reverse letter

a letter to someone that may or not be sent

with love, Afifa

I am writing this letter to you from a corner of a room that you know of too well. There are paint stains everywhere on my wall, almost like landmarks on a map. But sometimes I feel so lost, even if a map is right in front of me. The periodic table I badly printed is also hanging on my wall, and there will be a time where I probably won't need it anymore. I have a whole shelf for my textbooks but I never put them back whenever I use them, so in the day they sit on my bed, and at night they sleep on my chair. They are probably exhausted from constantly being moved around and never put back at the right place, like travelers moving from one city to another in the holidays but feeling too attached to each street. Just like that, I am tired of never having a permanent home—or at least tired of making everything and everyone a home. I hope that you find solace in the sun sifting through the curtains and the smell of chai sizzling in the teapan, I hope you find yourself in reflections of the rainwater puddles and polished hotel tiles, in the hands of people you love. But I hope you do not live in these moments as if you they are home. Otherwise you will find yourself stranded and homeless more often than you should. People are people, houses are houses, and sounds are sounds. These walls will not contain you too quickly, because they are like bodies of mammals. When dead, the muscles will harden, all the blood will pool at the bottom of the body, leaving hardened, bleached flesh at the top. Rigor mortis will intoxicate you with a stench too familiar, your olfactory receptors will take you to a time when death was the only thing you knew of. I hope you know who and what to consider as home.

These days I am feeling like a helium balloon, those overpriced colorful ones we would buy at Hyperpanda and shove it in the backseat of our car, carry it home to bounce it up and down again and again on the first day. But on the second day, it just floats and touches the ceiling, waiting to deflate. A celebratory item looking for the sky, stuck by the boundary of the roof. But no roof means no place to go.

Speaking of balloons, when we were in year 6 and it was Saudi Day at school, you stood right in front of me, under the 11AM sun, too happy because math class was being delayed with some sort of performance on the marble stage. Fake grass stuck on our uniforms and colorful socks, pink caps that shade our eyes. At the end of the performance, Mr Yusuf had these green and white balloons with 500 riyals in them each, and he would let them float in the sky, and I remember you laughing at the seniors who tried so hard to jump and catch them. Sir grinned and said the balloons will pop for the right person at the right time, and I hope this letter finds you in the same way

These days I feel like I'm living the same day everyday, until one random evening I realize how different the days have been, after reading my journals and looking at my gallery. I visited our old school last week, and I met my year 8-10 English teacher, who still keeps your English writing notebook in his grey bag. I find it so funny that he still has it, he says he uses it as an example for the younger students. All our drawings and doodles, along with messages with your best friend are still fossilized on those last few pages. I wonder if he saw those drawings, the clock, the empty desk, my hand. In my friend's handwriting, sentences like “when will this class end omg??” and my horrible handwriting in “ugh ict is next lesson!!”, like graffiti on walls, vandalizing. I wonder if he showed it to the juniors, I think I would feel a little embarrassed. But I know you wouldn't mind at all. I also know you don't think that notebook and its contents is anywhere near worthy for him to keep, but maybe it is. This is not something new for us, we've always been praised for a language that isn't ours in a country that will never be ours.

I remember when you were 7 years old, you had asked your dad if you can request Allah in Heaven to always be 7. When your dad’s eyes squinted and his head tilted in wonder, when he asked why, you said being 7 is the best age. I was thinking about it, and it is so odd, that when you were 7 that was also the time your mom was diagnosed with cancer, a word that you never understood at that time. I think you always had a sort of longing injected in your flaky skin, and even though you didn't understand what cancer was, you secretly knew what would happen to its patients. You knew there might not be a time again where you could lay on your parents bed, reading Roald Dahl and Judy Moody, just so that you can ask meanings of words until you fall asleep in between the gaps of words, to be carried to your bed. You knew that there is probably no more time to spend with your mother, so the TV from which you learned your accent can be left alone now, and books would be your best companion. I hope they still are. 2 years later on a summer night, you woke up to a dream telling you of the shroud, the white clothes of the people around, the concrete tiles of my porch. You were taught as a Muslim that dreams come true only for the truthful. And at that moment, under the pink blanket, you had convinced yourself you were the biggest liar on earth. But you were a truthful girl, and dreams come true for truthful people. I think the 9 year old version of you was very scared of today's version of you. I think she might have been scared of me too.

And when we finally learned and understood cancer in detail last year in biology class, I think I could feel the excitement in my eyes, and the realization hovering over my head like a halo, the epiphany of what I want to do with you. I hope you are doing it now, I hope you love what you study, whatever it is, just like how much I love biology.

I don't exactly know what address to mail this letter to. I hope it reaches a corner of a different room, where you are facing a wall decorated with your favorite poems while textbooks who are happy travelers and don't mind being shifted from one place to another hold your hand and tell you stories of something you always wanted to know. I find it a little weird that you know so much about me, and I probably only think I know you, I only hope I know you. I hate the word probably, even though I said it 7 times in this one letter, how there's a string of uncertainty in it, how it rolls off your tongue so easily for a word that holds so much yet so little. It is like a ceramic pot you make in a class, with clay all over your hands. A pot that looks so good until you fill it with water and realize there is a hole but you don't know where it is, and water drips on your arms like blood. But at least when the syllables of ‘probably’ run off your tongue, hope grows in your teeth. Probably. Hopefully.

I hope you remember me as much as I want you to, I hope you don't forget my handwriting and the shape of my veins on the back of my hand. I hope you think of me without cringing too much, and I hope that you think of me often.

Dear Future Afifa.