Old Feelings

By Zaher Alajlani

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The feeling began rising within Dimitris Dimitropoulos. He’d read that the first week would be the hardest, but this was the middle of his fifth, and it had been utter hell. Something felt heavy in his chest as he sat behind the steering wheel. When he turned the ignition key, he heard it again like he had done thousands of times before. It was never old or bland. That sound, the car’s roar, was like a battle cry. And of all people, he could relate to both: battles and crying.

The engine noise had always brought about the memory of his father. It was as though his dad’s voice was reverberating from beyond the grave, “Don’t forget me. I’m with you.” 

He recalled how his father, shortly before departing, had unlocked the apartment door and entered the living room, smiling at him and his mother.

“You got good grades, and you’re going to a good college. You deserve your own car, Son.” Before Dimitris or his mother could say anything, he threw something shiny on the coffee table, and a look of satisfaction surfaced on his face when it clanked. “Here. These are the keys. The car is ten years old but still in great shape.”

It was still in great shape now after four years—surprisingly, very surprisingly, for those who sunk deep into a whiskey bottle, then drove; those who spent nights at strip clubs watching damaged women twisting like snakes under faint lights, then drove; those whose grief had a touch of insanity like him often ended up driving on the wrong side of the road, into a streetlight, or off a cliff.

He was aware of that, all right. Two of his collegemates had it that way. One died upon impact when his car veered into oncoming traffic, while the other shattered both legs and had to re-learn walking after driving straight into a traffic island.

He lost both friends, still. God, merciful as He is, decided that no one could communicate with the dead, and so he lost the first one. As for the other, it was a mutual decision. Dimitris didn’t want a reminder that his behavior was akin to attempted suicide. The thought terrified him because he was not naïve nor foolish. He knew that life was fragile and that self-destruction was always wrong: wrong when you’d do it out of sheer stupidity, wrong when you’d do it out of spite, and absolutely wrong when you’d do it to cope with loss.

Dimitris began driving towards the office, his hands and forearms feeling the warm Athenian summer sun pouring onto the dashboard. The dust particles were visible, especially around the cross hanging from the rearview mirror. While stopping at the traffic light, he opened the glove compartment, pulled out his sunglasses, and wore them. The tinted view brought on another painful memory: the girl stood in the narrow corridor, her short hair and petite frame making her look almost juvenile.

She wasn’t juvenile, I assure you, but twenty. However, what’s the difference between twenty or seventy when it comes to heartbreak or loving someone who is always in an unrelenting existential crisis and whose emotions range from dread to spite, anger, and despair?

With every step he took toward her, her tears looked more visible. 

“What I said was terrible, Agapi. I didn’t mean it. I just got terrified because I felt I was not good enough. I love you. I’d never say that word again. Please forgive me.”

She hugged him. “With you or without you, I’m having this baby and raising it.”

He embraced her tighter and whispered in her ear as though he were praying, “Forgive me, please. I promise I’ll step up emotionally and mentally. No more drinking. No more smoking. No more guys’ nights out. No more self-destruction. No more that awful word, I promise.”

“Abortion” was that horrible word. What Agapi had just witnessed was his nervous breakdown. What he’d just witnessed was a terrific young woman showing the courage and wisdom he lacked.

The feeling transmuted into feelings: shame, anger, bitterness, and spite. And those dreadful emotions were supposed to be as familiar to him as driving. Yet, they became suddenly unbearable, like walking on pins and needles. The road he’d taken a thousand times before was now also different. Everything he saw struck him as bizarre—the buildings, the traffic lights, the random faces, and the clear blue sky melting with the heat of the golden sun. Even the potholes he’d gotten so used to were now as repulsive as bird droppings on one’s face.

“It’s a boy, the doctor told me,” Agapi’s words thudded in his head.

He embraced her in his mind, feeling the warmth of her body and smelling her blemishless Mediterranean skin. “There’s so much to do before the baby comes,” he remembered her words. Financially, there wasn’t. He was fine. Even in the lousy Greek economy, any good IT specialist would’ve been.

Of course, there’s so much to do and resolve. Yes, a lot to fix. So much to let go of, he thought.

Now his stomach felt like a rope getting twisted and knotted into a noose. Like all men, Dimitris began thinking of familiar vices to find relief.

Maybe, I should have one—only one. It would relax me. I won’t drink, not even a drop. But cigarettes are different. All artists smoke, and I’m an artist—an IT artist. I make good money. Why should I deny myself simple guilty pleasures? I can afford to smoke two packs a day, even four. That’s nothing to me. But then again, I’d be exactly like my father. I’d smoke like him. I’d suffer like him. I’d die young like him. And I’d leave my son way too soon like him.

This inner monologue absorbed him until he suddenly found himself parking the car by the entrance of his workplace. He looked at the cross. It glistened in the bright light as though not belonging only to this world.

He prayed, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.” He held his tongue, then let go, “And I pray that your will would be that I live better, become less bitter, let go, and have the courage to accept my agony.”

He breathed deeply while massaging his forehead, then exited the car.

“Please have some, Mr. Dimitropoulos,” said the old security guard at the main gate, extending a tray of chocolate.

“No need for formalities. Dimitris is fine.” He took one and thanked him. “What’s the occasion?”

The man’s smile carved two dimples on his chubby, red face. “My son got great grades and received his acceptance letter from the medical school. I’ve always wanted him to be a doctor, to be someone. You know what I’m saying.”

“Of course, congratulations. I’m happy for you both.” All the negative feelings within Dimitris began receding. He looked at his car and smiled. “Does he have a car?”

“A license, yes. A car, no. We can’t afford one, but he got his license when he turned eighteen a few months ago.”

Dimitris winked at the man. “Now he has one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll give you my car, and you’ll gift it to your son.”

The man laughed like someone who suspected he was being mocked but was still not quite sure. “No, of course not. I can’t accept that.”

“Why not? I was thinking about selling it anyway. But I won’t get much money for it because it’s old. It’s in great shape, though.”

“But—”

“No buts. Pass by my office during the lunch break, and we’ll go together to the town hall, and I’ll transfer it to your name.”

“At least, let me pay you something. How much do you think you’d sell it for?”

“Three chocolates.”

“Huh?”

Dimitris took three pieces of chocolate from the tray in the man’s hand. “You’ve just paid me.”

“But—”

“Again, no buts.”

The guard’s eyes lit up. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you . . .”

Dimitris walked towards his office with steady steps, with a sense of purpose he’d never had before. Each breath was as cleansing as a rebirth. By the time he was sitting in his chair, he knew that he’d already let go and that a transformation, much like the accident that killed his friend and the heart attack that stole his father, had happened in an instant. He was sure his life would be different and more challenging from then on, but above all, it would be better—much, much better.

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Zaher Alajlani is a Syrian short-story author, editor, researcher and translator living between Romania and Greece and writing primarily in English. His work has been featured in various international publications. Besides contributing to The Way Back to Ourselves, he is a prose editor for Agape Review and a proofreader for Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory. Zaher has a Ph.D. from the Comparative Literature Department at Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, and speaks English, Arabic, Romanian and Greek.