This Body isn’t Mine
By Ziad A. Mahafza
Translated by Adil Babikir
When I woke up that night from a prolonged coma, it felt as if I were swimming in a sea of foam. I couldn’t quite place where I was or recognize the people around me.
I couldn’t speak. Hearing was my only link to the bewildering world around me. I struggled to remember what had happened, to trace back any events, details, conversations, faces, or places that might still linger in my memory—nothing.
All I could recall was visiting a doctor one day, and it seems I fell into a coma at the clinic. When I regained consciousness, I was lying on a bed, perplexed, trying to make sense of the voices that mingled within me and clouded my thoughts. Who were these people surrounding my bed, touching me so affectionately?
As I began piecing together fragments of memory, trying to create a story that could explain what was happening, a perplexing realization struck me: This bed wasn’t mine. The man I had suddenly become wasn’t me.
So, where am I? Or… who am I?
For days, I lay on the bed, motionless, listening closely to the voices around me but unable to utter a word. It occurred to me at some point that the lingering unconsciousness that gripped my body and mind had reduced me to a man with a shattered memory, unable to recall his past or identity, who suddenly found himself surrounded by warmth and empathy. Yet, as the haze over my eyes began to clear, and I could finally see the people around me, I became certain something was definitely wrong.
Gradually, I began to feel life around me again: a body lying still on a stark white bed, its edges seeming to pin me down. The sharp smell of medicines lingered in the air, leaving a bitter burn. The hum of the medical devices attached to me was relentless. And yet, there was another shock awaiting me—I didn’t recognize any of the faces around me.
I was hundred percent sure that these people—the ones reclining by my feet, those caressing my palm, and those sitting on the bed beside me with tear-streaked faces—had mistaken me for someone else. This just couldn’t be me. But how could I convey this to them? How could I convince this woman who gently stroked my head that I was not her husband? Or tell the sweet little girl resting her head on my lap that I was not her father? Or explain to the grieving man and the sobbing woman that I was not the friend or brother they believed I was?
Had I remained unconscious, I would have spared them the agony of enduring loss a second time. I can’t fathom how life placed me in this predicament, spending countless days among a group of people, tormenting them with my silence and feeling tormented by their love. I cherished the warmth they offered but felt guilty, as I didn’t deserve their sympathy.
It felt as though life wanted to give me a few happy days before my departure, so I tried to return their love with love. I gathered my strength, hoping to offer a smile, to soften this rigid face and send them a message—to tell them that I, too, loved them. I loved their sincerity, their humanity, and their sensitivity, and I cherished how, every night, they spoke to me with such passion and care.
If I had been him, I would have left this world filled with contentment. Yet I am still happy to leave. I am no longer the same person who awoke from unconsciousness. I will carry with me the wonder they unintentionally showered upon me, the love they had for someone they believed me to be. That love is enough for me… just a small part of it is enough.
And yet, even as I savored this enchanting world, their suffering tormented me. I yearned for the moment when the doctor would step in and bring an end to it all. True, I was living the best of my remaining days within myself, but as the doctor began removing the medical devices from my body, turning them off one by one, I felt myself happily crossing into another world—holding the hand of a wife I had never known, embracing a child I had never hugged, and a friend whose companionship I had not yet had the chance to enjoy.
Ziad A. Mahafza is an award-winning Jordanian novelist and short-story writer with eight titles to his name. His Prisoners of Darkness (Dar Fadaat, Jordan, 2014) won the best Arabic novel at the Sharjah International Book Fair in 2015, while The Day the Butterflies Let Me Down (Dar Al-Farabi, Lebanon, 2011) was longlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2012. Mahafza holds an MPA and has served on the judging panels of numerous literary awards.
This story is from his collection My Father Is Not Good at Guarding Palaces.
Adil Babikir is a Sudanese translator based in the UAE and is the author of The Beauty Hunters: Sudanese Bedouin Poetry, Evolution and Impact. His translations include The Jungo: Stakes of the Earth, a novel by Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin; Mansi: a Rare Man in his Own Way, by Tayeb Salih (winner of Sheikh Hamad Translation Award, 2020); The Messiah of Darfur, also by Sakin; and Seven Strangers in Town, by Ahmad al-Malik.