Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek

Author:Samar Yazbek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2023-03-28T16:35:54+00:00

Chapter 8

Ali didn’t know himself. His life came to him intermittently, just as he had lived it. He forgot whether or not he should regard himself as one of those people who lived according to the laws and history of the mountain. It didn’t occur to him to consider the shape of his face, his feet, his nose, or to question where these sharp features on his face had come from, or to ask himself who he really was. Or, moreover, why he had to be a part of all this. Why should he spend even a single moment on this nonsense that others possessed in limitless quantities, when they knew what they wanted in life and could name it: a hope, or a goal. It was simple, really. Here he was, lying motionless, looking at the tree and the Other. He wasn’t focusing on the movement of the sun, or what might happen if it went out and this planet vanished from existence. It appeared that everything was interchangeable, capable of altering suddenly and incomprehensibly. He was interested in trees … in the wind and the clouds and the mountains, in the rain and the stars, in the moon, the scent on the breeze. He was interested in anything that made him drown out every sound beyond that call from within, interested most of all in those elements that didn’t rely on jabbering, as he called it. As such, he wasn’t particularly fond of animals, nor did he pursue birds. The wind had a special place in his soul. He believed he knew the wind even better than the clouds, the rain, and the snow. He used to gulp down the wind and breathe it in like a digestible substance when it passed over his cheeks and settled in his open mouth. He used to eat the wind, chewing it and swallowing it down; he could tell the direction it came from with his eyes closed, saw the rain in it before it fell, sensed oncoming snow by how cold it blew.

Yes! The wind was something fundamental to him, as were the trees and clouds. He had never thought of these elements this way before; he hadn’t chosen them, or even consciously recognised them as necessities. He just thought that living among them in this way was life, and felt totally assured that he would never be parted from his trees and his beloved elements. His daily sessions of sitting on the roof of their house in all seasons, away from the family and the neighbours, were a part of his being that no one else knew about. In pitch-black nights, as he lay watching, his ribs moving with the stars, and his soul peeling away like the skin of a ripe pear, he knew he wanted to stay like this forever.

Now he thought that if the wind blew, perhaps he would regain some strength. In an impulse that was exploding like thunder, he wanted to live—yes, that’s what

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.