for those unfortunate enough to live, they burdened the loss of those who didn’t.
That day in particular, the 28th was eerie beyond comparison. October 24th 1980, was a sunny yet bitter day. The news had come. We had been bombed again. On a day like this, the radio only acted as a confirmation to the news that the nature brought. The winds buffeted and hurdled past in an attempt to escape. Pages of newspaper shredded, whirled and twirled as the wind empathetically took them away with it. The scuffled newspaper, went up gracefully in the air as the wind roared beneath it, gallantly it stood for a moment, like a kite being guided by a child. It paused and observed, an in the exchange of a single instant it came lunging towards earth ashamed, as it remembered the news and the grief that it carried with itself in black and white. Leaves quivered and the erratic sun spotted their vulnerability, it brought out a hidden colour, which resembled, in a sophisticated yet soft manner a colour of pure gold and warmth. The suns action was only in mockery though, the leaves absurdly took pride in their richness, and the sun deceived and carelessly shined up on another. Eventually leaving all stranded yet aware of their futile potentials.
From the moment that the phone rang, I knew it was going to change. We all did. The ringtone was a snare drum building up the apprehension for what was destined to occur. Call it fate? It happened very swiftly, regardless of whether it was or not. No one dared answer it, (as if circumventing it would build a barrier against the hurricane, that was about to raid our lives). Ultimately grandma answered, a low dry voice of a stranger could be professed. In no time grandma’s eyes widened as did her mouth with shock and horror. Soon a layer of shimmering water covered her hazel eyes.
Grandma tried to speak but could scarcely breathe, “No! No, she can’t have!” A piercing scream dredged from her, tears fiercely flooded over the brink and skid down her face. On that day everyone witnessed. Everyone witnessed how the words made her feel bilious, how she aged, and how a part of her, a very dear thread was cut off, by a drop, a drop of a bomb. Her hands quivered rigorously. Her arm dropped. Yet her fingers were still wrapped around the phone. Her grip never loosened. It was all she had left to hold on too…
The room was filled with sadness and fear; imperceptibly the brooding walls lurked in. They spanned. They turned more sombre by the second. The air thickened. The gradual suddenness of it had dazed us. As we watched consciously, everyone in the room had introverted. We were left with nothing but death. Our mortality gave no chance for a word that might ease the sorrow, as time passed death became closer. I grasped for air, but chocked on despair. Those voices, those cries of my family, of my grandma, of my dad poured endlessly. The gasps and screams were now a melody echoing the sorrow. I watched. I waited.
I felt cold. More like emotionless. At that instant, I realised that the thought that derived us through day and night, the thought that had allowed us to live on in this chaotic world, had leaped away into an inaccessible distance. I looked for an answer as I searched in the faces of those around me, those that would be classed as ‘family’, yet it felt such that, when the pressing need was raised, the only answer present was that of its absence in their inconceivable eloquence. They were unable to hold my gaze, and pulled away instantly. I triggered something.
All this took about a minute. Time, perhaps was morbid. Angst couldn’t stand up to grief, patience couldn’t wear it out, and disgust merely ceased to exist where grief was. I wanted to know the fact. In that clamour that had swept by us on that bitter day, was an inexplicable allusion of unavoidable grief. Daddy finally approached me. He looked the most disturbed yet he was staying strong. He elegantly held my hands in his trembling nevertheless promising hands. His breathing accelerated. His throat ached with soreness and his eyes burned with sorrow. I wanted to know. Not the truth though. I wish he had lied.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to land, please fasten your seatbelts”, I struggle to open my eyes. The glimmers and sparks of colours instantly drag me out of my thoughts. I blink and adjust to the brightness. Excited, nervous, I look outside. Returning back to the heart of where it all began seemed like only a regret of a decision that was too late to change. The yellow sands rapidly approached, engulfing the plane, it felt as though one was traveling back in time, as the colours merge. We are being pulled with a force too demanding,
as I said it's very rough but would really like to know what you think, any comment is appreciated “Ma’am would you like some water?” Slowly and cautiously I open my eyes and stare at the fresh drips of water swirling down, as they condensed on the side of the glass. The corners of my lips rise in acknowledgement and I unarguably take her offer. Even the water feels sumptuous, as it travels down my throat, soothing the thirst. Parents are helplessly trying to entertain their kids, their impatient kids, their kids who have filled the room with cries and whines. Walking, sleeping, laughing, pondering, waiting, they’re all waiting. There shouldn’t be long left, two or three hours perhaps, no longer than three. It can’t be any more we’ve been traveling for long and it’s dark. The only lights are those reflecting on the faces of the few passengers that are watching movies. I envy that ability; they allow movies to portray images in their mind. I can’t. My thoughts are too demanding, too hard to fool, too hard to distract.
On my right a woman moves her daughter who must’ve fell asleep during a movie. She caresses her body and pats her gently. The movie is still playing. An action movie, I wonder why a kid is watching such things. The mother doesn’t look comfortable. Her back is bent. Her neck is awkwardly resting on its side. Her hand though is elegantly holding that of her daughters, touching her soft skin, simply protecting her and reassuring her. The girl, she’s in comfort. My eyes leap to her face, desperate to understand. Revoltingly the thought wraps around me, and I thrash out of it in a desperate plead for an unknown cause.
I turn and look out the window. My lips tremble and I lose my self in a sense of suffocation from the vastness of the darkness. A few stars dance independently and their exquisite shimmer against the dark intensity of the serene water and the boundless sky is remarkable. I stare a moment longer absorbing the darkness, the interminable silence and the inevitable enormity of the ocean and the sky. It makes me feel very small, very lost, yet for an obscure reason that precise feeling isn’t altogether daunting. It’s familiar. I’m penetrating deeper and deeper into a world, an unknown one, in the hope and search for answers. Yet it’s very quiet here. While carrying thoughts memories and lives, the ocean beneath, the placid water, sways in an inconceivable eloquence.
The girl’s neglected headphones, hang loosely close to the floor, yet the blasting noise, from the movie can be heard. Why would kids watch such movies? I retrieve back into my own world. I finally manage to block out the muffled noise of gunshots and screams. I allow my mind to direct me once again and guide me to the past. A place that I never left…
Images, memories, people, houses, voices they come rushing back circling and isolating me. Yet again the cold stream of visual images shawl around me. I remind my mind that my soul is brave enough to endure. Although unwelcome, the ambiguous familiarity of the memory is a relief so tremendous that I manage to overlook what those memories may contain. Involuntarily I can feel it creeping upon me. I still remember that day. Better than I remember today.
The country was spreading and stretching. Its people were getting further and further from one another, more alien by the bliss of the second which was there only in its absence. Chaos had become our lives. Lives were only attached to one another by a thin thread. Time didn’t even glance at the cries or the prayers of the people, it progressed and transformed uncaringly. As it did the threads stretched and stretched and got thinner and thinner. Mums from their son, Wives from husbands, brothers from sisters, friends from strangers, the dead from the alive, they were all held by a thread so fragile, that reality became hazy. Life and death became an illusion. They were only separated by a single instant, yet that same fragile thread was the thing that was pulling them all together, all towards death, an inescapable death. As time passed, as clocks ticked, as bells rang, as the seconds transformed to minutes and minutes to hours, we waited. We watched. We watched the bombs. We watched the bombs explode. We waited, and we witnessed. We witnessed the threads break, and the people separate. We witnessed death. Just as a spider’s thread is ruined by a single drop of rain, lives were blotted by a single drop of a bomb. Even if the spider’s thread doesn’t break it burdens and sags down, and for those unfortunate enough to live, they burdened the loss of those who didn’t.
That day in particular, the 28th was eerie beyond comparison. October 24th 1980, was a sunny yet bitter day. The news had come. We had been bombed again. On a day like this, the radio only acted as a confirmation to the news that the nature brought. The winds buffeted and hurdled past in an attempt to escape. Pages of newspaper shredded, whirled and twirled as the wind empathetically took them away with it. The scuffled newspaper, went up gracefully in the air as the wind roared beneath it, gallantly it stood for a moment, like a kite being guided by a child. It paused and observed, an in the exchange of a single instant it came lunging towards earth ashamed, as it remembered the news and the grief that it carried with itself in black and white. Leaves quivered and the erratic sun spotted their vulnerability, it brought out a hidden colour, which resembled, in a sophisticated yet soft manner a colour of pure gold and warmth. The suns action was only in mockery though, the leaves absurdly took pride in their richness, and the sun deceived and carelessly shined up on another. Eventually leaving all stranded yet aware of their futile potentials.
From the moment that the phone rang, I knew it was going to change. We all did. The ringtone was a snare drum building up the apprehension for what was destined to occur. Call it fate? It happened very swiftly, regardless of whether it was or not. No one dared answer it, (as if circumventing it would build a barrier against the hurricane, that was about to raid our lives). Ultimately grandma answered, a low dry voice of a stranger could be professed. In no time grandma’s eyes widened as did her mouth with shock and horror. Soon a layer of shimmering water covered her hazel eyes.
Grandma tried to speak but could scarcely breathe, “No! No, she can’t have!” A piercing scream dredged from her, tears fiercely flooded over the brink and skid down her face. On that day everyone witnessed. Everyone witnessed how the words made her feel bilious, how she aged, and how a part of her, a very dear thread was cut off, by a drop, a drop of a bomb. Her hands quivered rigorously. Her arm dropped. Yet her fingers were still wrapped around the phone. Her grip never loosened. It was all she had left to hold on too…
The room was filled with sadness and fear; imperceptibly the brooding walls lurked in. They spanned. They turned more sombre by the second. The air thickened. The gradual suddenness of it had dazed us. As we watched consciously, everyone in the room had introverted. We were left with nothing but death. Our mortality gave no chance for a word that might ease the sorrow, as time passed death became closer. I grasped for air, but chocked on despair. Those voices, those cries of my family, of my grandma, of my dad poured endlessly. The gasps and screams were now a melody echoing the sorrow. I watched. I waited.
I felt cold. More like emotionless. At that instant, I realised that the thought that derived us through day and night, the thought that had allowed us to live on in this chaotic world, had leaped away into an inaccessible distance. I looked for an answer as I searched in the faces of those around me, those that would be classed as ‘family’, yet it felt such that, when the pressing need was raised, the only answer present was that of its absence in their inconceivable eloquence. They were unable to hold my gaze, and pulled away instantly. I triggered something.
All this took about a minute. Time, perhaps was morbid. Angst couldn’t stand up to grief, patience couldn’t wear it out, and disgust merely ceased to exist where grief was. I wanted to know the fact. In that clamour that had swept by us on that bitter day, was an inexplicable allusion of unavoidable grief. Daddy finally approached me. He looked the most disturbed yet he was staying strong. He elegantly held my hands in his trembling nevertheless promising hands. His breathing accelerated. His throat ached with soreness and his eyes burned with sorrow. I wanted to know. Not the truth though. I wish he had lied.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to land, please fasten your seatbelts”, I struggle to open my eyes. The glimmers and sparks of colours instantly drag me out of my thoughts. I blink and adjust to the brightness. Excited, nervous, I look outside. Returning back to the heart of where it all began seemed like only a regret of a decision that was too late to change. The yellow sands rapidly approached, engulfing the plane, it felt as though one was traveling back in time, as the colours merge. We are being pulled with a force too demanding,