“I can’t remember the last time I was happy,” Mansur said with a cough lodged in his throat.
“Have you been sad for months straight?” She asked in her calm voice.
“No no, it’s not what you think.” Mansur tried to clarify, not attempting to clear his throat, “I just…. I just can’t remember anything from my past.” A hint of uncertainty clung to his words.
She stood up from the sofa and walked to the coffee table. While she did, she muttered rather loudly, “Do you remember what happened before you came here?”
Mansur took a while to think about it and answered, “I wasn’t happy.”
“Well, what were you sad about?” A long spoon slowly swirled in the cup while coffee vapor rose upwards.
“I…I don’t remember,” Mansur felt hesitation churning inside of him. “Maybe I should go.”
“What’s the rush! Wait for a while. I can help you,” she said taking sips from her coffee. Returning to the sofa, she asked, “tell me, how do you sleep at night?”
“I mostly don’t. I remember scrolling my phone, and the next thing I know is a sunny morning. From the time I close my eyes to when I open them is completely blank in my head. It’s almost as if the night went by in a blink,” Mansur said as his breathing became heavier with each word.
“Calm down,” she said comfortingly, drinking her coffee. “You should get some sleep first. We have a bad reputation for recommending sleeping meds to our patients. But in fact, good sleep can clear away half your problems.”
She wrote something on a piece of paper. Mansur watched her move the pen. His eyes were bloodshot red. The curled-up veins in his eyes filled with sleepless tired blood.
“Here you go. Take these meds, avoid any kind of caffeine, and come back after a week. Okay?” She said with a sweet tone as she handed the prescription to Mansur. Mansur took it and said, “Okay, thank you. So how much is it for today?”
*
A bluefish swimming in Mansur’s aquarium. Its fins are shining in the vague infrequent glare from the TV.
Mansur is sitting on a chair in front of the sofa in his dark room. His head bent down. On the couch in front of him, his father sits with skinny hands caged in one another, wearing a sheet of white fabric stained with Mansur’s tears. The familiar smell of perfumed beard keeps Mansur awake even after taking three tablets of Alzolam 0.5.
Mansur’s father stare with a blank gaze at him without blinking. For a moment, Mansur looks up and sees what appears like a distant mirage. His eyeballs throb as they meet the invisible sight of his father’s empty pupil.
Mansur bursts into tears. He holds his exhausted face in his hands and shivers as his agonies erupt from the core of his heart. The tears wash away Mansur’s vision. He can see a blurry spectrum of the empty room. No one is on the sofa. There is no sign of life anywhere in the room except for Mansur and his blue fish.
A breeze swims in through the windows, breathing waves in the curtains. The wind whispers, “Don’t stop running. Don’t stop breathing.” This air bears the perfume of his father’s beard; soft and heavy like the kiss of morning sun.
*
“So, when did your father die?” She asked in her usual soothing voice.
“Around a year ago,” Mansur said somewhat indifferently.
“Have you been having the problem since then?” Her voice came like a soft whisper.
“I don’t know…maybe.” These questions bother Mansur.
“If sleeping pills don’t work, we have to consider other approaches,” she said confidently as she leaned back in her chair. “Try to make some friends, hang out with them, stay with someone during the nights. You seem like a nice person. You won’t have any problem gaining some new acquaintances.”
“Thank you for the kind suggestion. I will surely keep it in mind.” Mansur stood up in a haste, pulled out his moneybag, and drew some cash to put them on the table under the azure paperweight where it usually goes. He smiled at her for a brief period and walked out of the room.
She was somewhat baffled. It all happened so fast that she had to take time to understand the whole situation.
*
Mansur walks on the footpath. His shirt is drenched in sweat. He has been walking for almost two hours now.
Suddenly his phone rings. Mansur stands still for a while, pulls out his phone, and looks at the screen. It shows that the call is coming from an unsaved contact, but Mansur recognizes the digits very well. His mother is calling from what used to be his father’s handset.
He puts the phone back into his pocket and continues walking. After a while, the phone stops ringing.
A gush of heavy breath leaves Mansur’s lungs. The sides of his head throb with a bad migraine. His neck burns from the heat of the scorching sun. Eyes blank and red, hands soaking wet from melting sweat inside his pocket, mind filled with empty thoughts, and a heart overflowing with bitter tar.
Suddenly rain starts to fall drop by drop. The moment it gets heavy, Mansur stops walking and slowly turns his head around to look back at the drenched footpath with his half-closed sleepy eyes. He thinks he smells the familiar perfumed beard in the rain.
Abdullah Rayhan is a student of English Literature at Jahangirnagar University.
