At other moments, I seemed like an ordinary girl. I loved the sea, adored diving into its depths, climbing the rocks and caves, watching the sky and imagining my face in it. I chased dreams in silence, drew my sketches on the margins of notebooks, read passionately, and escaped into a world full of mysteries. I loved the cartoon "Conan," and I dreamed of becoming a forensic policewoman… unraveling the threads of crimes, with no secrets hidden from me.
I was strong in front of strangers, solid like a wall, fearing no one. But among my family, I was fragile… words touched me easily, looks unsettled me, and I hid all that behind a quiet smile.
I used to feel things before they happened. An idea would come to me for no reason, without introduction: that someone would knock at the door, or that something bad would happen to one of my siblings, or that sadness was approaching the house of a family I knew. And after minutes… what I felt would happen. It repeated so often, until those around me no longer ignored it, and they said about me: "It's like you are Salomé." A girl from a Spanish movie… who sees fate before it occurs.
But I was not seeing. I only… was feeling. And I hid everything.
Then came the wedding day. It was siesta, and the sun was drowsy behind the curtains. I entered my room, I felt someone following me. I thought it was my brother. I lay on the bed, and he came directly behind me… I felt his back against mine. I froze. I could not move. My heart was beating like frightened drums, and my tongue unable to speak. Even the Qur'an… I could not recite it. Half an hour or more passed… then he withdrew. And movement returned to my body. I asked my sister: did anyone enter the room? She said: no, no one moved. I was alone… with the shadow.
After marriage, he came to visit me more. Especially when I was sad, or weak, or sleeping in the darkness. I was then pregnant with my daughter, and he watched me from afar. He looked like my father… or maybe I tried to believe that, so I would not be afraid. But he did not hurt me. He only watched me… with some kind of pain.
And in one of those sad afternoons, I was asleep, and I felt him enter my room without the door opening. I expected my husband to wake me up… but it was not him. I kept waiting… until a long time passed, and my husband came late. I was confused.
And one day, I was sleeping after giving birth to my second son. Fatigue was eating me, problems chasing me, and I dozed for a little while, and I saw him… sitting at my feet. A shadow… not speaking, only present. But one of those days, he did not stop at just being there. I felt that he ordered me to kill my husband. He did not speak, but my whole body froze, and a strong feeling controlled me. As if something inside me was forcing me, pushing me toward violence. But I could not… I did not move.
Then, the sound of my son crying came, suddenly. As if he saved me… and saved his father.
After three days, everything changed. The shadow became angry. Whenever I slept, I felt him getting close to my face. Getting close until our eyes met. I used to shut my eyes tightly. Afraid to open them… and he would enter my body.
And what terrified me more, was that those around me also started to feel it. My sister lived next to me, and when I visited her then returned, she would see in her dreams a shadow knocking at her door violently, telling her: "Return what you took from the house of so-and-so." She would wake up terrified, until she began to fear my house, and did not let me visit anyone.
When I decided to emigrate, I left my house and said to the walls: forgive me. It was a sad farewell moment, in which I felt that I was leaving a part of my soul behind the door. My sister also left her house, she did not dare stay, so she moved to live in our mother's house.
And in the middle of the sea, as I was leaving everything behind, I heard a voice… strong… calling me. By a name I did not know, in a tone that did not resemble any voice I had ever known. I froze. I could not turn. I felt that if I looked, everything would end.
I said to myself: you imagined it. I tried to laugh, but the cold filled my heart… in the middle of the sea, in its depth, there was still someone following me.
Now, I am a grown woman, I have children, I live in another country… but I still do not sleep much. I sleep a few hours… and I wake up at the slightest sounds. My heart does not rest.
I no longer see him, but I feel his presence. Not always… but in the moments when I am weak, when the world disappoints me, when I miss the childhood I never had, when I cry without reason… I feel him standing there, in the corner, as he used to.
Did I love him? I don't know. But he accompanied me more than all faces.
Me… and the shadow.
Maybe he did not want to harm me. Maybe he was my dark mirror, reminding me that I am not as people see me.
But today, I write my story… to tell him: enough. I have grown.
…to be continued.