Envy

A Short Story by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

It was 10 pm, Sana came back from an engagement party of one of her best friends, Frishta.

Stepping into the house, she saw her parents and siblings were sitting in the hall watching TV. She greeted them dolefully.

Sana's almond-eyes were heavy. She looked like she just had recovered from fainting. Without saying anything else, she headed to her room and shut the door behind.

The strange act made her parents antsy; they had never seen her like that before. 

In her room, she lay down on bed, facing down, feeling a terrible weight on her shoulders.

“Sweetie, come out and tell us what has happened!” said her mother knocking at her room door.

“Mom, I am a little tired. Please, leave me alone!” Sana said in a anguish tone.

End

Moments of being a stranger- Part Four

A short memoir by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

One night, from the nights we stayed in Las Vegas, K, L and I went out to a Lebanese restaurant. We wanted to taste the eastern Falafel and Kebab for we had had only fast foods for about two weeks.

On the way back to our hotel, at 11:00 p.m., K and L decided to go to a strip club, but I refused to go in.

While I was sitting on a bench outside, two Americans, one of them muscled while the other was slim, approached me. They were amazed why I was sitting in front of a strip club in a cold night.

“Why are sitting here?” asked the slim one.

I said I did not want to go in.

After conversing for a few minutes, our subject shifted to something else. 

“Where are you from?” asked the muscled one.

“Iraq” I answered.

“Why do you visit a country like ours, why don’t you visit another country?”

“Why?” I asked back, surprised.

“We kill your people, steal your oil, as the same time announce that we have come to free your country.”

I remained silent.

The muscled man folded up his blue jeans’ left cuff to his knee, pointed to a mark of a big cut on it.

“What is this for? Stealing oil!”

The Third Giant Step

The first step is always the hardest.

I am about to take a giant step in my life, third giant step. So far, I have had two other giant ones, each for a stage in the course of my life. 

At this moment, this step is very important to be focused on, as the two were important at their time. This one takes me from a world which I have been born and raised to a world full of unknown.

When I graduated from high school with a good grade, I was advised by parents, siblings, relatives and friends with advises they wished for me to take. Each of them had something in his/her mind and wanted to put it into use on me. Some advised me to go to Law College, some others preferred Police Academy, while some recommended Business Management. 

I had a whole different plan in my mind. 

I decided to go to College of languages, English language department. I graduated there, learnt a new language, English, and then found a job with a good pay. That was the first giant step in my life and paved the way to the second.

The second one was getting married with my wife; the most precious, invaluable and magnificent thing in my life. I saw her one day, had a crush on her, immersed in her beauty for five months, made a decision to achieve her, waited for two years afterwards and finally achieved her. She was worth-waiting for. That was the second giant step in my life.

Now, I have found myself face to face with the third giant step. 

I feel like I am sitting on needles!

This time, like Robert Frost, two roads are diverged in front of me. I have to choose one of them. Yeah, only one of them, because I cannot travel both. I want to make a choice that I will regret less after time goes by.

The road that will be taken by me is going to be my Third Giant Step.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Moments of Being a Stranger -Part Three

A short memoir by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

Before going to New York City, I reserved a hotel room online. Up on arriving at the hotel, the receptionist, an Asian American as one could easily tell by his small eyes, asked for a photo ID. I showed him my passport. 

He looked at the passport, stole a glance at me, and smiled a little. 

“Where are you from?” He asked.

“Iraq!” I answered.

His smile got bigger till I could easily see his front teeth.

“Salam u Alaikum!” he said, giving me the room key. 

…………………………………………

* Salam u Alaikum is an Arabic expression for greeting, it means “Peace be upon you”.

Moments of being a Stranger- Part Two

A short memoir by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

In Washing DC I got into a taxi to get back to my hotel. On the way, the respectable, humble, black-skinned driver asked:

“You do not seem to be American, Where are you from?”

I did not want to mention Kurdistan to avoid myself from giving an explanation of where it was located.

“Iraq!” I answered.

“Really!” the driver said, in amazement “Welcome, Tell me whatcha doin’ here boy! We've invaded your country, we’re your enemy!?”

I came with the answer that different ethnic groups were living in Iraq, Arabs and Kurds were the two major ones.

“The Kurds consider Americans as their friend, but the Arabs don’t have the same view! This is the Iraqi Arabs who want to send the Americans out not the Kurds and I am a Kurd” I added.

“Oh! Yeah, The Kurds were discriminated during Saddam’s regime!”

My jaw dropped when I heard an American taxi driver knew about Kurdish people!

Moments of being a Stranger- Part One

A short memoir by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

Standing in front of Capitol Hill, I looked around to ask someone to take me a photo. There, passed by a gorgeous blonde girl. I asked if she could take me a photo. She accepted with pleasure!

After taking my photo, she asked me to take her one with her own digital camera as well.

“Where are you from?” she began while taking back her camera from me by the hand.

“Kurdistan!” I answered.

With a blank face, she remained silent.

“Actually, I am from Iraqi Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq. Kurdistan is one of ….”

I started talking about Kurdistan, its location and its people. 

Prejudgment

A short story by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

It was 8:20 am; I was standing with Chro, my classmate, discussing the criticism class assignment. Hangaw passed by us at five meter’s distance. He did not greet us. I felt miserable and dejected and read a frown on Chro’s face as well.

It was not like him. He was a wonderful guy with a perpetual smile on his face; a smile that warmed one’s heart the way sunlight warms snow covered mountains in early spring.

“He did not greet us,” Chro said, “nor did he bring the criticism book, he was supposed to bring it us today!” 

We decided not to talk to him that day in revenge of his unfriendly behavior. 

Later in the morning, after the class, Chro and I were walking in the college yard when we saw him talking with some of his friends. Seeing us in the distance, he waved in the air and headed toward us after taking leave from his friends.

“Didn’t see you all day long today,” he said with a big smile on his face, “I thought you were not coming to school. By the way, I have brought you the book!”

Chro said that he had passed by us and had not greeted us. With an empty face, Hangaw said he was so busy-minded early in the morning that he might have not noticed us.

“I am sorry,” he apologized “but you guys could have come to me and asked for the book.” Speechless, Chro and I just looked at each other.

 “I will go and get the book… see you in a minute.”

End

A child’s dream

A short story by Soran Mustafa Kurdi 

When I was nine, one day my uncle paid us a visit. He brought me a book. The book was an allegorical short story for children.

Until then, I had not seen or read any short stories except those stories we had in school.

The story was about a little black fish living with her mother in a small pond on the side of a mountain. One day the little black fish wanted to know what was happening elsewhere. He set out for a journey. In her journey, the little black fish saw many new things and went on and on till he reached a sea. Unfortunately, after her adventurous journey she would be swallowed by a heron.

Reading the story for the first time, I felt so sad until tears came down from my eyes. I felt so pity for the little black fish, as her parents were not with her when she was facing the difficulties in her journey. Later that day, I read the story for the second time. I can say, with no exaggeration, that I have read the story for a dozen times since then. Each time I got something from it. When I read it for the fifth time for the next days, something came to my mind: “One day I am going to be a writer, short story writer.” When I got a little older and read more stories and novels, I told myself “One day I am going to be a novelist, as well.”

The story changed my life. I decided that one day I would write the best ever written-novel.

Now, I find myself here, I want to write, I want to make my dream come true. 

End

As Blue as Ocean

 A Short Story by Soran Mustafa Kurdi

“Your eyes are like water, blue ocean water, my son. You have to be like water, water can carve its way even through stone, when water is trapped it makes a new path” Larsa thought about these sentences as he was walking down home tiredly. He had always lived by these speeches. They had given him a kind of relief, but this time they seemed not. He felt he was very tired, he knew that in this life sometimes he would be the windshield and sometimes the bug.

Carrying college books with right hand, Larsa opened the yard door with the other hand. He entered the yard and seemed to be ready to drop. While walking toward inside, he greeted his mother in the yard busy with rolling an inner-tube made rubber band around the water hose that had been leaking for three days. He went into the house. Before going upstairs, he saw his sister carry a wash basin filled with clothes. She was about to go up to the roof to hang the cloths on the cloth line. She welcomed Larsa with a smile and he answered with a fatigue-covered face.

“Let me go up before you do!” his sister said going up as quick as a flash.

Larsa went upstairs; in each stair different thought passed in his mind. Finally, he found himself in his room. After putting the books on the table, he could not stand changing his clothes; he fell on the bed as a dead man when gets shot. He lied down on his back, facing to the ceiling.

He looked at the clock on the wall, it said 2:30. He had been out since seven in the morning, without having had anything. In the morning his mother had prepared breakfast for him and asked to have it some, but he had refused. He had not had his lunch either.

Tiredness had made Larsa not to focus on one point. He shifted onto his left side. In the big window of the room, he looked outside, seeing a boy running a kite. The kite took him back to past and past memory flashed through his mind. He never wanted to be reminded of his past. His past always made him feel weak and hopeless. Back in early childhood, he lived in a small town, like the children of his age; he had liked to have all childish stuffs and play entertaining games. He had liked kite-running, marbling, children card game and football, but his family was too poor to afford these stuffs. Besides, he was left with no spare time to play with other kids of his age, as he worked with his father every day.

 A car honking outside threw a stone into the pond of his thinking. He noticed that a car parked in the street in a way that blocked the street, another driver with a car was trying to pass through the street. The driver was honking to let the blocking car open the street. When the sound of the honk was stopped, Larsa again shifted to his back position, facing to the ceiling again.

  In the corner of the ceiling, a spider was threading the web to set a trap for catching a prey for one of the meals.

 “Do spiders get tired and bored as well?” he thought, watching the spider.

 Thought after thought tickled Larsa’s mind, but he could not concentrate on a thing even for ten seconds. He had never felt this kind of tiredness; he was surprised! Unlike other days, he had passed better classes and spent better times with his friends.

Larsa sat down on the bed, pulling his legs close to his chest, facing toward the wall in front of him.

On the wall, there was a painting in a wooden frame; a purple background with a vase-like oval shape was in the center. Three straight parallel lines were drawn vertically behind the oval shape. The rest of the space was filled with some other indescribable and colorful shapes that made the painting so-called a piece of an abstract art. He did not understand the painting.

 “If art is made up of lines and meaningless shapes, a kid should be the best artist!” he muddled, itching his right sideburn with his right hand index finger.

Larsa got up from his bed and stood in front of the mirror. In the mirror, he saw his stubble face was dull, his hair was jumbled and his ocean-blue eyes were dim.

His blue eyes reminded him of his mother’s speech again.

 “Your eyes are like water, blue ocean water, my son. You have to be like water, water can carve its way even through stone. When water is trapped it makes a new path!”

He was interrupted from his thinking with an abrupt call of his mother downstairs.

“Larsa, I have prepared something to eat, come down and have some!”

End