Dear Zanib,

May 17th, 2013
Now’s about that time of year I am expected to write to myself, talk to me about what happened this year – the good, the bad, and the ugly – all condensed into five paragraphs of intricately written words to express to myself how this year was somehow not what I expected, or not what I hoped for, or somehow different from what I imagined it to be. This year, junior year of high school, was a rollercoaster going far too fast for me to be comfortable with, that suddenly got hit by a bomb, complete with screaming and the deafening roar of a fire so obnoxious, I sometimes felt as though I couldn’t hear it. All the days at D. Russell Lee seemed to fly by like a dream – some days like a nightmare – so oddly flipped through like a book, some of it I don’t remember, while other parts of it scream at me with noise and clarity.
At the beginning of the year, much to the dismay of my fellow classmates, my English teacher had us all draw what was on our minds, had the class fill a coloring book-like image of a brain with everything it could, be it pictures or drawings, in a reasonable attempt at getting us to open up a little to the world of DRL with a whisper, rather than a bang. Some of the “brains” I remembered, while others (no surprise) I didn’t. I recall mine being filled with everything on my mind, actually on my mind, down to William, the not-quite-there cat, rumbling a deep purr all hours of the day while playing with an oversized yarn ball. Well, that once-happy land is now a burning mess of a civil war, as the rational and the irrational, the reasonable and the reckless, and the loving and the hating sides of me became agonizingly torn apart from one another, becoming completely independent entities existing on their own respective ends of the word in my head.
All because of a stupid tumor in my grandmother’s chest that slowly started sucking the life out of her.
Grandma was diagnosed with cancer a little before school started. Do you remember that, Zanib? Or did your failing memory disregard that as well? Do you remember that twinge of pain in your chest every time you saw your grandmother helpless on the bed, or did you build another fort on your dead mind to block the feeling of uselessness from your ever-so-delicate heart? Something in you felt it because your hand seemed to constantly pull at anything covering your chest, almost as if you were trying to rip the knife out of it. You even retired your necklace to the wooden jewelry box on your dresser for fear of the silver object somehow coming to life and choking you in your sleep. You thought well to wake up Dad and throw a fit about getting Grandma to a hospital when she felt that chest pain and broke out in a sweat. She would’ve had a heart attack if you didn’t. Good job. You saved her life. So why does it still hurt to see her smiling or to give her a bath this morning?
I spent this entire year lying to myself in a feeble, ailing, falling attempt to render myself functional, to keep the delicate scale of home and school in my head balanced. I told myself and everyone around me that I was “fine,” that I was just “tired of school,” that I just “don’t like people.” I refused to let anyone know, even myself, that this looming tumor was taking a toll on me. I disregarded the wrath I felt towards the world, the slipping grades, and the ache in my damaged knee, and my family – not because I wanted to – but because I couldn’t bear it. Reality was far too cruel for my delicate heart.
So, I – doing what any sane person would – escaped. I retreated to my room, my sanctuary, and, in the dead of the night, when all was quiet in the Zulfiqar residence, I would sit in front of a sheet of drawing paper for hours, twirling my pencil and kneading my trusty pink eraser while I created a world I could escape to. A world where the cows could fly and the bees won’t sting and I would never stub my toe on the coffee table; a world where the fire burning my chest smoked out, where I didn’t have to do algebra, and where my knee – stopped – hurting. That is where I lived. That is where I felt safe.
Until I didn’t.
My world became darker, dimmer, and more sinister over a few months, the image of a feathered stag with orange eyes haunting my finely sculpted dream worlds like a wet shirt clung to my back. New people appeared in my ever-so-confusing dreams, some there solely to die, and others there to do the killing. I woke up in cold sweats, my sheets drenched and body trembling as I heard disconcerting sounds from the deep, dark, yawning pit of my mind bubbling up through my throbbing head. I heard screeching, saw anger, and felt fear everywhere I went. My sanctuary began to frighten me more than calm me, so I retreated from the soft callings of my bed to the guest room for everything but sleep. I ignored Grandma’s room with diligence whenever I could, again trying to salvage my sanity, grasping it by the tail as it jumped off into the abyss. School became an annoying hum in the back ground, the set of a play that had only one actor with a thousand different voices and ten times as many faces. My façade of well-being became something I despised, something that screamed the truth at me when I looked into the mirror.
So I learned to clip up my hair without a reflection.
The woman in the mirror always scowled in the face of my laughter. And sometimes I caught myself almost talking to her, wanting to tell her everything was going to be alright, that Grandmother was strong and she’d beat the cancer. But the woman knew the truth.
“You are afraid,” she’d say with a tear rolling down her pale cheek.
“Go to Hell,” was the bitter reply she received.
I hated lab this year. Old wars were renewed with a single person that somehow seemed to figure out all was not well with me, and knew exactly which day was right to drive me up a wall. And while confrontations were limited to only three in the year, I still became uneasy around her, the knots in my back furling themselves the moment she walked into a room, and unfurling when she left.
My interaction with people in the Health Tech labs was limited because I found out in the first week of school I wouldn’t get along with anyone. I was just too different, too complicated, too… lost in my own world. I had nothing to do with boys or parties or clubs or dancing or the mall or whatever else was floating around the classroom and buzzing around my head like a thick fog shrouding a murky lake. I just had Grandma’s cancer sitting next to me, bearing its teeth whenever I opened my mouth to start a conversation, a looming presence that walked in my shadow and ate at my table. It continued to follow me, the cancer, everywhere I went until Grandma started recovering from the mastectomy.
That’s when I met the two Hannahs.
Do you remember meeting the little Hannah? Or has your mind stopped working entirely? You were sitting in the library, moping, when the little one sat across from you. Then you saw the little wristband she was wearing. Do you know what was so special about it? Yes, a Soul Eater symbol. LiLi, your old friend who is now in New York, was very fond of that anime. Then she saw that drawing you made. Do you remember what it was? No? Oh, well. And what about the other Hannah? She wanted to help you when you were coughing up a storm outside of Mrs. Fisher’s room. That’s where you met her. And now you’re writing a book together.
Junior year has been a torturous centrifuge that has slowly yanked the differing parts of me asunder, jarring my insides so hard, I’m just waiting for my head to go tink when I knock my knuckle on my forehead. I have had quite a few laughs, I will admit, but I’m still too brain-numb for anything other than the negativities to show their ugly mugs.
“Senior year will be better,” the woman in the mirror whispered, holding her hands around her mouth as if someone else were listening.
I didn’t even look at her when I gritted, “Go to Hell.”



-Zanib Zulfiqar