Still Her Fragrance Short Story by : Abdel Latif Moubarak
The room seemed to expand terrifyingly each time the night advanced. Marwan had never realized that furniture had eyes to watch and skin to feel, not until Leyla was gone. He sat on the edge of the bed, that old wooden structure that had witnessed the seasons of their life together. He laid down his fragile body, but he did not find the usual warmth. There was a chilling, eerie emptiness on the left side. His hand reached out automatically to search for the other pillow, only to find a freezing void, akin to winter frost. That night, Marwan was not the only one suffering. Under his weight, the wooden planks of the bed began to emit a different kind of creak. It was not the sound of old age or wear and tear, but resembled a stifled sob. ”Why have you become so heavy, Marwan?”..
The wood seemed to ask in its hoarse voice. “You two used to be as light as birds, and now you tread upon my ribs with a half-body that weighs like mountains of grief.” Days passed, and Marwan refused to leave the bed except for absolute necessities. The bed had transformed from a sanctuary of rest into a stage of confrontation with himself. He would stare at the ceiling and listen to the wall clock greedily devouring time. Leyla’s fragrance was still imprinted in the corners of the mattress, stealing in secretly to remind him of the morning kiss and her laughter that used to shake the walls of the room. The bed beneath him stiffened, as if refusing to welcome him alone. In the middle of a stormy night, Marwan felt the embroidered bedspread slowly slip away. He turned, thinking for a moment it was Leyla’s hand moving it. But it was only the wind, or perhaps it was the bed trying to shake him off. Marwan: Even you feel crowded by my presence? The Bed (with a long creak):
I am not weary of you, but I am not used to a crippled balance. I was designed to hold two souls, and my bending now to only one side breaks my back. The bed does not forget. The steel springs inside guarded every movement, every whisper, and every night of illness where Leyla stayed awake to wipe Marwan’s forehead. Now, the springs were rusted—not from humidity, but from Marwan’s tears falling into the corners of the bed at night, thinking no one saw him. The iron wept under the weight of his silent pain. Marwan tried to sleep exactly in the middle of the bed, hoping to restore balance to the small universe he lived in. But he failed. His body gravitated automatically toward the right side, leaving the left side sacred and abandoned, like a sanctuary untouched by human hands for centuries. The wood began to warp on one side, declaring a stark protest against that forced absence. On the seventh night after the first month, it seemed to Marwan that he saw an indentation in the opposite pillow, as if an invisible head were resting there. He held his breath. Even the creaking of the bed stopped suddenly. An absolute silence fell. Even the wood held its breath, hoping for the return of the mistress of the light steps.
But it was only an illusion of sight and longing. ”She is gone,” Marwan said in a trembling voice, striking the wood with his fist. The bed replied with a sharp creak, as if screaming back at him: “And why did you let her go? Why did you leave me like this, stripped of half my history? I was not created to be a waiting chair; I was created to be a sanctuary of union.” As the seasons passed, Marwan could no longer distinguish his body from the bed. His limbs had become as cold as the wooden pillars, and his back as rigid as the planks. They had become a single entity mourning the absence of a woman who was the soul of that furniture and that body. The shared lament between the creaking wood and the man’s sigh became a daily funeral symphony, played by the room in the darkness. In the end, Marwan understood that the bed would never stop mourning, and that he himself would never stop bleeding. He closed his eyes, surrendering completely to gravity. In that moment, the creaking of the bed ceased entirely; not because Leyla had returned, but because the bed finally understood that Marwan, too, was gone in spirit, and upon its surface remained nothing but a body of wood, weeping for another wood.
