Consent

The young woman tried to take in everything around her with frightened eyes. The hallway was crowded. People in white passed her without taking a glance at her; she felt invisible.

"Can I help you?"

The woman looked at the nurse and nodded. She just wanted the pain to be over. Before she had a chance to talk, her neighbor-she didn't know her much; she even didn't know why the older woman had volunteered to help-replied.

"Yes, she's having a baby." The neighbor pointed her finger at the woman. She didn't seem to know or care that the pale-looking woman was in great pain.

"All right, where is her husband? We need him to sign this form." The nurse waved a piece of paper in the air.

"Oh, he's not here. He's in the garrison. You see, he's a soldier, and he's under duty until tomorrow."

"What about her father?"

"Her parents live in another city. She's alone."

"We have to wait until her husband comes back. There's nothing we can do without his consent."

"I can't stand anymore." The pregnant girl whimpered and fisted her sweaty hands.

"You can take her to that empty room." The nurse pointed to a room a few feet away and went back to writing on a big notebook.

She felt her neighbor-she didn't even know her name-painfully grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the room. Her back hit the hard bed, and she whimpered once more. How much longer did she have to take this pain?

"Is there anyway we can call your husband?" She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the neighbor's voice.

"Well, you better try to sleep then. They won't call the doctor until your husband's here." The woman lay down on the bench in the corner of the room. She was already half asleep.

"But I can't sleep. It hurts too much." She protested as she felt the cramps. Everything was getting blurry.

"Somebody help me, please!" The woman finally screamed, tears escaping her eyes and running down her hollow cheeks. The nurse came to her room after a few minutes of agony.

"I can't take this anymore. Do something!" She was breathing heavily. A white blur came closer to her bed.

"You must be patient until the doctor comes."

"You don't understand! Do something!" She screamed as she grabbed a handful of the woman's uniform in her fist.

"What do you want me to do? It's your first child, isn't it? How old are you?"

"Seventeen," She whispered as she lay her head down on the pillow. It suddenly hurt to speak.

"You need to relax. I'll see if I can find a doctor." The nurse was gone, the neighbor was asleep and she felt abandoned. It seemed she was the only one left on the planet.

She closed her eyes and opened them, again and again. The scenes kept changing, but the pain was there. It was always there and never went away, as long as she remembered.

She could hear screams, but she could not recognize the voice; it was a stranger, but his voice was gentle and his cold hand on her feverish forehead was soothing, and he kept repeating that it was going to be all right, and everything was black and then nothing.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

She opened her eyes slowly. There was no sign of sun; rain drops were hitting against the window, making a soft, rhythmic sound.

"You're awake." She turned her head to the right; the muscles in her neck protested. She knew that woman; it was that nurse.

"Your husband is not here yet." She could not understand what the nurse meant. She felt numb and frozen.

"You have a baby boy. The doctor decided to do the operation without your husband's permission. You were dying, but you're fine now. Everything's fine. I'll go get your baby."

The tired woman stared at the rain drops and slowly nodded as she cleaned the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand. Yes, everything was fine.

The neighbor on the bench was softly snoring.

My Mother Never Worked

Version: Two

After hearing that my mother had to do undergo surgery on Thursday, I tried to imagine my life without having her around. I tried not to picture her running around, doing endless chores with that small smile on her face. I tried to imagine going home without her standing at the doorway, waiting for me patiently. I tried to forget the feeling of her cool hand on my feverish forehead whenever I was sick, but that seems impossible. My life without her would be empty and miserable.

Yet, it is funny that I usually don't bother to thank her for the delicious meal she has cooked or the kitchen that she has cleaned. I don't bother to ask her if she needs any help or if there is anything wrong in her life. Yes, I know you and I have taken our mothers for granted, and I'm afraid when we finally realize what a treasure they are, it just might have been too late.

People expect too much from housewives: "Be a perfect cook, perfect woman, perfect wife, perfect mother. Be perfect in everything you can think of. It is your duty! You do not have any jobs, what are you doing with your time?" Have you ever heard them complain? Have you ever seen them give up? It is just who they are: Loveable creatures who will love you until the last day of their lives.

No insurance, no payment, no holidays, it sounds insane to me; it is as if they are machines, designed to work and suffer silently; still, I believe the biggest sacrifice they make is giving up on their dreams. Can you imagine yourself doing that, giving up on something you love? But you and I know they do that every day, because to them it is the family that matters the most.

Knowing that women give all they have to make living comfortable for their family without asking anything in return, or even accepting the tragic ending of "My mother never worked" makes me certain that just because we live in the twenty first century does not mean that injustice does not exist anymore.

Nothing is true; everything is permitted.

Nothing is true; everything is permitted.

Mr. Hussein said this sentence in the critical and creative writing class. For some unknown reason, I've been unable to stop thinking about it. It somehow reminds me of Dostoyevsky's famous sentence in brothers Karamazov which was something like: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

In my opinion these two sentences are pretty much the same. We can say that God is the ultimate truth, right? Then if we claim that the first sentence is true, could we claim that God does not exist?

Let's forget about Dostoyevsky for a second. Can we say that there is no truth? Mr. Abednia argued that that there is no single truth. Every body sees things differently, ergo nobody can be purely objective.

I do not like this explanation very much.

Let me give you an example: In the class, I said that there is a board on the wall. Mr. Abednia asked me what the color of the board was and I did not answer, because I was aware that each of the students would have a different opinion about the color, which is exactly my point! We have different opinions! Just because I think the board is green and somebody else blue does not mean that there is no board.

I think truth is like water. If we pour it in a glass, it would be in a shape of a glass. If we pour it in a bowl, it would become like the bowl, but that does not mean that water has become something else. Water is water no matter how it looks.

Ok, I don't know what I'm writing anymore.