The Wandering Arab

It was a sunny afternoon. The heat escaped me, but I could somehow sense its presence, like the pain of a lost limb. That being the only knowledge the world left me with, my mind wandered. Unknown, unseen, I started to doubt my own existence. It’s hard to sympathize with one’s self when it is out of reach. The world has turned its back on me in the purgatory where I now abide. Even in emptiness, traces of a former life resides, haunting me, prying on my peace of mind for what seemed like an eternity. A body resembling mine lay on the floor, bloodless, faceless. In the haze of heat, the golden sand of the beach took me to a lost memory of a man wandering the Sahara. For reasons beyond me, someone else’s fading memory found its way to me. As I try to recall my own memories, I am met with white blankness. Repeated in my mind is a question burning, aching, and taunting: what caused my death? What was I the victim of? Of my death, I only remember four shots and the fifth one was like the final nail in the coffin. I am made up of the uncertainties of my life and death; they revolve around me and center me so much that I can only run to myself. I am composed of letters, of the clicking noise a strange hand has typed into a strange existence. The hand seems to voice my very thoughts. It picks up my story from the time of the ominous beach. The one where I had lost my identity if I ever possessed one. Since I cannot take shelter in knowing the how I must know the why. 

In an attempt to lessen my burden, I followed the body to the local morgue; the sight of it bestowed me with an unbearable weight of sadness, had I only the body to carry it. I listened attentively in hopes of being allowed an ounce of relief regarding my death, but the medical examiner had nothing to offer but speculations about why I lay on his table. It was nightfall by the time I returned to the beach. I had stood there for hours while emptiness filled the air. It is hard to say why I often found my soul lingering there. This place marked the end of a life that once belonged to me; it offered me nothing but anguish. I search in vain, and I reminisce in silence. Looking back, I wonder how I seem to have a voice that resides in the combination of these letters but not a reflection of my being in any mirror. I walked out, waited, and hoped for a sense of direction, but none was revealed to me. I don’t sleep, I just dream endlessly in an attempt to reconcile with my nature. To pass the days knowing that every moment extinguishes my flame is the cruelest of torments. What I am is still a mystery, but I remember a child’s laughter and a name floating about in my memory. Did I leave someone behind, a family perhaps? It is hard to say, but I sense their sadness over my nonexistence. Time does not treat me with kindness; it has cast me aside in the margins.

I followed a whispering mass of people during one of my aimless wanderings. They led me into a courtroom with a Frenchman on the stand, and I learned he was my killer. He was a stranger to me, and his crime a foreigner. I stood among the ignorant crowd, weightless and invisible. The prosecutor attempted to shed light on the reason for my murder by stating the Frenchman’s flaws and indifference, which only added to my confusion. If he is as indifferent as they say he is, why bother to shoot me four more times? I started spiraling out of control, and chaos reigned in mind. During the trial, I was referred to as the Arab; this prevented me from learning my name. I had always hoped a name would restore me somehow, that I would regain bits and pieces of my dignity. My name and murder were of no consequence; his questionable love for his dead mother was. I plunged further and further into darkness the more they talked about his lack of love for his mother. The real crime is their indifference to his indifference. I decided to follow the murderer into his cell; perhaps in solitude, he could show his truth. He showed no remorse; he only spoke to the head guard about his freedom. It seemed to me he was unaware that he had lost his freedom or that he had stolen mine. I wanted nothing more than to make myself known to him and the people around him. Every attempt to uncover my name or cause of death had been met with failure. On the stand, I heard him say, “it was because of the sun,” and a rage overtook me, but I was helpless; what could a lifeless Arab man do but agonize further over that statement? How is the sun to blame for my death? The next day, a chaplain spent the time persuading him to repent his crime, but he wouldn’t. An act of rebellion echoing my murder, I suppose. The Frenchman’s execution brought me no relief; it was just his move on the chessboard. Between dreams and reality, I drifted for years, never truly belonging to either. Dreams don’t belong to humans; dreams belong to the voiceless. Spending an eternity dreaming allows one to infiltrate young minds. The connection I made into the mind of a stranger through dreams and the planting of a seed that grew and bore my story, is my only consolation. In dreams, I shall remain, but in reality, words will conjure my presence. The Arab man will wander that realm from one mortal dream to another. His nameless image will carry on reminding humanity of their humanity. Know this, you may leave these words, but they shall not leave you.