A Story Told

I search for stories the way people search for love. I seek stories like addicts seek drugs. I sniff them out and be euphoric by the emotions they behold. I allow them to run through my veins and turn me into less than a being, more of a fantasy caught up with the casualty of having to be present in moments, oh god damn these moments… They always come as a shock to me in the instant that I touch them. To tell the truth, I seek stories not because I rejoice over other people’s hardship. I seek them because they always turn into something like me, something held within the margin of another book, presented on a shelf, mahogany if lucky. It gets boring sometimes, sitting here. watching people pass by without even taking a glimpse at my possibly boring title too.

Sometimes, new arrivals join. I enjoy having conversations with them. They are never shy, besides they’re bold and confident. I listen to what they have to say although I always found their stories appalling and tacky. But who am I to judge, every story is worth something anyway. These books, however, never stay for too long, always sold to millennials searching for reason in all the wrong places. The reason, one thing they wouldn’t find in the spine of myself. The reason, what a relentless word in the vocabulary of my story.

I know I get dusty sometimes, the librarian swipes them off every now and then but eventually, the dust rests into my crust and turns my blunt papers yellow. We do get old, just like humans do. The older we get, the heftier we become.

One day a familiar face approached me, she stood a couple of steps away and stared at my spine for longer than it takes to actually read my title. She was a stranger yet, her face resembled a lot of a character I know, someone who actually lived within the margins of papers. She was a slim figure with a sharp jaw and heart-shaped face. Her eyes were sparkling black and her eyebrows were thick enough to give her an angry look. Or was she really angry? Something I already know.

She stared at me hesitantly, she would raise her hand then let it drop to her side not sure if she was doing the right decision grabbing me off the shelf. She made me feel like I was a villain; like she was actually angry at me. God knows, my story is guilty of it all but my draining body wouldn’t be so much. If only I could tell her, I was just a tool to tell the story. To speak up the unspeakable truths of the hardship she’d went through. I wish I was able to defend myself and tell her I was keeping the story alive not because of what happened but because of how it made her feel, and these feelings should never be tamed, trapped into one's core but rather let out into the world. I wish I could tell her that yes, many people have borrowed me along the years, many people have read me in a fortnight, some even left teardrops stains on my papers. I wish I could tell her that by the time they read the last sentence they held me to their hearts and took the deepest breath that somehow sent her all the love in the world. I wish I could rearrange the words in my prolog just to tell her what she refuses to see staring at me resentfully. She pursed her lips and wrapped her arms tight around her body, the way I would every time her name is mentioned on my papers. She let her slim fingers caress my spine without allowing the frown to ease from her face. I knew she was angry and she always will be angry but having her so close to me made my world brighter in the dim lights of these haunting hallways.

I would never have thought she would write me down to let me go. It was silly of me to think being her story would actually bring me closer to her but that was never her intention. She wrote the story down to relinquish me of her chest, little did I know I was the very burden she was trying to get rid of. It hurts, to tell the truth, but who can blame her after what she’d seen.

I assume you are still waiting for me to tell you her story, my story, the story of so many people including herself. I would have taken the easy way out and simply recited the summary on the back of my covers but I won’t preclude it that way. The story revolves around people in a small country called Lebanon. These people were humbly living their lives one day, trying to make sense out of their worlds, thinking of their kids, their future weddings, their professionals careers, grumbling about the worst of days, the temperature, the bad economy, complaining about how far worse politics can go. Basically they were simply being humans. Until, the balance they’ve thought they had, the sanity they proclaimed before, and the future they always dreamt about came thudding from beneath their feet, thudding with an intensity that was about to rip families apart, throw people of balconies, gulp firefighters out of existence, choke many more beneath the rubble and cause traumas enough to haunt generations. It’s a story about people who lost loved ones for a monster sleeping at the port, right beneath their nose, gone unnoticed for years and years. Waiting, for either a coincidence or an actual calling to inhale all the energies of these beautiful people with families, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, mother and fathers. The monster fed on their hopes and dreams, joy and laughter, possibilities and opportunities then blew itself with a shock wave that was heard across the countries. People died, their hopes and dreams disappeared with them. The joy and laughter was diminished of the faces of the people still alive and they couldn’t be anything but angry.

She didn’t dare hold me into her soft hand, she shook her head disappointedly. Couldn’t tell if she was disappointed in me or herself for not having had the courage to finally meet me. She bit into her lower lip and continued shaking her head. Being sad is one thing and being angry is another. God forbid combine them together.

I wanted to tell her that it was okay for keeping the distance, for forgetting about me, and for letting me go. I wanted her to know that I was privileged to hold her burden behind my covers. I wanted to express how proud I was to have finally met her, the lady who had the courage to speak of the truths behind her angry eyes. Oh, how I wished I can console her for losing her loved ones. The ones, I, as many others who’ve read, fell in love with on several occasions.

She took off without any hesitation. I accepted her rejection with an open heart. I was not here to judge, I was just a mean to present her story, her people’s story, which somehow became my story. I ease the sorrow within me and cradle the burden I hold within, imprisoning it within my spine, making sure it never travels over to her ever again.

And, I wait until the day an interesting reader grabs hold of me.

I wait, to tell her story.