I’m walking along a dark highway road, the stars glittering in speckles of red, blue and white in the distance. The road seems to have its own glow in this light, reflecting the moon and star’s light back at it. The ocean is to my left as I walk upon the white and yellow markings. It’s high tide and the wash seems to fill the stone breakers with its fluffy salt. To my right are apartments with lights inside them, there appearing to be no people around here. They say men walk a dark road after dying. Am I dead? I’m not so sure. I carry on walking.
I look down, and my feet don’t seem to touch the ground. It is as if I’m moving with my mind alone. A flash of reality, the light shifts for a split second into daylight and cars flash by me in an instant. I hear sirens, then a fade out and echo, and I’m back in the dream world. I look around me, the road sweeps to the right and left, and I walk. I pass hotels and large apartment complexes. I see a large ferris wheel in the distance. It looks abandoned, and it seems like its tilting. Even the buildings seem to tilt on a strange angle. I look further on and I see a man.
His body is slouched forward and he seems to walking in a half-stumble. I move toward him and I greet him. His hair is short but tangled, his clothes are ragged and torn. “Hello there. I was wondering if you could help me…” I ask, but he doesn’t reply. Instead he carries on walking. I look at him for a second and I see that his feet are touching the ground. I try tapping him on the shoulder and suddenly the world shifts again back into daylight. Suddenly I see a car parked on the side of the road. It’s a silver Opel Corsa, there’s nobody in it and the doors are wide open. I hear crying. I feel dizzy, as if I’m being pulled deeply inside to a place I don’t want to be. The world shifts again and suddenly I’m back into the dream world.
The man looks around him now in fear. His pupils are dilated, his eyes bloodshot and his skin dark and wrinkled. He doesn’t appear to see me.
“I’m sorry. But can you help me?” He doesn’t reply, instead he runs off. I float some more now, passing an old oceanarium and macdonalds. I realize what’s different and see what is so distorted about this place. It’s the future. I see the buildings are all abandoned and the land around me scattered with debris. Jetsam and flotsam seem to be littered along the coastline to my right.
The road straightens, and I come closer to a pier, and what seems to be an abandoned shopping center called the boardwalk. I move to my left toward the shopping center, I remember the name now. The boardwalk. I float through it, imagining ghostly figures walking through this place, buying, talking and looking. I touch the railing facing a small man-made lake, and the world shifts again, this time I see a crashed taxi, its front mangled into random bends of steel and plastic, there appear to be bodies taken out by paramedics. The crying is still there. Then the world shifts again into the dreaming:.
What is strange is that I feel no fear, no apprehension. There is nothing else here, so I float out now toward the shore, and the pier across the road.
I’m now on the pier, and there’s someone at the end of it facing the ocean. The man looks short, but slender. His hair is gray and he’s wearing a crème-coloured jacket with a matching pants. I know this man. I look toward my right now, and I see the ocean. It appears the world is stuck in a freeze-frame. I look toward my left and I see a frozen bolt of lightning. I walk toward the man now.
“It’s a storm approaching. You shouldn’t be here.” Says the man, as I open my mouth. My heart beat quickens. I know his voice. It can’t be, It can’t be.
“Grandfather?” my voice betraying the sudden rush of fear and awe, and the choking feeling that overtakes me.
“That’s right Hamza, it’s me.”
He turns around now and I see his face, his deep-set droopy eyes, his grim smile, his long grey beard. And then his shaking hands. I feel tears filling behind my eyes. Then a lonely tear flows gracefully down my right eye. I put out my hand. He reaches out and touches mine. One shaking hand touches another, and in a moment a flood of memories moves through my mind shaking my body convulsively. I fall. My feet touch the ground. The tears flow greatly now, and I sit there weeping. He pulls me up.
The world shifts to daylight once more and I see a body taken on a gurney and a white Levis walking shoe sticking out with a blue sole beneath it. I look around me and I see my brother, his face stricken. And my mother standing next to him with tears in her eyes. Then suddenly I’m back into the freeze-frame world.
“Why are you here Hamza?” His look at me is of concern.
“I’m dead, I think. I think I died in a taxi. I think I saw my body being taken out. And I saw Ubayd’s car there. Am I dead Nana?”
The look of concern changes to a smile, and then a light throaty laugh. “No, you’re not. You shouldn’t be here. It’s not your time. You still have much to do.”
“Then why am I here?” I stand now, looking around me, my voice still shaky as I ask this.
“I don’t know,” He points up. “He will, you should ask.”
I step away from him. The pain in my heart now striking deeply.
“He never did any good for me, you know that. You always said to place my faith in him. Nothing came from it. I lost the love of my life, Aunty Q lost her heart and everyone close to me was taken from me. Even Mr. Nobody was taken from me. I had to bury all of them myself.”
He shakes his head. “I am your father. I am also your father’s father. Would I want any wrong for you? Or for him? Would I want anything that wouldn’t be good for you nor him?” He points toward the sea now. “Look there. What do you see?”
I move closer to him, almost standing over the railing of the pier. I see nothing. “There’s nothing.”
“Look again Hamza”
I look closer now, and an image forms. I see my father in the reflection, wearing the same jacket my grandfather is wearing. His long beard as grey as my grandfather’s but I see something else. He’s smiling now. “Wait…” I shoot a look at where my grandfather was. He’s gone.
Lightning strikes around me and the world goes dark, and then a new light takes over the world.
Things become clear now. The world is blurring and brightening into muffled light, blue grey mixed with deep orange. I struggle to breath. Muffled sounds of sirens oscillate around me mixed with engine sounds, the sounds gain pitch and body and my eyes open. My body is sore, the pain is striking all over it. I take a deep breath, and in all that effort I cough spasmodically and my body arches up rigid. The cloth above is pushed off in an instant with all the sudden effort. I look up to see the pale face of a paramedic and the even paler face of my brother in the ambulance.
I try to should “Are you real? Are you here? Am I alive? Answer me!” Instead all that comes out is “I miss you…” And then I smile but the pain strikes my jaw, but inside the floodgates of my happiness burst forth and I simply close my eyes and fade out.
