The Sacred Blank Page

Ever since he passed away three years ago, I’ve felt lost. The world seems to be void of magic; made up of solid things, and it never tires of reminding me where I belong: at the bottom of it all. Yet, every now and then, something happens that just… well, that just rekindles the sorry remnants of an ancient flame.

We were on the tracks collecting cans and bottles as we did everyday (me joining him after school). This was what he did after work at his full-time job as a streetsweeper. He never made me go. I went myself. The alternative was reality, whereas with him I could travel to far off places (at least in my mind). That day, I was watching three clean-clad rich boys passing by with a twisted neck when my father recognizing that longing look in my eyes said: “If you want to stare at something with that look in your eyes, stare at what lies before you and hold your head up high so you see the stars above even as you contemplate the road ahead.”

I don’t think I ever really grasped anything he said in it it’s entirety. He was a quiet man who never really spoke much, but when he did, he seemed to talk in poetry: allegories, parables, and stories. Only now, looking back, do I see how he kept a certain flame within me alight using the magic of his words.

Father taught me that a man is not defined by the rags he’s born into, but the way he stands tall against the scorning mirth of fate. And it was easy to believe so long as he was standing next to me, but alone… not so much! These streets become unbearable sometimes. After all, those crushed by this ill-fated misery are far more than the few who’ve managed to overturn it’s ruling. And what guarantees that I’m one of those few? Nothing is guaranteed! But the sun does shine sometimes, and that’s enough. That's what keeps us moving forward! This story is about one such break that has my father’s handwriting all over it. I see you baba! So, if you hear me, I just want to thank you for all I never found the means to hank you with. I want you to know that I will keep my promise to you and that I will steal the pen from the hand of fate.

Mother, temperamentally quite different from father, never failed to quarrel with him(With you! Forgive me, I just can’t believe you’re really there sometimes…) about the “silly ideas” he always “put” in my head. But when on his deathbed, he made me promise him I would pursue my dream of becoming a doctor, he also made mother promise him that she would work hard until the moment when I could finally take the weight of my siblings’ responsibility off her shoulders with my doctor’s pay. Mother kept her vow and until the April of last year, she worked her job at the factory and managed to take care of Leila and Salman on her meagre pay, while I attended state university on a full scholarship (scraping by on a humble bike-messenger’s pay).

All was going well until the pandemic hit. The impact it had on the economy meant a lot of layoffs. Mother was one of the first due to her old age.

Sometimes I can’t help but think that even if there is a God up there, he has something against me. Why do some people have it so easy, while something so simple as finishing school is such a struggle for me? Is it just me? No! I look around me and of course, I’m not alone; I never have been. There’s more of me in the world than there is of them, and it will always stay that way. And the few who manage to escape the clutches of fate’s malice usually owe this to a single flicker of luck, as attested by this black Moleskine notebook which has given me my life back. Father couldn’t have known the gift this notebook would give us all. Then again, maybe you did!

It was my sixteenth birthday, and he must’ve seen me staring at it through the window display of the Khoshnevisi store every time we passed by pulling our trolley up the steep street leading to the bazar. He gave it to me after we had celebrated around my mother’s homemade birthday-cake since he didn’t want anyone to see it(it having cost him close to a month’s salary). On it’s cover page he wrote:” Pick up your pen my dear boy and wield it like the sword you must, to fight the story chance has written for you. This is the promise of the sacred blank page! You must bleed to write a story that is yours. Dare to change the pattern of the stars.”

I guess he must’ve known! I guess he must’ve seen what I saw as I stared at those clean, crisp, unstained white pages, bound in that most succulent of bindings: solid black; glistening in the twilight; every contour of the leather’s pattern the promise of a possibility. Close and yet, impossibly distant from my grasp; the thin sheet of glass separating my world from its, like an infinite gulf separating myself from myself.

In little over sixteen months I had filled it up despite myself as I had intended to keep its pages clean longer than that. Every blank page was like a sacred opportunity to me, reserved for the purest parts of myself. It says a lot then that I found my username and password in it, doesn’t it? I had forgotten why--and that for the better, as is now clear.

A little over two years ago, a couple of months before I left for the city, after I had exhausted every blank recess of my black notebook, I wrapped it up in newspaper, and hid it somewhere. And there it stayed. Time passed.

In the twelve-hour bus ride from my hometown to the city, I was consumed by the guilt of leaving mother, Leila, and Salman right after father had died. I had wanted to stay but mother, keeping her word to dad, had told me we would be cursed if we broke our oath and lost this opportunity.

In the two years I was gone, I received nothing but love, compassion, and encouragement from mother every time we spoke on the phone. This, despite the hardships I knew they must have been enduring. All throughout that time I had tried to send money back home, but except for a couple of rare occasions never did, since I was struggling just to survive myself. My academic prospects however, were bright and Dr. Sadiqi had promised me a job as his assistant once I had been accepted into med-school, which meant that soon, I’d be able to support them.

Then, covid tore my life apart. In April when mother lost her job, I left my program and came back home. When I saw mother after two years, she had tears in her eyes, as though she was sorry she had let me down. I fell to my knees, kissed her hands, and told her how I was forever indebted to her and that it would be alright.

For the past ten months I’ve been working non-stop, doing anything that comes my way no matter how demeaning. But if life plans on knocking you down there’s nothing you can do! When mother caught covid I felt like the victim of an insidious conspiracy. On the other hand, if life wants to pick you up, then too, it’ll conspire. A couple of days ago, no hospital would accept mother since she has no insurance, and they (my future colleagues) took a quick look at my squalid appearance and decided I would have to pay upfront. But now, as I write these words, a respirator keeps mother alive.

It happened like this:

On the night of the 17th after the hospitals had refused mom, I ran into Soroush(my best friend from high school) in front of Khoshnevisi as I was pulling dad’s trolley to the bazar. He was the one who recognized me. He tapped me on the shoulder and almost immediately, I fell into his arms and began weeping. He held me close and told me it would all be alright. I told him everything that had happened. He listened quietly.

By evening’s twilight we had talked for close to two hours, still there, sitting on a bench on the sidewalk. Now I felt light, and in that lightness, something I had barred my eyes from seeing caught my gaze and held on: a Moleskine notebook just like my own. I wasn’t even thinking about buying it as it was beyond my means but just the sight of it was enough to stir my soul. It was almost divinely lit behind the glass display. And then, lost in its beauty, I was suddenly no longer with Soroush, but with father—his(your) right hand placed on my left shoulder.

He asked me: ”Why so heavy son?”

I said: “Because this was all that was ever meant to be dad. This is what you were, and this is what I am.”

“What’s that my boy?”

“The scum of life. We’re the world’s leftovers. It doesn’t matter what we write, cause the story was written long before we ever held a pen.”

“You’ve forgotten. You’re running away. You find comfort in the illusion of your futility. It easier. And yet… the answer is buried somewhere in the marks you’ve made on the sacred blank page. It’s not out there! It’s with you!”

Then suddenly, I hear Soroush calling my name, asking if I’m alright.

“You really shouldn’t think about it too much.” he says.

“You’re right.” I say, notebook in mind.

Then half in jest, Soroush says: “I thought you’d be living the good life right now.”

I asked him what he meant and he said he was talking about the bitcoin(actually it was a little less than half a coin) I had bought from him right after my father had given me the notebook.

I said: “Damn! I’d forgotten about that!”. But in my mind, a hundred and fifty dollars hardly meant “the good life,” even though it meant three months rent.

He showed me the real price and…

For two days I searched everywhere and read everything except my black notebook since I thought there was no way I could’ve stained it with such vulgar information. Finally, this morning, I dug my notebook out without any hope of finding my wallet info in it, but instead, just to read it. By around 7 am, I came across this passage under which I had recorded my wallet information:

“Half a bitcoin. It’s worth everything I’ve ever saved, but Soroush says it’ll make me rich. And plus, the only way to reach the stars and get out of this slum is to take risks. I’m a man now. I will put it all on the line. This WILL CHANGE MY LIFE.”

I did have the key baba… And you were right, it’s in my own handwriting.

Since I wanted cash for it, I agreed to $20,000 instead of the twenty something which it was actually worth by then. I don’t really care! I had to take mom to the hospital!

After I checked mother in this morning, I walked to Khoshnevisi and bought this black Moleskine notebook. It’s the one I saw in the display the other day. I can hardly believe it’s real. But it is, and I know this one’s from you too. The sacred blank page before me, I write, and I know you’re there, cause these are your words baba, moving through me. So, hear me baba, the pen is in my hands.