From My Diary in America..  Me and My Homeland

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

I carry my coffin on the shoulders of a betrayed harvest of disappointment. My paths have worn my feet, leading to dark ends after six decades. A single worm spoils a quintal, and a small hole sinks a ship. The rat has destroyed the dam, and the capable are now searching for ways to save their own skins.

Exile brings a myriad of sufferings and challenges that gradually fade. After two or three years, the seeker of a homeland may find the home he has been searching for. Yet in my stolen homeland, the free live their lives between hell and the scourge of torment—ignorance, disease, and famine. It is a homeland that inhabits you, yet remains elusive—a state of bewilderment bordering on despair.

In my homeland, my legs tire from bearing the burden. Instead of being carried, I have become the one who carries them. My strength has waned from exhaustion and hardship. My soul bleeds, and my life slips into nothingness. I am drenched in the disappointment of a stolen homeland that no number of prophets can save, and despair that no multitude of horses can wash away.

My wounds run deep within the caverns of a tortured soul. My grand dreams have been stolen, squandered, or blown away like dust in the wind. From those dreams, I have reaped only the bitterness of pain and endings steeped in disappointment. My hopes are vast, yet my harvest is death and ruin.

I sought a future only to find something harsher. Life has been lost between a miserable past and a future even more wretched—a past drenched in blood and a future laden with traps set by murderers for years and decades. The corruption of the past is rotten, and the future is horrifically tainted by foul decay. We are in a dark era, with what lies ahead even darker and more sinister. Ignorance prevails, and triviality dominates our scene, while reality is steeped in shame. Where can we escape from this disgrace? There is no possibility, no respite to catch our breath.

* * *

Without sleep or drowsiness, I went to the hospital, still shrouded in a dim haze. I was the first patient to arrive at that bleak hour, yet the hospital doors were still closed. I had to wait for hours until they opened. I found myself stretched between a closed door and a silent wall, anxiety pacing me back and forth. I felt utterly alone amidst the dread of desolation and a wall that offered no voice.

I arrived hours early, aimlessly. I came while my doctor was still lost in slumber. My eyes burned from sleeplessness and fatigue. Sharp pains stiffened me, and nails pierced my eyes—anguish and torment. My breaths puffed like a bellows, then I became a prisoner of my own breath. Tightness upon tightness constricted and intensified.

Everything around me was suffocating. I was choking to the brink of death. The pressure escalated, tightening around my neck with both hands. I could hear the great strain of my throat breaking. After hours, my doctor arrived, and in a rasping voice tinged with pain, I complained:

“My chest hurts, Doctor, everywhere. My heart is failing. My chest feels tighter than the eye of a needle. The beats of my heart are as loud as the clangor of war. My chest is constricted by my heart, Doctor! What should I do? My heart is about to explode in my rib cage. The earth is too small, and tightness is everywhere. I am deeply depressed, and this constriction is a death grip on my soul. Can you offer me a remedy to alleviate this overwhelming pain?”

The doctor listened to my agony and said, “You need another heart or spare parts. You require veins and arteries for the heart!” He referred me to a specialist, who in turn sent me to a skilled surgeon at a specialized heart hospital.

In my country, your organs rot. You die while searching for a needle and medicine. In my homeland, death is the solution. They rejected the effective remedy: to remove those who govern us and toy with our bleeding reality—a corruption that yesterday crawled and slithered, and today has become overwhelming beyond our capacity. This situation calls for a grand miracle.

Despite the encroaching despair, we shall not lose hope. One day, this people will exhaust their patience. They will reach a point where survival and death are equal. A revolution will uproot those idols, and we will see the ruins of the false gods. The strength of the people or fate will come suddenly to grant relief once the situation reaches its peak. We must witness a breakthrough, for the continuity of such a state is impossible.

* * *

Note: The glaring title is intentionally provocative, aimed at luring the foolish in an attempt to humanize them, even if just as a benign provocation.