I distinctly recall the day I chose to play Good Samaritan and donate a bag of blood to some poor soul desperately in need of it. After a substantial wait, I struggled through the long application forms that needed to be filled out, then subjected myself to a nurse’s gruelling questions – screening, it’s called – about my non-existent sexual history and possible visits to suspect parts of the world. And when my name was finally called, I was relieved. I was doing what I had come to do. A noble act to save another being. I lay on the bed like a sacrificial lamb ready to be slaughtered for the sake of my love for humanity.

For some inexplicable reason, the nurse had tremendous difficulty finding my vein. She was poking me all over with a needle that hurt like, well, like a needle should. And she wouldn’t stop. She tried one arm. Jabbed around for a few minutes. No luck. She got me to turn around on the bed so that my other side faced her. Then she took several more thrusts at my left arm. Finally, after a few relentless blood-squirting exercises, she decided the right arm was probably the right choice after all. So I gritted my teeth, grinned politely, and turned around again. But it seemed my right arm wasn’t ready to cooperate. My rebellious veins were hiding, she chattered excitedly. And so she stabbed them into submission – using the needle in a lever-like fashion, she lifted the poor vein for ready piercing.

And now, bag hooked up to the needle, needle stuck in my arm, I was ready to go. It was a sight to behold. Dark red blood – my own – pumping steadily out of me into a bag I couldn’t quite see. A worthy addition to my list of good deeds? I thought so.

It was going so well that I recall feeling slightly impatient at having to lie down for so long. Perhaps if I had brought a book, I thought, or something I could listen to. But no, I hadn’t, and now I was left to count sheep and reflect on the dismal state of the world. I starting thinking about all the wonderful things I could have been doing if I hadn’t acted so nobly when I steadily became aware that I was feeling quite strange. As if I was going to throw up. Cold and clammy unease slithered through my entire body. Something in my head was pounding away. I felt wobbly and lightheaded even though I was completely still. I remember being rather disoriented precisely because I wasn’t quite sure what to make of my body’s ludicrous response to the act of giving.

I started hoping desperately for the thing to end. There were people milling about all around me, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. That wasn’t part of the exercise, remember. I certainly couldn’t display the contents of my breakfast on the white bed sheets – or worse, on the sterile floors below. My confusion at being so confused forced me to call out to the nurse. “Excuse me, I’m not feeling very well!” She came over. “Is something wrong?” she asked cheerily. “Yeah, I’m not feeling too well. I’m not sure why.”

“Well, how do you feel?” she asked. I told her, but she didn’t seem to understand. “Everything seems fine,” she insisted, checking my arm again, “Do you want to stop giving blood?” I was horrified. After all that work, I’d just give up? After the repeated stabbings, the extensive questioning, she wanted me to simply quit? No, I was going to go through with this. I was going to give blood.

She smiled when she heard. I think she was pleased, but I was too concerned with my own well-being to care. I don’t remember precisely what happened after that exchange, but I know I told her I needed to sit up and she asked if I could wait until it was all over and done with. I nodded weakly and lay still, cursing the constricting tubes and praying for my blood to gush out with greater abandon.

And then the bag was full and the nurse plunked a bandage where the incriminating needle had been. The entire inner part of my arm was a shocking bluish-purplish colour, as if I’d been beaten badly by an abusive boyfriend. The nurse said my blood had simply spilled out of my veins and was now frolicking about cheerily beneath the thin surface of my skin.

She suggested I sit on the bed for a few minutes before she rushed off to stick needles into other healthier blood donors. I did as she’d asked, but by now my eyelids were fluttering about groggily and my entire body felt as limp and weightless as if I were floating about in warm water. “Excuse me!” I called out again. I was somewhat annoyed because I couldn’t quite get up and the nurse didn’t seem to care much about my predicament. “Is there a garbage can anywhere? I think I’m going to throw up!”

Sight and sound had receded somewhat, but she must have turned around and looked at me, because I suddenly heard her yell, “Oh my!” and then she was by my side. “You’re completely white! Lie down, lie down!” Finally, I thought to myself, finally, she takes me seriously. But her plump body was teetering unnaturally before my eyes, and before long I couldn’t see or hear her or anything else anymore…

amen.

I tell my mother dryly not to cry while praying, didn’t the
Imam just say we shouldn’t feel helpless
at this time even with the raw pain of injustice
that we shouldn’t despair
of relief for desperation

she looks shocked and says a response I know, we cry
out of feeling and faith and empathy only stiffened hearts don’t cry
amongst the dying and the blindness of the world
you’re right,
I think quietly,
but sadly, I’m a little harder than that

I pray dry-eyed and distractedly hands raised
for relief for desperation
with feeling, faith, empathy
and bitterness

amen.

and numbness
at the truth of injustice
and coldness
in the midst of facade

because we have become, the world and I,
in wholly different ways
a little harder than that.

They are standing quietly in the back row, these two little ones, dressed in their finest – wispy blond hair escaping a bright blue headscarf; glossy strands of brown weighted down by a simple prayer cap – engrossed in prayer as are all of the adults in the congregation. It is the morning of Eid, and the mosque is warm with worshipful bodies roused from bed this snowy morn, packed together in neat rows, shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet. The room is silent but for the commanding voice of the imam and the repetitive swishing of arms rising in the air and then folding neatly together again. The imam exclaims Allahu Akbar a fourth time, and the little boy throws up his arms once more, the gesture a mixture of exultation and surprise. The girl looks on, muffled giggles escaping chubby fingers as her companion’s movements become increasingly frenzied. They lean forward, peering gleefully into the faces of the women standing solemnly on either side of them, all making absurd hand movements too. I can see the confused excitement in their eyes as they grin at each other. They are not used to praying like this; have no idea what is happening. But this break in routine exhilarates them, and I suddenly feel a yearning to rise, thrust my arms up in the air, and delight in the newness of the moment alongside them.

Serendipity has marred my impression of your love. Let us find a quiet corner, perhaps a simple spot under the oak tree in your backyard and we can figure out what went wrong and where the mistakes stopped being excusable. Perhaps we will find lies in our history, misspoken truths and unsettled metaphors in our complacent demise. Or perhaps we will discover the vast ridge of facetious felonies aimed to alter the course of faltering promises that we tumbled over each time you brought me flowers. That first time you picked the yellow daisies out yourself so thoughtfully, I plucked the petals and saved the dried leaves as bookmarks for irrelevant anniversaries we never celebrated. Yes, I respectfully disagree. Love is still love when it is found, whether broken or mended, stiff or pliable into whatever you want it to be. It is larger than you and me, and yet, within you and me. Perhaps I shall still marry you someday, but it is unimaginable to me that we will be friends. What happens next, I will record unfaithfully in a diary and pen paltry promises to never break your heart again.

They glared at each other, bodies trembling with hurt and rage. “You never listen to what I say!” she screamed furiously. “And you –“ he spit out viciously, “you are a needy woman who has to control and destroy everything that’s good in this world!”

Neither was willing to take the sofa in the living room, so that night they slept turned away from each other in the same bed, resentment towards one other hardened into a solid wall of stubbornness.

The morning was cold. No parting glances, no loving words. As he left for work, he slammed the door. The finality of that gesture left her shivery and tearful. She was breaking inside. At first she had felt anger at his uncaring, unaffected demeanor. A few hours afterwards, all that remained was pride. She loved him. She wanted to say sorry so badly the words formed a hard rock in her chest. But why should she be the simpering fool, always seeking to placate him? No, this time he would apologize first.

Later that night he heard her sniffling to herself in the darkness. He felt his gut clenching in guilt but sullenly kept to his side of the bed. She was manipulating him even now. Let her cry, he thought bitterly. The woman deserved to cry.