The Door Left Open

There is a story my father used to tell me, when I was young, about a cousin he used to know. 

'Back in my country, in Yemen,' he would say, 'time forgets to flow.' 

'No,' he sometimes interrupted; 'Yemen resists the flow of time itself.'

 

It is a place where old man time falls asleep. 

Where the new and old mingle and mash; where times past bends forward and time present reaches back; where the scars of English imperialism, tribal rule and ancient kingdoms can be felt in the roads, in the walls, in the homes and in the people. 

It is where my father earned his silver tongue and where this story is first spoken--a story about a clever young man and his wise old uncle.

 

Kaan Yaa Maakaan: Once upon a time…

 

There was a young stubborn man named Ahmed who had come to live with his elderly and equally stubborn uncle. Ahmed and his uncle were men of different times and different ideals.

Ahmed, a child of a bustling port-city, was full of stories of far-off lands brought to him by the seamen by the port, and by the music on the radio and the actors in the Cinema.

Ahmed’s uncle, on the other hand, was old and had gone blind and almost deaf. He had outgrown these ideas of far-off lands and had little use for the radios he could not hear and the television sets he could not see. He was a practical man who made the most of his situation, no matter what it might bring him.

 

Ahmed had stayed with his uncle once before and they had always gotten along as long as Ahmed helped his uncle around the house and did the shopping.

 

Enjoying his freedom, this time Ahmed began to stay out late--one night he stayed out so late he decided to sleepover at a friend’s house.

That morning as he checked in on his uncle before going off to his job at the market, Ahmed noticed that his uncle had left the door open a little for him.

“Ammuh, did you leave the door open the whole night?” Ahmed pronounced loudly into his uncle’s good ear.

“Only if you didn’t close it.” His uncle replied with a solemn face. Ahmed shook his head as he left for work; the old man had strange ways of showing his displeasure.

 

That night as they lay down to sleep, Ahmed asked, “Did you lock the door tonight, Ammuh?”

“No, Ahmed. The door must stay unlocked.”

“Unlocked! Do you want us to be robbed or killed in our sleep?” Ahmed said, jumping out of bed.

“Ahmed, you listen to me, my boy. The door must be unlocked.” The old man warned. Ahmed frowned, ‘the old man must have gone mad in his old age’, he thought. He decided that he would agree with him now and wait until the old man was asleep to lock the door. Ahmed’s mother had sent him to his father's ageing brother so that he could keep an eye on the lonely old man, in case he did something dangerous.

 

Ahmed watched as his uncle lay his head down on his pillow and began to breath slow deep breaths. Ahmed waited until he could hear the familiar deep-throated snore his uncle habitually made in his sleep before he made his move.

 

As quiet as a thief in the night Ahmed snuck across the room. He was sure his uncle was not a deaf as he claimed, and snatched the ring of keys from his uncle’s nightstand and locked the door. Satisfied, Ahmed returned the keys to the nightstand and went to bed.

 

The next morning, Ahmed woke up to find that the door was open an inch and that his uncle was asking for Ahmed to guide him to the bathroom.

“Ammuh, did you unlock the door last night?”

“Ahmed, I told you the door must be unlocked.” The old man scolded.

“Ammuh, how did you find the door at night by yourself?” Ahmed asked as he led his uncle into the bathroom. The old man reached out and cuffed Ahmed behind the ear.

“I told you the door must stay unlocked. Now leave me alone, go away.” The old man said, pushing Ahmed away.

 

Ahmed narrowed his eyes. How did the old man find the door when he couldn’t find the bathroom on his own? Ahmed knew his uncle to be a stubborn old mule who lived alone by choice and not by necessity.

 

Ahmed stepped onto the balcony and smoked his cigarette quickly, mulling over his uncle’s actions. The old man was obviously playing a trick on him to teach him a lesson. ‘But how had he found the door without any help?’ Ahmed smiled; could the old man be faking his blindness so Ahmed or one of his cousins would keep him company? Ahmed laughed, ‘what a foolish thing to do’.

 

He decided he would test the old man, once he got back from work. Ahmed butted out the cigarette and aired out the balcony and his shirt. He did not want his uncle letting his mother know he had already started smoking.

Ahmed yawned and washed up for the morning after his uncle had called him to lead him to the living room section of the tiny apartment. 

 

That evening, Ahmed watched his uncle eat his bread and drink his tea like many of the blind men and women he had met in the slums of the city. Ahmed wasn’t convinced. He was sure he would catch a slip-up " it was only a matter of when and how bad it was.

 

All evening Ahmed watched as his uncle continued on in his routine of counting his coins, straightening his papers and sweeping the sand that had crept in from the window and door, which now had seemed to be perpetually open.

 

This whole time, the old man had not slipped up, so Ahmed devised a challenge to his uncle’s supposed blindness and hard hearing.

 

That night as his uncle turned in to bed, Ahmed quickly snatched the key ring and jangled the keys at his uncle’s back. He then took his...

To BE Continued?     

  

Author's Note

this is something I'm working on but haven't gotten around to finishing.