Chapter XXVIII. Lonesome in The Mayhem

This would not have been my condition if I had a brother since he would have shared part of her insanity with me. We would have both complained to each other, and we would have supported one another.

He kept wishing, dreaming, spending his nights imagining, contemplating, in many details, what ifs.

No close friends, except for one friend he sees every few months, during their routine visits to Turkey, Fouad’s maternal uncle’s daughter, Nubia, two years his junior.

Her father is struggling to make a respectable living in a foreign country; his tour company is failing, and he hardly has enough money for his daily sustenance. Of course, Alara is not sparing with him since he is the closest to her.

His wife died, and he refused to marry after her, not yet, it is still early.

Alara tried a lot with him. “Think about marriage, Fouad. Nubia needs someone to replace her mother, and you need a wife as well”, but he rejects the idea. He has not yet overcome the shock of losing his wife.

At least for Marwan, every year there are four routine breaks of torment, scheduled in advance, to which they are accustomed, each lasting a week or two at most, between the father’s visit to them, their visit to him, and their meeting all in Turkey to visit Fouad and Nubia, mostly twice per year.

Despite the humiliation, torment, pain, madness, confusion, and all the many faces around him, the boy has a fighting spirit, something that pushes him to rebel, a hope he refuses to give up, not satisfied with this situation, words he repeated, a promise he always reminded himself of.

-I’ll be freed from my mother’s agony, and then I’ll be delivered from all challenges. Lonesome in the mayhem I live, alone I may die in the midst of it, yet, I will write about the time in between.