The Widower by Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

Author:Mohamed Latiff Mohamed
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814615136
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2016-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

six

Seven years after his wife’s death, he often thought: if one is called a human being, a spiritual being, a being that possesses various dimensions to his world, a being in between the physical world and the spiritual world, if human beings are truly free and not in chains, not trapped, not tied to the laws of physics, that which is called a human being would not have any certainty at all. Surely human beings would not be able to determine what is destined to occur. And human beings are always in a state of disappointment, existing at the mouth of a deep and bottomless abyss.

Human beings who are unmoored from the laws of the universe, free from the norms of good and evil, are able to seal the abyss of dismay and sorrow. And the idea of this freedom caused Pak Karman to take most drastic action, such as slapping the imam at a mosque that dared to ask for extra monetary compensation for being the one who led the dawn prayers. He became furious at the money-minded imam, and consequently smacked his face three times in quick succession. People said that the imam’s cheek was swollen for a week. Because he desired that freedom Pak Karman dared to say that his people were like zombies whose lot was worse than old cows whose nostrils had been pierced with a nose-ring and tied to a rope. He said that his people had prostituted everything that was theirs, including their religion, race, history and the dignity of their ancestors.

In those loneliest hours, he became enraged, swollen with revenge, filled with hatred and cynicism. He found himself in situations where he was not sure if he should continue to offer prayers at his wife’s grave, or watch the videos of his grandchildren that had been sent by his daughters, or whether in secret he should try seeking out a woman who could replace his wife in his sexual fantasies. He hoped every night that God would grant him a dream full of ecstasy with his wife, and so he gazed at a portrait of his wife for a long time right before he went to sleep. Before his eyes closed, he would imagine scenes filled with sexual rapture. Those nights when his wife was still alive had been filled with playful teasing and actions and reactions that had satiated their desires for each other. He recited verses while mentioning her name with the hope that she would appear during the long nights of desolation. In such a lonely state, he once again became angry, quarrel-some, anti-social and extremely cynical towards the people around him.

Eventually he grew to believe that life with God constituted freedom. Even though it was difficult for him to explain this conclusion to his inner heart, which always wanted to parry his thoughts with a summons that he should always rebel, because only by rebelling would his life gather more meaning, even though he was well aware that such an action was actually without any meaning.

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