Asylum

The showers of rain were falling down heavily and Mercilessly was hitting the Middle Eastern features of his face, while thunder deafened his ears, which still heard the pleas of his mother and fiancee :Not to go on an adventure, that might be in his life, the last one. He remembered their entreaties as he swayed with sixty other people in a rubber boat that could not hold more than twenty people at best, looking at their wet features full of terror in the heart of a merciless storm. He admitted to himself, at least, that they were right, and began to pray in secret to reach the land in any way in this damned storm. Soon all his hopes and prayers were in vain when the boat captain shouted that the engine had stopped working and that the boat had already begun to sink … At such moments, nothing matters anymore, not the European dream, nor his wishes for a better tomorrow that he did not find in his country, nor the cries for help around him, which he used to always meet as a graduate of human medicine from the University of Damascus… There was nothing that mattered at that moment except his soul, which could die if he did not allow himself to swim with all his might towards the Greek shores. Or so he thought when a woman holding a crying infant clung to him until he almost imagined heaven was crying for her baby. He could hardly hear the intermittent, trembling words of the mother as she begged him: Please take him and try to save him, I can’t swim, but if God will give me safety, I will take him from you later He didn’t really know why he took the baby without thinking… He was muttering reassuring words that he wouldn’t have been convinced of in the first place. He began to resist the raging sea with its mighty waves while he was carrying a small soul in his arms… As if his defense of it represented his defense of his own dream and life. He was feeling his strength collapsing little by little… so He stopped swimming for a moment in the middle of the complete darkness except for the sparkle of two small eyes looking at him with sympathy and anticipation… I will take you to your mother safely, my little one… Do not be afraid.. He felt his arms full of strength again… He continued swimming and began to see through the water covering his face the lights of the coast. Yes Hasan, you are on the right path … Continue This is how his body kept pushing itself toward the beach while he embraced a complete life in his arms, staunchly defending it, as if the future of this infant was his own, and as if their coming days were closely and inextricably linked. He did not know how long it took for him to feel the beach sand touching his body before his strength collapsed, and he fell asleep to wake up to the crying of a small infant, as if his coming days were calling him to say: Yes, you did it.