Day number who-knows-what of staying at home. After spending so much time indoors with no real physical activity, I have trouble sleeping these days. A sleepless mind will find a thousand and one reasons to stay awake; this morning for some reason I couldn’t seem to remember where my large black winter trench coat was, I’m quite fond of that coat.
At approximately 8 am after a sleepless night of watching Netflix and wasting time and energy on Facebook, I began the hunt for my coat. My house is two apartments joined in the middle. One apartment is my parents' (where we live), and the other is my Nana and Nani's, which they bought with the fantasy that they would stay there whenever they visited us, they live in India you see.
Alas, their visits were far from plentiful and I found myself with an apartment that had all the signs of life except life itself. I tried many a time to occupy that space. I used to try and study there, or sleep there in the quiet, and sometimes I would even succeed for short periods of time, but that apartment would always sink into its quiet after a while. There is a cupboard in my Nana and Nani’s room where my Amma sometimes stores clothes, so I went there in search of clothes. It is amazing how a brain swimming in sleep deprivation can alert the mind enough to realize the mysteries that lie in corners of our own homes that we see every day.
I began the search for my coat and found myself on a hunt for different keys for different cupboards, prying them open to see what was inside. I found a cupboard in their dressing room with my Nani’s socks and handbags and pajamas, all neatly folded and placed untouched, the way she must have left them the last time she was here. They were there so casually, sitting on the shelf as if trying to tell me that my Nani hadn’t actually passed away last year and she was gonna show up any day now. Needless to say, I had to close the cupboard before I got hit with emotions I’m still not ready to process.
I wonder what adventure my insomnia will take me on tomorrow. I never did find my coat though.
By Shabbir Mohammed,
Karachi, Pakistan.