A story by: Abdel Latif Moubarak – Egypt
Everything in the institute seemed devoid of sin. The pure white swallowed every color, and the pungent smell of disinfectant was a constant reminder that one was there to be cleansed of something, or to forget.
Eyad sat on the edge of the window, which was protected by a fine wire mesh, watching the only tree whose branches reached out toward the street below. Inside, nothing pulsed; everything moved according to the usual routine: the doctors’ rounds at eight, the first dose at nine, followed by the mandatory afternoon restraint between one fear and another.
Salma entered with imperceptible steps. She carried a small black notebook and a wooden pencil. She was neither a doctor nor a patient in the common sense; she wandered the corridors like someone looking for something lost in an old commotion.
She sat on the wooden bench beside his bed, tilted her head, and asked him with lively curiosity:
—“Tell me about a green heart.”
Eyad turned slowly. His face bore the marks of time, and his eyes reflected an ancient fracture.
—“Green? Nothing is left here but gray, Salma. The heart doesn’t turn green again after being burned, even if only once.”
She smiled gently, opened her notebook, and said:
—“It doesn’t matter how much it burned; what matters is what remains beneath the rubble. Start from the first page, and I will listen.
en years earlier, Eyad knew no rest. He was a passionate agricultural engineer, capable of recognizing the type of soil simply by rubbing it between his fingers. To him, life was a simple equation: you sow the seed, water it, and lush leaves will grow.
In those days, he met Maryam. Maryam resembled spring in its full glory; she did not fear the rain and paid no mind to the winds that uprooted old trees.
Eyad recalled those moments as he told Salma:
—“She believed every land was suitable for life. She didn’t understand that certain soils are poisonous, and that certain people grow like thorns, absorbing the water of those around them until they dry them out.”
—“And was she a green heart?” Salma asked, continuing to write slowly.
Eyad sighed:
—“She was too green to endure the dryness of this world. And I thought I could protect her.”
Dryness always begins with small details. A word left unsaid at the right moment, a lost gaze, a dream that gradually turns into a daily burden.
Eyad’s project to reclaim the last plot of uncultivated land on the city outskirts stalled. Rosy dreams turned into debt, debt into legal troubles, and silence fell upon the small house that once vibrated with life.
—“Do you know how a plant dies, Salma?”
—“How?”
—“Not always from thirst. Sometimes excess water kills it, or an overwhelming fear of drought. We were suffocated by a lack of resources.”
On a rainy night, Maryam gathered her things. She didn’t scream, nor did she leave a letter of anger. She left only her gold wedding ring beside the withered pot of mint on the balcony, and left.
After Maryam’s departure, Eyad didn’t break all at once. The collapse happened in successive stages, like leaves falling from trees in autumn.
He began to distance himself from people, let his beard grow, and abandoned his nursery to decay, letting it become a haven for insects and cracked walls. He spent long hours staring into nothingness. His thoughts consumed themselves until he could no longer distinguish day from night.
—“Why did you give up?” Salma asked him earnestly.
—“Giving up isn’t a decision we make, Salma; it’s a silent slide. You start by giving up small things: morning coffee, answering the phone, closing the curtains… until you realize you’ve given up on yourself.”
On that rainy night, a fire broke out in the old nursery. No one ever discovered the cause of the blaze: a short circuit, negligence by a passerby, or had he himself left a candle burning near the dry leaves?
When the firefighters arrived, Eyad was standing in the middle of the flames, making no attempt to extinguish them or flee. He stared at the fire with a sense of relief, as if the flames were devouring debts, memories, and disappointments in a single moment.
He was rescued at the last minute. And from there, from the heart of smoke and ash, he was transferred to this institute.
—“And since then… my heart has turned gray. It doesn’t absorb water, and it doesn’t grow leaves.”
Salma listened in silence, then closed her notebook calmly and looked straight into his eyes:
—“But you are still breathing, Eyad.”
—“Breathing is a mechanical movement; it doesn’t mean living.”
Salma stood up, went to the corner near the corridor, and returned holding a small terracotta pot with a tiny plant, no more than a few centimeters high, but firmly piercing the soil.
She placed it in his lap.
—“What is this?” he asked, surprised.
—“Proof that the earth doesn’t forget how to sprout things. This plant grew from a bit of soil I gathered myself near the burned nursery you told me about.”
Eyad’s eyes widened, and he touched the plant’s delicate leaves with trembling fingertips.
Days inside the institute began to change. The corridors were no longer just cold white spaces; they became the setting for daily conversations between Eyad and Salma.
Eyad discovered that Salma was the daughter of a former doctor at the institute, trying to heal from the pain of losing her younger sister in a tragic accident. She found in writing and talking to patients a refuge for her own inner reconstruction.
—“A green heart, Eyad, is not a heart that has never burned,” she told him one evening as they sat together in the courtyard.
—“What is it then?”
—“It’s a heart that passes through the fire and keeps its roots alive beneath the ash, to bloom again with the first drop of rain.”
In mid-autumn, rain fell heavily over the city. Eyad wanted to go out into the institute’s outer courtyard without an umbrella.
He stood there, lifting his face to the sky, letting the cold drops wash away the dust of years from his features. It was the first time he smiled in an eternity.
He felt something stir deep within; that terrible weight crushing his chest began to dissolve. He remembered his first words to Salma and realized that sadness is not an eternal fate, but merely a long season that must be followed by another.
The day of his discharge arrived. The official paperwork was completed, and the doctor informed him that he could return to the outside world.
Eyad stopped at the main gate, holding his small bag and the terracotta pot Salma had given him. Outside, an entire city bustled with life and color, no longer frightening him as it once had.
Salma waved to him from the second-floor window and smiled at him gently, without saying a word. Between them was a silent pact: words are unnecessary when life begins to flow again.
A year later.
In the eastern part of the city, a new nursery stands, smaller than the previous one, but warmer and more organized. The air is filled with the scent of wet earth, basil, and mint.
Eyad sits at the wooden table at the nursery entrance, opens a notebook, and writes on the first page in large letters:
“You spoke to me of a green heart… and I learned that green is not a color we are born with and then lose, but the will to remain and the capacity to sprout anew, even when the roots rest amid the ashes.”
He put down his pen, looked at the passing customers, and bent down to water a new rose plant under the warm morning sun.
