The Wailing Depths

By Jameel Shahid Raza

I had an accident two hours ago. I was about to get hit by a car, but thanks to my bad

luck, I survived. Yet I, somehow, managed to hit the current pole which left me in

concussion and made me a burden to this hospital bed.

Hi, I’m Nadiya. I was today years old when I discovered that my name means “Hope”.

Apart from the ruins of my life, I guess my name alone is all that remains with it.

I have a friend who goes by the name Mirren. Usually, he's quite introverted and

dislikes to leave his space, avoiding social interactions or stepping outside his

comfort zone, his room. If it weren’t for him, my ruins wouldn’t be ruins rather,

nothing.

I asked Mirren to meet me in person at the beach so that I could meet him one last

time. I was so busy being amazed as I saw him across the road, having left his room to

meet me, that I forgot I was in the middle of crossing the road and therefore, The

Accident.

Thanks, and no-thanks to Mirren—it's probably him who admitted me here.

Well, Since I’m still alive, I have yet to meet Mirren at beach even with this heavy

aching head.

However, A week later, we planned to meet at the beach again. I crossed the road

safely this time and we finally met.

The weather was quite cool. The waves, quieter and the silence... louder.

We started walking, like the waves do, fluent and quiet. A few steps in rhythm and a few,

random.

“Doesn't the beach seem peaceful despite holding disastrous storms deep in the

distance?”, he mused.

“Yes”, said I, surfing through the chaos of my random thoughts in my mind.

Yet, the beach seemed calm, as if it was pleased to soothe me.

Gazing at the horizon, he went on, “This beach is all we see, but the ocean beyond

holds far more mysteries in its tempests than the serenity in its shores.”

“True”, I continued, saying, “What do you think of such disasters though? Don’t you

think we are often pushed to pursue those mysteries against our choices? And when

we do get the authority to choose, we’re already amidst a chaos which we didn’t

choose to pursue at all.”

“We always have the choice whether to pursue the curiosity to discover what’s amidst

the ocean or to just sit on this shore and enjoy the peace it offers.”, and he added, “It's

never too late to choose or to change. What do you think? What would you choose?”

I replied, “Peace. But I think peace is also something to be discovered as well, just like

the mysteries amidst oceans. I understand this but I fail to understand how to discover

it... and this little failure pushed me to decide something so big, the kind of big from

which none would benefit from rather lose.”

“Yes!”, he agreed with me and went on with a little smile on his face, “Pursuit itself fails

to give you peace, and peace is never pursuit rather a realization. You can pursue what

you desire and die happily. Or you can realize what you have and die peacefully. All that

matters is an instance of choice you make...”

“But!”, I interrupted, “To choose in such instance, shouldn’t we have enough

information about either of them. I do have an overview of what pursuit is” and I

continued, “it is an action done by someone to gain something which in turn leads

them to a better or more pleasurable life and happiness. But I am confused about

defining peace. It's just... too abstracted to be defined I guess...”

“It is a memory of happiness or pain that we feel in the present, ;said Mirren.

And continued saying, “If it's a memory of happiness, then peace is attained through

gratefulness that you experienced such a situation. If it is something sad, then it is

attained through the feeling that you have dealt with it in the past and now it doesn't

bother you. Peace is also simply living in the moment, that is, until a person doesn't dwell

in the past nor suffers in the present for his futures and is alive, he is in peace.”

I smiled, “Yeah.”

We sat down on the little hills of sand and somehow, the beach, with the help of Mirren,

managed to calm me down for a moment.

But it’s the next second from that moment that terrifies me more. All the pain, always

ready, to rush itself back in.

All that rush, and it drove my eye to release the tear I’ve been holding back from the

moment we arrived at the beach.

Looking at me, smiling, wiping that one tear, he said,” I guess it doesn't necessarily

have to be an ocean to have holding a chaos in it. It could even be a drop.”

Sniffling, “What do you want in life?” I asked.

“There were times when I pursued mysteries and times when I chose the shore over

all others. But there was something more fascinating than these two.”

“What else could there be anything else? What else can define life better?”, I asked

curiously.

“Though Peace and Pursuit, Shores and the ocean, are very different experiences in

themselves. Though they are two sides of the same coin, they met somewhere in the

name of love. For love has both Peace and Pursuit, its simple yet deep.”

“I do not understand, how can ‘love’ be two contrasting things at the same time? Is

this not the biggest mystery to be solved?”

“Yes, that’s why it is a pursuit...”

“Wait... Yes!”, I realized exclaiming, yet my confusion prevailed.

The wind started to blow faster at the beach, The dust, all over in the air, as if a mini

tornado would come to life. So, we began to walk again.

” But if its pursuit, then how could it be peace simultaneously? I don’t understand.”

“Love could be confusing to understand in the beginning”

And he went on, saying, “Love is a pursuit only until you attain it. Then, it is a shore with a

clear sky, yet you can’t stop to explore. Because humans are ever changing and that is

natural, and you can explore and know about them more, until lifetime while getting to

experience the peace offered by the realization of them being in the same realization

and pursuit with you as you are in with th...”

I interrupted, “Ughh, It's so confusing. Can’t you explain it to me in simple terms!?”,

with an exhausting sigh of confusion.

“Love is a pursuit of knowing about the mysteries of what or who you love while

already having the realization that whom you love, loves you the same way you do with

them. It is both Pursuit and Peace.”

“So... In a way, you say that love is the possibly the most proper decision of one’s

life?”

“Yeah, you can take it like that.”

I responded back, “Fine. Then why is it so many people... Well, most of the people I

saw end up in chaos after falling in love, either by ending their lives or harming

themselves or others because they were hurt by someone else in the past in the name

of love!? Don’t you think love is more chaotic than the middle of an ocean!?”, with a

furious tone.

He replied, “Love surely could be chaotic, but it is about how you perceive the definition

of love and how mad you are to experience from a person that you could even risk

yourself to such chaos. And irrespective of the fact that the one you love will

be with you. Remember, that nothing is lost in love. You either get love or a lesson in

return for the love you gave first...”

The words are as if they’re asking me to live another day. But... All this doesn’t matter

if I plan calling death to my door in a few hours. But why am I still questioning things?

Do I still wish to see the daylight again even after the life I’ve had until now? Or is it

just out of curiosity? Curiosity to live? To... love?

No! No, why would I ever think anything about “Love” again. It was the biggest

traitor. It was more Deceitful than the people who deceived me in the name of love.

This world is filled with that treacherous love.

I should just force myself to stand in the middle of that road and make sure that those

motors crush me this time.

I stopped walking alongside while I was lost in these thoughts and Mirren was waiting

for me a few steps ahead, glaring at me.

I was hesitating whether to tell him and he knew it!

I was too afraid that he was going to ask me, because it’ll get very hard for me to hide

anymore if he does. I wish that he wouldn’t ask me anything but even amidst these

thoughts in my mind. Somewhere in my foolish heart, it is also very clear I strongly

wish that he does ask me what happened.

Breaking the long silence, asked Mirren, “Are you okay, Nadiya?” His voice was

gentle yet holding a firmness in it.

The weight of his words pressing against the walls I had built around my pain. “I... I

don’t know,” I finally admitted.

Mirren took a few steps closer, his presence both comforting and terrifying. “You don’t

have to carry this alone. Calm down. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

I looked at him with blurred vision with tears that were chained to the walls of my

vulnerabilities...

How could he be so calm, so patient? And why did that calmness make me want to break

down even more?

I clenched my fists, trying to keep my emotions in check, but that just couldn’t

happen.

“It’s just... I feel so lost, Mirren. Like I’m drowning in all these thoughts, and no matter

how hard I try, I can’t find my way back to the surface.”

“It’s fine, it is okay to be feeling lost, it’s a part of healing. It is a chance of becoming

better when you’re broke...”

“I don't want to become better. Become better and then? Just to break worse?

What’s the point of getting better if it only sets me up for a moment of a worse

failure?”, I stressed.

He was silent and so were the waves. Silence, so intolerable that it pushed me into the

abyss of blankness. I started suffocating, internally, probably anxiety.

I could barely make my legs stand still. If it were someone else other than Mirren, I

would’ve shot myself out of my consciousness.

Within a few moments, barely did I managed all the unbalanced flow of my emotions,

letting the stream flow into the breezes of beach with a relieving sigh.

“Tired?”, he broke the silence again.

“Tired of what?”

“worrying”

“I’m... not worried about anything. It's just...”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing”

“So, you’re worried about whether to share something with me?”, he doubted.

Darn! My confusions might get exposed. I’m worried if my thoughts... I’ll be

embarras...

His voice cutting through my thoughts, “Afraid that you’d be embarrassed if you shared?”,

he asked.

He read my mind!!?

“Maybe...”, I mumbled.

“Well, embarrassments are for strangers; friends embrace. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

No sooner had he said that, I threw the strongest glance at him with the loudest

silence I had ever known in my life, and gradually unveiled the silence with my

mumbles, “yea... yeah... Yes.”

Though he managed to rationally convince me to reveal what I'd been hiding so far, my

lips remained sealed as if they never knew to speak.

As these silences robbed our time together, we stood still, watching the horizon turn

darker.

As the ocean started stealing the moon’s light. I, somehow, forced my lips just to say,

“Let’s go home...”

---

By Jameel Shahid Raza