THE DAY OF FAREWELL
13. I encountered deeply ingrained issues. I had been talking to myself for who knows how long, and with each uttered word, I learned new ones. I learned the word ‘birth,’ the word ‘issue,’ the phrase ‘deeply ingrained,’ the word ‘speak,’ the word ‘perhaps,’ the phrase ‘for how long,’ the phrase ‘to oneself,’ the conjunction ‘and,’ the word ‘conjunction,’ the word ‘after,’ the word ‘every,’ the word ‘word,’ the word ‘thus,’ the word ‘learn,’ the word ‘news,’ the word ‘phrase,’ the word ‘enough,’ and many more and many more. Otherwise, how could I even speak, even if just to myself? In truth, the words were the same, but to me, they felt different, entirely different, and I relearned them from scratch, as if they were completely new. However, I managed to open my eyes—somehow, who knows how—and beheld five white walls. Excluding the floor, which was behind me since I was lying down, there were five white walls in the room. It was fortunate there weren’t more than five, because even if there were, they would still be just walls.
I encountered deeply ingrained issues—issues of nails, hammers, nailers, and the one nailed. I couldn’t explain why, when I struck the nail with the hammer, I felt no pain, yet when the hammer struck me, embedding itself, I felt pain. When I pierced living flesh, I felt no pain, but when a nail was driven into my flesh, my chest screamed in agony. These sensations also manifested in reverse. I was the First—my minutes have run out!—but also the Second, the Third, the Fourth, the hammer, the nails, and The Nailed One. The hammer was a nailer, driven by the hand of the nailer, so it was, in a way, also a nail. And they all converged towards me, as I was The Nailed One and... I was being nailed. The matter became even more complicated when the question arose about the hand that set this event in motion. Was it, perhaps, the hand that the First, the Second, the Third, the Fourth had neglected to nail? Or the hand that left that other hand unnailed? Who knows? By then, I was merely a corpse and had no interest in pondering. When they invited me to the tavern to drink, to be honest, I didn’t expect what happened next. But I was innocent. That business of cursing by a mother was nonsense, and I was even more blameless. I don’t say this because I’m now a corpse, trying to absolve myself by placing the blame on them. No, not at all. I’m now a corpse and don’t concern myself with such matters. After all, we are human, and things happen. They pinned me to the wall with knives just as we were about to urinate, and I was taken aback. Do you know why? Because as they slashed at me with their knives, I astonishingly asked myself: “How strong must you have been, my friend; where did you muster all this strength to stab four people?!” When I fell to the ground—because we are human, and we fall—the three of them, along with me, were chopping my flesh. Now, I find it amusing to remember how much pain I felt. A pain that turned words into sounds, and sounds into silence. I told them several times, “Stop, stop, you’ll get a weak stomach from the blood, and you’ll throw up!” But who was listening to me? I guess by then, I had become a corpse, and they had other ears, ones that could no longer hear my voice, which, for its part, had become something different. I let out a laugh and continued laughing even in the hospital as the nurses struggled to stitch me up, preparing me for the coffin. I even filled the morgue with laughter, telling myself jokes. One of the nurses eventually got annoyed, lost her patience, threw her tools down, and exclaimed, “This can’t be done anymore... Put him in a closed coffin!” There you have the phrase “can’t be done.” It doesn’t take much time in death to grasp spoken Albanian. I heard they were going to transport me (to the other side—note by the writer) in a closed casket. They dressed me up like a groom, pushed me inside, and I thought I had been placed in a phone booth. Damn, what a situation. I never would have thought that one could endure winter dressed so thinly, like a groom. But when I didn’t feel warmth even in a closed coffin, I realized that I hadn’t felt cold even when naked. Many times I’ve asked myself, “Were you cold, sir, when they stabbed you in the middle of the snow?” But I couldn’t find an answer. Certainly, my spirit must have left me at that moment, but I couldn’t recall when exactly it had departed. The spirit departs as if in a dream—one doesn’t know when, one doesn’t know how. Many people even now don’t realize that their spirit has departed. Then, I tell myself, surely they must have carried me on shoulders, all stitched up and ragged as I was, loaded me into a car, and were taking me home. I found enough amusement during the journey. One can still find amusement even with a departed spirit. “Hold me like this, tenderly, oh, dupes,” I whispered to myself, “for I bore your foolishness just like this when I was alive.” They brought me into the house, laid me down in the middle of the room, and I heard noises. Who knows who was knocking from outside the coffin, it seemed like they were trying to open it. “Hey!” I called out. “Don’t open it; I’m a ghastly sight in here.” But in such situations, no one heeds your call. “Let it be, whatever will be!” I said. Even if they got horrified, it would be their horror, not mine. I’m a corpse, and horror is but a mere word to me. Nevertheless, even though my spirit had departed, I still clung to a shred of dignity, or in other words, a man’s honor, and I didn’t want to emit a foul odor. For we, the deceased, have our own distinct smell—a heavy scent, more in terms of its weight than the endurance needed to overcome it. I recall when a neighbor of ours passed away. His wife wept over him, recounting all his deeds, when suddenly she collapsed onto her husband’s body. We initially thought she had fainted from overwhelming love and the pain that would no longer torment her soul, but it was merely the overpowering smell. To be honest, when they opened the door of my coffin, and that white dust we once called light fell upon me, I almost screamed in terror. I saw the room where I had lived, but I felt no longing for it. When I was alive and contemplated death, I naively believed with a humorous certainty that, after death, I would yearn for this room, as well as all the rooms where I had lived. Such are the beliefs of the living. People, both men and women, had gathered in the room. They smoked cigarettes, drank coffee, and moaned. The women shook their heads, evidently displeased. It seemed they thought I should have endured that charade called life for another thirty years. Tears of frustration streamed down their faces. I wanted to tell them, “Why do you weep? What’s there to cry about? We are human; things just happen. Is it so hard for you to accept that I, too, have my destiny, my salvation?” But I didn’t. It’s futile trying to reason with the living. Moreover, by now, everyone looked the same to me, much like how all Chinese people may seem alike to those unfamiliar. I couldn’t address anyone specifically because every funeral, just like every wedding, engagement, birthday, etc., has a specific pecking order. There’s a hierarchy and a significance, and if I were to speak, I would have to fully acknowledge and respect that hierarchy. For, from what I remember when I was alive, everyone, without exception, even down to the least significant person, would be deeply offended if you disregarded their status. It’s futile trying to reason with close ones. A woman—woman, really?—approached the top of my coffin, caressed my hair, and began to wail: “Son, what have they done to you! Son, you left so young! Son this and son that…” She must have been my mother. Or perhaps the Party. The Mother. The Party. Still, I couldn’t fathom what there was to cry about. Did I owe my life to life itself and the earth? Would I return, that is, dissolve back into them to become death and soil once more? Fine. I am a corpse; I can’t indulge in complexities. My words are simple and they all end with a period. Only with a period. Other punctuation marks are for the living. Complications are for them, too. And for the philosophers. I was a philosopher, like everyone else, when I was alive. Now the era of nonsense and philosophies is over. Now I am a corpse, and that’s it. Despite the fact that similarities are often described as being “like two drops of water,” periods aren’t water drops, and they aren’t the same. It would be hard for anyone to convince me that one period and another are as alike as two drops of water. No one. Therefore, I believe the opposite. And that’s it.
In the room, people began to gather, those whom I had known when I was alive. They smoked cigarettes, drank rakia, sipped coffee, and spoke of me and death. I wanted to return as a ghost, to terrify them as they deserved, and to shout with all my might: “Do you even know that in the house of the hanged, people don’t speak of the noose?!” But they were human, and they could harm me. Being a corpse allowed me to speak in a different tone, without exerting too much effort, the voice of my mind after death. I left them be, simply listened, and most felt that I could hear them and spoke of strange things.
I had known myself as I had been, but apparently, I had been the best of the best. People said I was gentle, loving, soft-spoken, astute, succinct, trustworthy, kind-hearted, magnanimous—proof that much soul had departed from me. I was also said to have been cheerful, jovial, sociable, well-educated, healthy, skilled, prankish, not chasing after worldly women, not spending money recklessly, not gambling, not drinking, and, above all, I was said to have had the most friends and acquaintances in the world. Oh. It was the only time I regretted having died. I also felt sorry for the Second, the Third, and the Fourth, whom I had chopped with a knife, and who would now languish in prison. But, in the end, they brought it upon themselves, I thought. Had they not invited me for a drink, let alone to take a pee, I wouldn’t have stabbed them.
All night, I lay stretched out between the soft walls of the coffin. People leaned in, gazed at me, and then departed. I wished I could leave too, but where would I go? I was a corpse, and it wasn’t permitted. Long ago, during my living days, people, believe it or not, held the belief that some of the dead, due to unresolved sorrows and unhealed wounds, would rise again and become ghosts, believe it or not. But people were mistaken. According to this absurdity, even that woman who had wailed, who was presumably my mother or the Party, driven by the grief of losing her son, should return as a ghost. But no, no. These fantasies of the living were unbearable. On the other hand, I hadn’t tried it yet, but I believed it must be wonderful to be able to rise as a ghost. If I could, I’d utter a prayer where it mattered.
Later, light appeared, and they lifted me. Likely due to an emitted
odor, they tossed some flowers onto me. Then, they placed me in a more
dignified vehicle. It was a comforting experience for the departed soul. (...)
Ardian-Christian Kyçyku, The Rivers of the Sahara
Translated from Albanian by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj