A Different Past (Part: one)

Right after dinner, little Rose was playing with her dolls, driving them on a doll-cart down the narrowed wooden hallway, leading to the living room near the kitchen. Her mother, Mrs. Maria, was patiently accepting of the noise from the cart’s wheels. After that long day, Mrs. Maria was washing the dishes, standing still in the kitchen with exhaustion, bearing what cannot be tolerated. “Rosy, why don’t you come and play with your dolls over there On the couch,” she said. “You, make some space for her,” she asked Hassan, who was sitting on the couch, seeking normality, aiming for peace. His beard and hair had become long and tangled in funny shapes one can't laugh about, but feel sorry. His reddened eyes could tell how much a mess he was. It had been almost a year since Hassan last joined them in their small fine rickety wooden house, in the middle of a farm that only produced milk. Hassan barely uttered a complete sentence a man in his mid-thirties would speak. But he wrote, all of what he had gotten, all there was to be alive. 

Little Rose slowly approached Hassan and sat on the couch, “are you okay?” she asked. And with an impulsive reaction, he bent over to the table in front of him and grabbed his black steel fountain pen and the sheets beneath the coffee mug. “Okay,” he said, and stood up and headed to the farm, as he always does. Mrs. Maria waited for Hassan to leave, “that’s it. This man has to see someone,” she looked worried. “Hassan does write,” Rose said, reassuring the health of Hassan’s sanity. “I’m his aunt. I know it when I see it. His condition isn’t getting any better, only worse. We all know he had his memory all wiped up, but from what the doctor explained, his ability to speak should get better by the end of this year. And here we are, on the thirtieth of December,” said the mother.

Those who are obstinate to reality tend to think differently about it. Ink and a few paper sheets were enough to have Hassan knowing who he is rather than who he was. Among the cows, on a rough wooden bench, sat Hassan, Only there his pen sharpened his thoughts, supplanting what reality tells him with what it should. sequential time never appealed to him. There was always a piece of the puzzle missing. An inextricably obscured tendency Hassan had about time. He neglected the shallow perspectives people share about both past and future, and thought, “it doesn’t matter whether some might think the past shapes the future. It doesn’t matter that some might think the future heals the past. All that matters is that the present is either dreams for the future or memories from the past. Only in the present we breathe and live.” He wrote on a wrinkled sheet: Miss and hate. Sense and breathe. Dream and hope.

A thick smudge of ink lined down the sentence (miss or hate). That wasn’t a thing Hassan can easily absorb unless if he defined it as he wished. 

Later in the night, the sky flared with stars. The wind smoothly loosened Hassan’s shaggy long hair the rustling of it was clear enough to be sensed. The cows were away, only Hassan’s sprawled body left upon that bench, his eyes fixed to the sky, his hair dangled to the grass. A minute later, only the snoring was to be heard. 

“The third,” little Rose said, with empathy on her face. Her mother bent over and wiped the pieces of the third ceramic plate she had broken, she seemed utterly engrossed. Little Rose never knew such a heart could break, as a fact she never saw her mother sob, even when her father died. Mrs. Maria wasn’t present, she hung her eyes elsewhere from the room, elsewhere from her surrounding environment. She closed her eyes and enclosed herself in her world, wishing she would blink and everything would go back the way it was, or slightly better. Rose kept glaring at her mother stirring herself, “what’s the matter?” Rose asked. Her mother rested her palms on her face and froze in silence for a while. Finally, she moved out of the kitchen and sat beside Rose on the couch, “my dear, strong people get to suffer more than others. Life wasn’t easy on Hassan nor his mother, my dear sister.” 

Rose inquisitively asked, “what happened to them?”

Mrs. Maria sighed, “sweetie, twenty-five years ago Hassan was a little boy, he had his family, his mom, and dad. He lived happily as many other children. One day, they were coming to visit our farm. They stopped in a filling station thirty miles away from our farm; to fell their car I am assuming. My sister and her son remained inside the vehicle while Hassan’s father gassed up the car, then disappeared into a corner store. A couple of hours passed, and he wasn’t back. Minutes later, a huge black RV emerged from behind, and a man stepped out of it…”

“And?!” said Rose. 

“That man reached to Hassan and his mother. I don’t remember the exact words the man said, but he mentioned something about Hassan’s father not paying the bills. We waited for them for hours and hours, calling them plenty of times without any response. Later In the evening of that day, I received a call from a policeman asking me to come immediately to a hospital in the middle of the city. Sadly, I found both Hassan and his mother lying in hospital beds.” 

The strong get to suffer, and the faithful get tested. When Mrs. Maria arrived at the hospital that day, Hassan hadn’t waked up for hours, then days, then years. Unfortunately, he had been in a coma. His mother was seriously injured, that she died after a couple of years since that occurrence. Mrs. Maria hoped little Rose didn't go any further, asking what she didn't want to hear and know. 

Rose was too young to know what to ask and what to understand from answers. She felt terrible for Hassan and her aunt, “what did Hassan’s father do?” Little Rose grimaced. 

“We don’t know for sure. I’ve always suspected his kindness. After all, they never found his body.” A moment of silence followed after that, when suddenly Mrs. Maria stood up, “where is he?! Where is Hassan?” She and little Rose bustled towards the front door, where they found him waiting, leaning on the wall, smiling, with his hair and beard tidily cut and combed. “Hassan!” Rose said confusingly, her eyes wide open with astonishment. “When did you come?” Mrs. Maria asked expecting nothing but a few words she won’t understand. “And where is all the …” she said, patting her head and touching her chin. 

Hassan passed his aunt and trod slowly towards the living room, he knocked objects along the way, banging Brass ornaments on the floor, then he turned and faced them, “let's play a game, shall we?”

 Hassan’s neat appearance had Mrs. Maria speechless, let alone his fluency in speaking. The shock captivated all of Mrs. Maria’s senses, while Rose struggled to realize what was true and present. 

Hassan beckoned Rose, but she remained still horrified, holding to her mother’s palm. He came a bit closer to them, “Isn’t it beautiful? A future in the past. It’s only true if I don’t know it, then it’s called a future. Right? It’s unknown unpredictable. I hadn't sensed it, but lived in it …”, Hassan stopped for a moment to think, “wait… right, lived in it. How come a future being lived in! Then it’s a past?! No worries, it all makes sense. A future that is in the past that is still called a future, though it had been lived in.” 

the logic wasn’t to judge anymore, Hassan went beyond thinking, captured in his precepts, redefining the standards in life. Digging in the past’s sheets was not Hassan’s desire, perhaps a different past would resonate better. Knowing enough about our present may lead to a full life in the past, nothing that Hassan would wish for after finding a journal his mother wrote before dying about his past, or shall I say his PAST FUTURE!