by Nima sorkheh
Have you ever heard that they say you will see a trailer of your whole life right before you die? I saw a boy right next to me. I didn’t actually see anything; I just knew that we were on our way to our dream. We had less than five hours to achieve all of them. In the sky on an airplane, I can’t remember exactly where it was in the Middle East—Jordan, Israel, Palestine, or somewhere like that. Just before hearing the huge sound of the explosion, we were talking about the house we were going to live in. It was going to be in a quiet and beautiful place near the Rhein in Düsseldorf, where we could finally live together, just like we dreamed. I couldn’t tell if it was a technical problem, an explosion from inside, or if a missile had hit us. But what I can tell is that we were going down. It’s such an ironic feeling when you are thinking about the past and memories on your way to the future. I wasn’t crying, but I could feel the tears coming down from my eyes. My whole face was wet from it. His was too. Contrary to what they say, it was really quiet. Nobody screamed or yelled. I was thinking about the times that I pretended I didn’t love him so that people wouldn’t run away from us, so that they wouldn’t judge us. For more than five years, we lived like that, and now we had only five hours left until the end of that miserable life. We were going to have rights, somewhere to belong in society, somewhere to actually live. To live a normal life. I remembered every time people hated us for who we were. Hated us as if poverty, corruption, violence, and everything else was our fault. Don’t get me started on the government. These feelings weren’t just from strangers but also from people we actually loved. I remembered every time we were looking for a place where nobody else would be, just so we could kiss quickly. We were just two boys trying to live, nothing more. I remembered the irony of pretending we weren’t together in public but proving we were together at the embassy, just so they would give us a visa. No trailer was playing in my head. I was sad, so I thought it couldn’t be the end. I haven’t lived yet. I haven’t loved the way I wanted to. Suddenly, my tears were flowing down more than I expected. Not because I knew these were my last seconds, but because I hadn’t lived enough. Because of the dreams I hadn’t achieved. Because of the life I never had, not the life I was going to have. After I started crying, I could hear the screams. It was like a bubble had burst. We still hadn’t said a single word. What was he thinking about? If I asked, there would be no time for him to answer because he always talked too long, with details. So I let it be like that. Let it be like always, with our secret words, “I love you.” I knew that in Germany, there is a political party that is against our rights, and it’s getting bigger every day. Maybe it would have been the same for us there too. We were not only a sexual minority but also a minority in every way. Not being accepted by a foreign government would have been much worse. We didn’t have a way back either. They would put us in jail if they found out about us, or maybe they would kill us for it. Maybe in another life, we could be together. Maybe it was only there that we could live and love. Maybe love has been dead. What if there is no other life? No, I shouldn’t think about this now. I got scared. At the very last moment, there was no trailer or life flashing before our eyes. We looked at each other, and with one word, it ended. “I love you.”
© Nima sorkheh 2024-08-13