The light-bulb outside my bedroom door was flickering when I first moved in. All the rest were fine, so I simply avoided it. I reasoned that at some point or other it would die out, then I would be in partial darkness for a few days until I managed to convince myself to change it, and finally I would be in the light wherever and whenever I pleased. In the meantime, though, during sleepless nights made worse by the incessant flickering outside my bedroom door, I would amuse myself by blowing smoke at the light and watch the patterns appear and disappear.
During those nights of sublime misery which seem never-ending, I began to see arrangements in the patterns of smoke as they drifted up to my ceiling. I would imagine in the smoke creatures, then thoughts, and finally observe the nothingness, as it unravelled, dispersing through the room. Then I would do it again and again. Some part of me recognized that my nights smoking and staring into the flickering light-bulb could not have been good for me; I realized that the greater part of me could not do without it. What had begun as a coping mechanism was now enjoyable, routine. No, it was necessary. Thus, I allowed the light-bulb to continue flickering outside my bedroom door.
Soon, I began to see similarities emerge between the apparitions in the smoke and my life outside the flickering light-bulb in my apartment. A dancing woman in the smoke meant death or injury, a scorpion indicated betrayal, and a fish promised wealth. It had started as superstition, but as time passed, and the light-bulb continued long past when it should have burnt out, I began to take more stock in the omens, convinced that it was somehow truer than simple smoke outlined in the dying throes of a tungsten filament. My trust in the flickering light-bulb outside my bedroom door began to guide my life, if not control it. It seemed to serve me well, and so I persisted, coming to believe that the flickering light-bulb was a gift, and my reading of its secrets a talent.
Soon, I noticed something else – whenever my life was going well, the flickering seemed to nearly cease, and when it was going poorly, the flickering was continuous. The light-bulb was attempting to communicate with me; soundlessly whispering ways out of my predicaments or steps to take. I spent long nights doing nothing but smoking at the light-bulb hoping that it may give me glimpses into my future, burning my retinas in the search for meaning in the bright bursts that shattered the darkness.
Why me? Why was I tasked as the keeper of the secrets of the light-bulb and not anyone else? Was it some latent ability which I had, or connection to the spirits of the apartment. To the Divine? How was it the case that I was the only one who could tease from the flickering of the unknowns of the veil? I had attempted to suggest to friends that one might benefit greatly from looking at the patterns of smoke in the liminal spaces between light and dark. It seemed to make them uncomfortable. The light-bulb, too, didn’t seem to want to be disrespected. It would cease flickering when people who didn’t believe in it came by, and so I became more careful about revealing its hidden nature. Eventually, though, I met someone.
She had dark skin and bright green eyes, and the rest of her features were similarly paradoxical, as though someone had constructed her with parts that, while individually beautiful, had absolutely nothing to do with one another. More importantly, she seemed to understand that the flickering was meaningful. We spent our nights together, smoking and gazing into the future. When she came into my life the flickering seemed to reduce. All the same, there was plenty of time each night to stare and hope, like waiting for a shooting star during a meteor shower.
One day she invited me over. She confided in me, then, that her own apartment also had a secret; she saw messages in her ceiling-fan. The way it jittered, teetered to the left and right, how it stopped and started, slicing the smoke or blowing it, making a slight screeching sound all the while, told her things about herself. What would give her joy or cause her pain if she pursued it. She confided in me that were it not for the fan, she would have never spoken to me. I was insulted by this and discomfited by her wanton disregard for personal safety. A fan was not a light-bulb, it was dangerous and, honestly, quite strange. As soon as I mentioned to her that the fan could seriously harm her if it came loose, something between us changed.
She didn’t bother taking back all the little things she had left behind in my apartment. I threw away everything except her hairbrush, convinced that I would use it sometime. A pastel pink reminder of my hypocrisy. In her absence the flickering grew worse, too quick to read, punctuated with more darkness than light. It became extremely difficult to read the messages in the smoke. Where I was once able to sleep for a few hours, now it became almost impossible to sleep at all in my quest to interpret the glimpses into my future.
It was a cold afternoon when I heard the unmistakable soft pop of a light-bulb finally giving out. I am not ashamed to say that I wept when I heard it and knew it for what it was. However, I am ashamed to say that when I finally gathered the energy to remove my truest companion from its socket among the nicotine-stained walls, I discovered that it had never been fully screwed in to begin with.
This short story has been submitted by Sanad Tabaa, Founder and Editor of Tahawan.com as a collaboration with Wijdan.
