Circles

All praises be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds...

A sudden screeching sound of brakes stunned the pedestrians. The car never had time to fully stop to avoid hitting the man who had crossed the road all too suddenly. In an instant, his body flew across the hood of the car, hitting the windshield and falling to the ground.

The crowd stops to watch while the driver instinctively gets out of the car to check the fate of the man. However, the man stands up while groaning, clearly in pain. To everyone´s amazement, he starts to run again to the other side of the road. The astonished driver returns to his car, and once inside, he looks to the old woman sitting beside him. With an angry tone, he says to his mother,

“Looks like an escaping thief.”

While removing her oxygen mask, the old woman squints her eyes and says,

“Too elegant to be a thief.”

She then struggles to follow the running man with her eyes, who has already reached the opposite sidewalk and is entering a tall building. With a big smile on her face, the woman turns back to look at her son and says,

“He is just late for his meeting.”

A luxury sedan slowly comes to a stop at the entrance of an elegant hotel. The chauffeur hurries around to the rear door and opens it. A good-looking, well-dressed man wearing a tuxedo and expensive sunglasses steps out of the car and carefully looks around. He is in his mid-sixties, but he’s obviously physically fit like a man twenty years his junior. His white hair is perfectly groomed. He glances down at his wristwatch, and then casually makes his way toward the reception area, obviously not in a hurry, knowing full well his own importance. As he enters the reception area, five men, also formally dressed, are there to greet him.

“Good morning, sir.”

The five men say in unison. The man takes another look at his watch, and then answers in a serious tone.

“The conference begins in less than five minutes. Is everyone here?”

One of the five men answers with some hesitation in his voice,

“Yes, Sir. Everyone came. They are all waiting in the hall.”

The man interrupts him and starts walking towards the elevator,

“So, let’s go,” he says.

The elevator stops and they all step out. One of the men rushes over to the very tall door of a luxury conference hall that is designed like a palace door from medieval times.

The man enters the room, walking with absolute self-confidence. Once inside, he stops and calmly scans the room, looking across the sea of three hundred or so people gathered who fill the room to maximum capacity. The murmur from chatting quickly fades and cheerful applause begins to ripple across the room. All the people look to him with obvious respect, satisfaction and pride. With no change in his facial expression, he looks across the sea of pleasant faces and also examines the room. He glances up to the ceiling, then down the walls and to the floor, examining the decor as if he’s evaluating whether the room is suitable for his grandeur. Two large chandeliers hang in the center of the room from twenty meters up. The floor is covered with a lush carpet.

The man fixes his gaze on the podium at the front of the room and continues his confident stride. All eyes follow him and the applause continues. People begin standing and sporadic cheers ring out as he makes his way from the doorway to the podium.

After reaching his place, the man rests his hands on the podium and motions for the people to sit down and the thunder slowly dies down. The man leans slightly forward into the microphone and starts his speech, saying,

“It has been fifty years...”

After a long pause, the man repeats himself,

“It has been fifty, tough years. When I started this company, I was the youngest man in the country to do so. Since then, over the last fifty years, many of you and I have faced some tough times. Together.”

The man lowers his pitch and speaks very slowly in a raspy whisper for emphasis saying,

"And we overcame it all.”

He resumes his normal pace and tone,

“Last year was especially difficult, unlike any we’ve faced before. For the first time in the history of the company, I had to make the difficult decision to declare bankruptcy. Ironically, I was forced to make the announcement on the same day that the company was inaugurated fifty years ago. So, on our fiftieth anniversary those families of five thousand employees and workers entered a new era of an awful loss, which earned me a second accolade. Not only had I been the youngest entrepreneur in the business, but also, fifty years later I became the oldest loser in the business.”

The man pauses again. He has the full attention of everyone in the room. They are captivated, following his every word. As the company owner speaks, the attendees are mentally recalling the details of last year’s crises.

“The desperate situation forced me to think in ways I hadn’t before. I spent many sleepless nights sitting up and thinking, and scribbling notes and ideas in the dead of night. I studied the problem from every possible angle, constructing scores of different scenarios. And yet after all my efforts, the best possible plan I could conceive would still hurt us all. It was then that I realized I had no choice but declaring bankruptcy.”

The man paused slightly, shaking his head from side to side as the corners of his mouth moved upwards forming a smile. His eyes radiated with a deep-seated satisfaction as he gazed at someone seated in the middle of the front row.

He continued speaking, radiating an infectious smile of glee, in a deeper, solemn tone he says,

“Until I met this amazing young man.”

He stretched out his hand and pointed at the same young man he was smiling at.

“My father used to tell me ‘You succeeded in business rapidly because you know how to choose well’. He said that I had a keen ability to recognize and nurture talent. And I was sure that I chose the right man to solve the worst crisis this company has ever faced; and he did a marvelous job.

And the curious part of it all is that I took intense heat for choosing this young man to solve our problem. Many of you were against my decision. But I was certain. This young man saved the sinking ship and all five thousand people aboard.” At any time I could have been easily persuaded by your passionate appeals to give up, but my belief and trust that this man would rescue our dying institution drove me to overlook all criticism. As a consequence of that decision, we sit here tonight free and clear from the crisis, standing on firm ground with healthy prospects for the future. As I see it, it was nothing but God’s will for this young man to cross paths with our company.

In fact, this is the very reason behind you sitting in this hall today. I insisted on gathering you all here this evening so that you could hear for yourselves the story that saved us all. I want you to know the whole story directly from his own mouth. I will not be the keynote speaker for today, rather it is he who will tell you the story....the story of the crisis and the success.”

As the man speaks, he points, again, to the young man seated in front.

“Please give a warm welcome to Muhammad.”

The man steps away from the podium and vigorously applauds with his hands raised above his head. The attendees follow suit and a thunderous roar bursts from inside the room.

The young man slowly, almost reluctantly stands to his feet and moves towards the podium. All eyes shift from the CEO to Muhammad who plasters a weak smile on his face. Everyone examines him from head to toe with excited curiosity, glad to finally lay their eyes on the legendary Muhammad who rescued the livelihoods of thousands of people. But he seems only superficially engaged with his colleagues as if he’d rather be somewhere else. In fact, he appears nervous, worried even, but not because of stage freight and the sudden rush of positive attention.

Muhammad is a handsome young man. He has a slender, tall build with long semi-curly hair. However, something is wrong. For one thing he is uncomfortable in his formal attire. Every few minutes he tugs on his collar, shaking his chin from side to side as if he wants to rip the shirt off. He relieves the pressure around his neck by loosening his necktie, but carelessly leaves it canted and off-center. Also, he seems unfocused and mentally preoccupied. He doesn’t look like someone prepared to deliver an important speech. His appearance is far more untidy than usual. He hadn’t shaved or groomed his beard and his eyes look heavy and tired with darkness underneath as if he hadn’t sleep over the past two nights. Yet, despite all of this, Muhammad’s above average good looks still shined through and his piercing eyes still revealed the presence of a brilliant mind.

As the applause continues, Muhammad steps onto the elevated platform and walks with quick steps toward the company owner who greets him with a firm handshake followed by a full embrace.

Noticing Muhammad’s untidy, exhausted condition, the man whispers into his ear in the worried tone of a loving father,

“What’s up with you? You don’t seem OK?”

Muhammad responds in a muted tone, with his eyes gazing down off to the side into an abyss,

“I’m ok, I’m ok,” Muhammad says.

The owner pats him on the back one last time, then walks off the platform, leaving Muhammad alone at the podium. Muhammad steps closer to the podium, facing the attendees who are still standing and applauding. He signals for everyone to sit down, and then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out two items. One is his mobile phone, which he places on the podium. The other is a set of folded and torn post-it notes with handwriting scribbled on them. Muhammad looks up from the podium at his colleagues. He tightly clinches onto the papers as if his life depended on them. He stares down at the papers obviously deep in thought. A moment of silence dominates the hall for a few, long seconds, then Muhammad begins his speech.

“In the name of God, I start my speech. The moments in life that I most regret were times when I failed to recall and understand a great wisdom that says “the simplest solutions always solve the toughest problems.” Usually such simple solutions are right before the eyes, but most times we fail to take notice.”

Muhammad’s voice is dreamy and slow almost as if he is shell-shocked or in a trance. He struggles to maintain eye contact with his audience. His attention is still split. The owner squints his eyes, trying to discern what may have happened to his champion. Muhammad catches himself gazing down at the raggedy papers. He quickly looks up, as if a spell had been broken and continues.

“Last year we all faced a serious dilemma. And to the best of my knowledge, no other company has ever faced a similar situation. We were threatened by bankruptcy, collapse and the end of this fifty-year-old company. Finance issues, problems with raw materials, a sharp drop in sales, new, complicated regulations… as the famous saying goes, disasters never come in alone.

From the moment Mr. Ramsey gave me the authority I needed to handle the crisis, my mind was focused on one thing, which was to find out the single most important issue amongst all the problems that once solved would ripple and make all other issues easy to fix. Searching for the answer, I spent night after night analyzing and thinking about what to do. Finally, it came to me. I found the most important problem that had to be solved first. And that thing was…”

Muhammad slowed down and said,

“Me, you, and you and you…”

Muhammad kept pointing to the individual attendees seated before him who were listening with great interest. The he continued saying,

“We all were in a state of despair and frustration. The worker, the engineer, the salesperson, the manager, the negotiator… So, I was sure that you people who have to become the core of the focal point of the recovery strategy. Our aim was to motivate and to rescue everyone from that of despair and to rebuild our once unshakable morale and motivation, then we could accomplish anything. Together!

I told you the solution would be simple. And I also said it is oftentimes right before the eyes. By empowering you to look beyond the desperate conditions, we could regain our confidence and be a successful company again.

So, I began with my team, asking the question: What shall we do? What shall we do to move all the staff from a state of failure and despair to a state of enthusiasm and power? And we spent many days and nights thinking and planning and brainstorming. Not long after that a very curious thing started to happen to us. The despair and frustration started affecting us! How can it be that the special team tasked with solving a poisonous despair and frustration within a company becomes infected by it themselves? Ironic isn’t it?

Then, one night, while packing my things to leave the office at midnight, I glanced at something on my desk that brought back an old memory from many years ago. All thanks be to God.

In that moment I started to feel and taste that precious wisdom, “the simplest solutions always solve the toughest problems…”

Muhammad remained silent for a few moments. He looked over the top of the audience through the large windows at the end of the hall to the private residences behind the hotel. His mind drifted. He saw an intimate, loving moment shared between a father and son. They were seated on a sofa in the living room. The father was speaking to his son with eyes full of love while stroking his hair in a loving way. Muhammad’s eyes filled with tears as if remembering a distant memory.

He then flashes to yesterday when he was wearing the same suit, less than twenty-four hours ago. Muhammad is seated at his large desk in his office, only he looks much better, more tidy and groomed, and more rested. He is very busy talking on the office phone while also directing some employees on a task. Suddenly his mobile phone rings. Muhammad looks at the caller’s name and smiles, full happiness and eager to answer. He asks the caller to hold on while he closes the office line and leaves the office to speak freely in the corridor.

Muhammad resumes on his mobile, saying,

“Oh, so you finally realized that you have a living brother! I really miss, you know. You can’t imagine how happy I am to hear from you. Shall you come over next summer?”

The big smile on Muhammad’s face quickly melted away as he listened to the speaker gives some unpleasant news. He wasn’t prepared for anything out of the ordinary. He was caught off guard, but quickly fired back a series of questions,

“Why? What happened? Did he call you first and ask you to tell me that? Please, Nadia, enough is enough! I can’t return to that place. I promised myself never to step foot in there again as long as I’m alive. Remembering those days is the last thing I want in my life. It is just too painful. The poverty, the humiliation that we were suffering under…having to face all these memories was about to ruin my life. Have you forgotten why mom died, and how? Do you want me to remind you? Where was he?”

Muhammad’s sister responds to him, and then he continues,

“I don’t care if he was working for twenty hours a day. Think about it. No matter what it was, no matter how many times he tried, even a thousand times, what were the results? Failure after failure! Do you want me to remind you of the days when we were in school? Those miserable days of always being hungry with no protection from the cold winter. Do you still remember all that suffering? I could go on and on. And you know very well what I’m talking about…”

Muhammad pauses to regain his composure, obviously very upset. A few silent moments pass, then he hears what he thinks is soft weeping coming from the other end of the phone. He realizes that he’s said a bit too much, too passionately. He is still irritated, but with a caring voice tries to comfort his sister. He lowers his voice an octave and speaks more slowly,

“Please, sis, calm down. I didn’t say these things to make you cry. I’m nervous. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m in the office and I have lots of work to do. I have to go now.”

Muhammad ends the call. But he has been disturbed and the anger and disappointment are still very obvious in his face. He goes back to his office, sits in his chair and reclines back, closing his eyes for a moment. After opening his eyes, Muhammad glances off to his left and peers through a small window nearby. He looks attentively towards a school neighboring his office. He immerses himself in the school and drifts.

“Muhammad! Come to the dean’s office, please!”

Muhammad is startled and shocked when the dean’s secretary enters his class and orders him to see the dean, shouting at the top of her lungs. It was as if the twelve-year-old Muhammad had committed some heinous crime. He stands to his feet, quickly collecting his things, stuffing them into his torn bag. Muhammad looks to his classmates as he walks out, measuring their reactions. Some start whispering with looks of scorn and condescension, while others feel sorry for Muhammad and refuse to look up at him as a form of respect and sympathy for his miserable condition. Muhammad reaches the dean’s office and enters.

“You’ve been very late in paying the school fees, Muhammad.”

The dean speaks to Muhammad from behind his desk with his eyes fixed on his computer, not even glancing at Muhammad once,

“As of today, you’re not allowed to be in the school until your dad pays your school fees.”

Muhammad walks out of the office with eyes so full of tears that he can’t see his way clearly. The tears stream down his small cheeks and soak his shirt around his chest as if they are cleansing his little, innocent heart of the humiliation and despair.

Muhammad’s mobile phone rings. It jolts him back to the. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone now, so he switches the phone off. Muhammad grabs his jacket, which is hung on the chair, and leaves the office. After one or two steps, Muhammad quickly turns around and goes back to his desk to collect a raggedy, torn notepad with hand-written notes on it as if he never leaves it, nor does it ever leave him. Muhammad leaves the company’s building and he gets into his car. While warming up the engine, Muhammad looks up and notices in the rear-view mirror the old man who always cleans Muhammad’s car. The man is sitting on the sidewalk looking very sad and depressed. Muhammad reverses his car until he reaches the old man, lowers the driver-side window, and looks deeply into the man’s face. The man is more than sixty-years-old and his face is full of grief and misery. Muhammad asks with a smile,

“Hey, Saed, what’s up with you today? Where’s your usual smile?”

The man answers in a superficial way,

“Nothing serious Mr. Muhammad. Thanks be to God for everything.”

Muhammad insists on exploring the man’s issue in a light-hearted way,

“Hey you old man, as if we haven’t known each other for years! Tell me what happened?”

The man’s lower lip quivers, then he bursts into tears and buries his face into his hands. Without hesitation, Muhammad takes the car out of gear, shuts it off and bolts over to the sobbing man. Muhammad squats down next to the old man and places his hand on the man’s shoulder. Muhammad pleads with the man,

“Please, tell me.”

The man slowly pulls himself together and raises his head, looking straight into Muhammad’s eyes. Muhammad can’t believe how broken the man is and the amount of tears pouring down the man’s face. The course of the tears follow the many wrinkles on the man’s face as if they are dry river beds suddenly flooded by torrential rains. The old man manages to answer while looking to Muhammad,

“It is three hundred, Mr. Muhammad.”

Muhammad forces his eyebrows into a knot, not understanding the man’s words. Muhammad asks,

“Three hundred what?”

The old man continues,

“Three hundred pounds is the barrier standing between my son and his dream to get the education he wants and needs. Three hundred pounds that I now realize I don’t have and won’t be able to pay. After all those years of endeavor and hoping those three hundred will seem to testifies and speak, saying “You failed your own son”. Three hundred that will bring my son here to this same job in this same garage for the rest of his life, and they may find him dead here, as his grandfather was, and as his father will soon be.”

Muhammad is absolutely stunned by the man’s story, but not because of the story itself. It is its familiarity that is so striking to Muhammad. His eyes become dilated with amazement, he can’t believe that the memory he was just recalling upstairs in the office is happening now before his eyes downstairs in the garage.

Muhammad asks the man anxiously,

“So, why didn’t you plan for those fees?”

The man answers with an even more heartbreaking story,

“Because I didn’t plan for the unknowable destiny that my son’s mother would suffer a stroke and we would have to sell all of our old furniture to pay for her medical care.”

The man’s words enter Muhammad’s ears, but the man’s story doesn’t stop there. It also penetrates Muhammad’s heart. The profound similarity between Muhammad’s boyhood experience and the man’s situation stirred up many emotions inside him. Muhammad gazes off into the distance for a moment as if entranced. Then in an instant he knows what he must do. All of the emotional energy forces Muhammad to stand to his feet and quickly pull out his wallet. He firmly presses one thousand pounds into the man’s hand with absolute resolve saying,

“Take this, Saed. And if you need anything come over to my office at any time.”

So, without any more words, he gets back into his car and drives away. Meanwhile, the man watches Muhammad drive off in amazement. He stands up and watches Muhammad until he disappear. The man’s feelings morph from gratitude to amazement to a sublime humility. He finds himself at a loss for words, except to softly say,

”All praise be to God.”

The man is startled by his ringing mobile phone. He nervously answers and listens for a few seconds, then interrupts the caller, while looking at the wad of money in his hand saying,

“Calm down, my dear. God has just solved it. I should reach the hospital in about an hour.”

Muhammad continues driving his car into the middle of the night aimlessly. The memories of his childhood have disturbed his peace. He moves through the streets and avenues of the city without knowing where to go. At one point he forces his hand into his coat pocket and holds tight his old, raggedy notes that he always keeps with him, as if he wants to read them, but can’t seem to focus his mind because of the flood of memories from childhood.

Muhammad is knocking on the door of his sister Nadia’s room. He is pleading with her to come out and play.

“Hey Nadia, didn’t you say you wanted to go over to the park with me to play? If you’re not finished dressing in five minutes, I’ll go alone.”

Muhammad waits quietly, trying to hear any sign of hope. But Nadia doesn’t answer. Then he finally catches the faint sound of weeping, which moves him to open the door slowly. Inside, Muhammad finds his sister sitting on the floor dressed in an old dress. She is holding the only pair of shoes that she has, and they are old and torn and falling apart. She wipes the tears from her eyes and looks up to her brother, and then back down to the shoes again. Muhammad is somehow immobilized, standing in front of Nadia gazing down at her shoes. Nadia looks up and sees that Muhammad, too, is fighting back tears. Then, she finally breaks the silence and says to Muhammad,

“You go, my brother. I don’t want to go out today.”

Muhammad tries to hide his feelings of grief. He forces his mouth into the shape of a weak, superficial smile and starts looking around the room. His eyes land on some string dangling from the brim of a paper shopping bag. He rushes over and forcefully removes it from the bag and starts trying to repair his sister’s shoes. He is sincere and works passionately to make a fix, twisting his mouth and eyebrows, and squinting his eyes. Muhammad feels satisfied with his crude remedy when he’s done as if he’s made a major achievement. He looks to his sister with excitement, hoping to lift her downtrodden mood.

“There you go. Now they are just like new, even better. Let’s go!”

All of a sudden a big truck cuts across Muhammad car’s path. He quickly and violently slams his brakes causing his tires to loudly skid on the pavement. Muhammad’s car comes to a complete stop. His eyes are dilated and his breathing and heart rate are elevated. He looks around all directions with the papers tightly clutched in his hands, then collapses into his seat and lets out a deep sigh of relief, closing his eyes with the back of his head resting against the headrest. But the near accident didn’t stop the flow of repressed childhood memories. In fact, it accentuated them.

He flings the apartment door open and frantically runs downstairs. He reaches the lobby area and rushes out of the building, crossing the street barley looking for oncoming traffic. He darts into the pharmacy on the adjacent corner, trembling in fear and tells the store clerk at the top of his lungs,

“Mr. Sami, please give me the heart pills for my mom! Quick! She is very sick!”

The clerk stops what he’s doing and quickly walks a couple of paces and reaches for the Nitroglycerin pills, but for some reason he stops short of opening the cabinet. He slowly lowers his hand and turns to Muhammad with a look a great sorry. He glances towards the back of the store and says,

“Muhammad, you know the owner of the place warned me not to give you any more medicine until after your dad pays the old bills, and he promised he would fire me if I do so.”

Muhammad starts screaming at the clerk, demanding,

“Please, she will die! Give them to me this last time and I’ll do whatever I can. I will skip school and come here to clean the place. I’ll stay for security the whole night. I’ll do anything! Please don’t say no again. Please.”

Muhammad’s passionate, tearful appeal conquers the clerk’s heart. He can’t continue resisting Muhammad’s plea. He bites his lower lip, glances again back towards the manager’s office, then lowers his voice, leans over the counter, pats Muhammad’s shoulder and says,

“My God! I know I’m risking my job, but take the pills and I’ll pay for it myself from my next salary.”

Without even thanking the clerk, Muhammad snatches the pills out of his hand and flies back upstairs faster than when he came down. He flings open the front door to his apartment, leaving it open, he takes a pill from the bag while rushing towards his mother’s room. Just as he reaches the doorway to her room, Muhammad hears his sister scream,

“Mommy! Nooooo!”

Muhammad stops dead in his tracks. His worst fear causes his hands to violently shake and all the pills fall to the hardwood floor, scattering in different directions. He slowly pushes open the ajar door, his mind racing, thinking of hundred different scenarios. His breathing and heart rate gets faster and faster with each step he takes forward approaching his mother’s room. Once inside he sees his sister is on her knees next to the bed, holding her mom’s cold hands and resting her head on top of her mother’s chest, which has stopped beating forever…

Three bodies in the room, but only two living souls…

Muhammad continues driving. He can’t see the road clearly because of the streaming water, not rain from the sky, but tears from his eyes. Nevertheless, he continues driving, tightly clutching his notes. The streets begin to look familiar to Muhammad, then he realizes that he has unintentionally driven to his childhood neighborhood that he left many years ago and has since forgotten how to navigate to. The neighborhood is now empty. He stops the car in front of his old house and turns off the engine. He is amazed that he made his way there without trying. After a few minutes, he decides to leave and takes hold of the keys to start the engine, but his hands freeze and refuse to obey his order. He closes his eyes and is still clinging on to the old papers. Feeling immense emotional pressure, he whispers,

“God! Help me.”

He feels a strong urge to get out of the car. After struggling with himself for a moment, he finally opens the door and steps out. He inspects the exterior of the building from top to bottom very carefully, recalling all the events that occurred in his childhood. He walks up to the old dilapidated building and pushes the front door. It opens. Muhammad walks slowly through the lobby upstairs to his old apartment. Instinctively, he kneels down and feels around the dusty door frame for something. He finds it, a piece of loose wood, which he removes. He picks up his keychain and among the many keys it got, he begins searching for the key of the apartment which he didn’t use for long years, To his amazement, he finds it, a rusted old key. He inserts the key with some effort and slowly pushes the squeaky door open, that it seemed it has never been opened for long.

Muhammad walks to the living room, recalling all the events of his childhood. The old sofa grabs his attention. He sees this child jumping on it and playing. He climbs on the father’s shoulders while the father is drawing on some papers. The child asks his father about the papers with curiosity,

“What are you doing, dad?”

Muhammad’s father stops writing and turns to his son, looking firmly into his eyes as if he has something important to say,

“Dear Son, for a long time I have done this to evaluate what has been going on in my daily life. It helps me to feel satisfied and enthusiastic, so I continue my journey with no despair whatever happens. Every day I look for a quiet moment and sit with a pen and paper. I write all the bad and also the good things that happened to me in the course of the day. I draw circles and write inside them. Look, you see the circle in the center of the page? That’s where I write the bad things that I faced, and then I draw a large circle around the small one. That is where I write the good things that I face from the day. So the good is always bigger and surrounds the bad. So, no matter how bad thing may seem, I get to choose the place it has because thinking positively is a choice. so whenever I speak to myself saying that the bad event is in the center and I got to focus on it, my other-self answers me that the good thing is also at the center and is still surrounding from everywhere and its much, much bigger, clearer and earned to be focused on.

I advise you my son to do this every day till you leave this life, till one day, you’ll reach to feel what I’m feeling now, an inner peace that I enjoy no matter what the hardship. And, of course, remember your Creator, and be grateful to Him for all that is beautiful in your life, and be careful not to overlook the simplest blessings you got. Do this, my son, and one day you, too, will enjoy the good fruits of these notes. Open up your hands Muhammad!

The father reaches into a shopping bag and pulls out a new notepad. He gives it to Muhammad, and says,

“Today you’re seven-years-old, and I bought you this notepad so that you can start today. One day, this note pad will be the most precious thing in your life.”

While looking firmly in his eyes he continues,

“Don’t ever leave your notes, or let your notes leave you”

Muhammad continues looking around the long-abandoned apartment. He walks over to the dining table where he and his family used to eat. He runs his finger across the surface of the dusty table, and then flicks away a cake of thick dust.

“What about you, dad, won’t you eat with us?”

Nadia is asking her father if he will join them at the table as he serves the food to them from a standing position.

“Thanks my dear, I just ate before you came. Please enjoy your food and finish it all.”

Nadia looks to Muhammad in a disappointment, they are both botched attempt at deception, something he was never good at.

Muhammad shifts his gaze to his parent’s room, a few meters away. He walks towards in very slow steps. As he reaches the door, he raises his hand to grasp the door knob, but stops short of touching it when he overhears his father speaking to his mother with sadness in his voice,

“Please dear, ask God to allow my request for a salary advance this month to be approved. I hope and pray that I can buy them new clothes for the feast this year. I would hate for them to have to feel shame during those festive days.”

Muhammad’s hand starts lightly shaking as he recalls this particular memory. His hand goes limp and he can’t seem to find the strength to open the door. But he has come so far; he can quit now. He quickly swings the door open in an instant as if conquering his fear. He finds his parents’ bed in the same position he grew up seeing it in with its four old tall brass posts. At the head of the bed is a small window that lets in rays of sunlight that illuminate the whole room.

Muhammad pans around to see the wall behind him and is stunned by the amount of post-it notes he sees. They number in the hundreds and nearly cover the entire surface of the wall. Muhammad frowns in confusion and slowly approaches for a better look. The notes all have hand-writing on them. He wonders who put all those notes on the wall. He twists and turns his head trying to make out what they all say. He continues reading and notices that each note has a date written in the corner. He begins to discern the order; they are not just put up in a haphazard, random way. Soon he understands that these are his father’s daily notes, his daily dairies with two circles; a smaller one in the center with a bad event written inside with sloppy handwriting and a larger circle encompassing the smaller one with a good event carefully and beautifully written.

Muhammad starts reading the notes. The center of one note reads on its top,

- On that day…, in that year…

And it reads inside the small circle,

- Today was the harshest day in my work, and I had to go home earlier out of exhaustion.

And inside the big circle it read,

- Today I spoke with a man who was about to end his life from the bridge, I finally stopped him, he listened to me and we became friends.

Muhammad is astonished with the contents of the notes. He moves through the dates and stops at one that reads,

- On that day…, in that year…

Inside the small circle,

-Today I lost my job and I feel helpless.

The big circle reads,

-But today I also got my first baby. He is beautiful. I will name him Muhammad.

Muhammad raises his eyebrows. He is touched and amazed he never knew that the day of his birth was a mix between the despair and happiness for his father. He moves on to the next note,

- On that day…, in that year…

Inside the small circle,

-I was threatened to be kicked out of the apartment because of late rent.

The big circle it reads,

-Today I was promised of a loan from a friend.

- On that day…, in that year…

- On that day…, in that year…

- On that day…, in that year…

Muhammad keeps moving from one note to the next. He reads more and more anxiously, till he reaches to this certain day in that certain year that he still remembers it very well. At that point he pulls out his own notes from his coat pocket and he starts to search for that date, till he reaches a twenty years old page and he begins to read what he wrote by his own little hands at that time.

- On that day…, in that year…

Inside the small circle,

-Today I’ve been kicked out of the school because my dad didn’t pay the fees.

While the big circle reads,

-My dad is a big loser.

Muhammad moves his eyes to what his dad wrote for that same day, the small circle says,

-Today I found Muhammad weeping because he had been asked to leave school because I haven’t paid the fees.

“Shall I go back home? I can’t face him. I’ll just go somewhere and flip through the books in my bag and walk all the day long. When I reach home everyone will be sleep and no one will see my tears.”

Muhammad kept mumbling as he walks aimlessly out of the dean office, not sure where to go having just been kicked out of school. As he walks, some of his classmates are looking on from inside the classroom. Their eyes followed Muhammad and some were whispering and backbiting about him, their following eyes were like spears that penetrated his small heart, it severely hurt him. Suddenly in the midst of his gloom, a man darted from the other path, running into the school. Without knocking, the man burst into the dean’s office, pulls out an envelope from his pocket and slaps it on the Dean’s desk. The man is panting from exhaustion and catches the right side of his waist, squinting his eyes in pain. The man manages to say,

“As promised, sir…I’ve brought…the fees…for my son Muhammad…before twelve p.m.!”

Muhammad looks to what his dad wrote in the big circles for that day and it reads,

-Thank God! I sold my wristwatch and have enough money to pay Muhammad’s school fees.

Muhammad is stunned to discover the hidden details of that story of his life that he was absolutely clueless about. He stares at the rest of the notes with raised eyebrows and dilated pupils and he reads another note,

The small circle reads,

-When I reached home from work this afternoon my Nadia was crying. I knew it was because her only pair of shoes are completely torn.

After Muhammad and his sister return home from the park, both exhausted from playing the whole day, they collapse and sleep very deeply. In the morning, Nadia wakes up and before she leaves the bed, she finds a very attractive, red package sitting on the nightstand next to her bed. The package has a small gift card with a note written with beautiful handwriting. His father’s diary entry that day says,

-I couldn’t allow myself to rest. So, I went back to the yard and asked to work a double shift through the whole night, carrying bricks and cement. My body was already aching, but I couldn’t rest. Thank God I managed to buy my Nadia a nice-fitting pair of shoes, they are used but they are very elegant for her.

Muhammad’s heart is breaking. He looks and flips quickly through his notes, to see what he wrote that day. In the small circle it reads,

-My dear sister was crying because of her torn shoes.

Meanwhile, the big circle reads,

-But I fixed them for her. My dad is a loser as usual.

Muhammad holds the two notes side-by-side and quickly shifts his eyes between the two conflicting notes. He deeply exhales and sucks his teeth, making three audible sounds of disappointment. While he is flipping through his father’s notes, his eyes spot a certain day, a day of immense grief for him and his sister. In the small circle, his dad wrote,

-My dearest wife has now passed away because I couldn’t bring the pills to her in time.

The man runs up the stairs to the apartment with pills in hand, just a few paces behind Muhammad. He can listen to his daughter’s scream from a distance, while he finds the outer door of the apartment wide open. He reaches the room to find his children are weeping and caressing the lifeless body of their mother. He falls to his knees behind his children with eyes full of tears, clutching the right side of his waist, squinting his eyes in pain. The pills fall from his hand and scatter all over the bedroom floor, mixing with those that his son dropped moments earlier.

Muhammad’s eyes become teary. He wants to read his father’s notes from that terrible day, but he doesn’t want to start at the center of the paper. He wants to read what is inside the big first, as a way of softening the impact. He reads,

-Since I donated my kidney to her, I can’t work or move as before, but God knows that I did my best to save her.

Muhammad’s chest feels full. He feels that he can’t breathe and will fall unconscious. The flood of secrets is too much for him to bear. All the hidden details are nothing short of Earth moving. He cringes to look at what he recorded in his notes for that day. Muhammad gasps for air with tears streaming down his face. He slowly raises his notes with shivering hands. He reads in the small circle, the small circle says,

-Today my mom passed away.

Inside the big circle,

- I wish he was the one who passed away. What did he give you mom except poverty and misery?

Muhammad feels that he can’t continue. But he sees a fresh note, it’s the last note on the wall, it looks like it was written just today. He takes the note and searches for a date. His instinct is correct, it is dated with today’s date. Out of fear of finding something too much to bear, he reads the big circle first,

-Anyway, what makes me calm is that this is the happiest night in his life. In the morning, he will be celebrating his marvelous achievement at a big conference… I can smell his scent as if he is near.

Then Muhammad focuses on the writing inside the small circle. He strains to read the tiny letters,

-I feel the end is very close now. I think this may be my last day in this world, and I’ll not see Muhammad again.

Muhammad’s right hand flies up to his mouth in shock, his tears are falling profusely, and he rereads what his dad wrote in the two circles in order,

-I feel the end is very close now. I think this may be my last day in this world, and I’ll not see Muhammad again. Anyway, what makes me calm is that this is the happiest night in his life. In the morning, he will be celebrating his marvelous achievement at a big conference. I can smell his scent as if he is near.

Muhammad can’t endure anymore. He falls to his knees, bitterly weeping and buries his face in his two hands. His notes fall from to the ground. He is utterly torn apart, remembering his hostile attitude towards his loving father. He recalls all the pain and grief that he caused to him over the years and contrasts it with his father’s endless love and sacrifice, which went unreturned.

Meanwhile his mind and heart are recalling tens of memories, he is startled by the rustling sound of papers followed by someone grabbing his shoulder, putting back the notes in his hand, and closing his fist tightly on them touching the top of his head, and says,

“Don’t ever leave your notes, or let your notes leave you.”

Through all of Muhammad’s sobbing, he realizes that this is the advice he recalls from twenty years ago. He slowly turns to see who’s speaking, but he recognizes the voice. It is his father, sitting in a wheelchair, giving him the same advice from twenty years ago. Muhammad looks to his father whose eyes are still full of love. He looks much older than he should. In a voice full of caring and also weakness, Muhammad’s father says,

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long, my son.”

The father looks deeply into Muhammad’s eyes as if looking directly at his soul. His hand is clutching Muhammad’s fist which by its turn clutches on his notes. He continues speaking to Muhammad. His voice is soft and fatigued,

“I was sure that your face would be the last thing I’d see in this life.”

And true to his saying, no sooner than he uttered those words, Muhammad’s father squeezes his chest around his heart, and then collapses into the chair. His body starts leaning as if to fall onto the floor, but Muhammad quickly rises to his feet and catches his father. In a panic, Muhammad lets out a scream,

“Dad! What happened to you? Talk to me!”

Muhammad isn’t sure what to do. He lifts his father’s eyelids and places his ear over his father’s mouth to listen for breathing. He keeps moaning in pain. So he lifts him from the wheelchair and carries him down stairs. he loads his father into the passenger side of his car and starts driving very fast to a nearby hospital like he’s in hot pursuit of dangerous criminal suspect. He rapidly turns his head between the road and his father’s face.

“Dad, you will be alright. Just hang on! Ok! We are almost there.”

Muhammad’s father is breathing faintly, but amazingly he has a peaceful look on his face. Finally he reaches the hospital, the emergency staff admit Muhammad’s father into intensive care. The doctor briefs Muhammad after completing a preliminary exam and tells him,

“Honestly speaking, sir, we can’t be sure about your father’s prognosis until after more thorough exams. There are no guarantees. We will all have to wait.”

After the permission of the doctor, Muhammad steps into his dad’s room to find all kinds of beeping and flashing medical equipment with his father peacefully resting in the middle of it all on a bed. Muhammad pulls a chair to the bedside and holds his father’s hand. He falls asleep reflecting on all what he has just learned about his loving father. He is awoken by the call for the dawn prayer echoing outside the building from all directions. Muhammad leans back in his chair. He performs the purification in the private toilet and prays beside his father’s bed. He asks God to forgive his sins and the many years of disobedience to Him and his father. Muhammad is still in a haze after the prayer. He returns to his chair and soon falls asleep, clutching his father’s hand.

“Wake up, my son!”

Although the voice is faint, Muhammad hears his father and quickly sits up. Muhammad squints his eyes as they catch the direct sunlight striking his face. His father motions for him to come closer and whispers in Muhammad’s ear,

“Please, go to your conference.”

Muhammad protests. He shakes his head quickly from side-to-side, meanwhile, he keeps clutching on his father’s hands.

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you, dad.”

His father insists and looks firmly into Muhammad’s eyes,

“Listen to me, if you want to obey me, if you want me to forgive you…”

The father’s tears began falling down, while continuing,

“If you want to see me in your dreams… please go. Go continue your dream.”

Muhammad stands up and reluctantly releases his father’s hand. He walks towards the door, and then turns around for another look at his father, trying to mentally record every detail about him. Then he leaves the room and walks through the corridor toward the exit of path of the hospital, his eyes are distracted, just seeing the last image of his father smiling to him in tranquility, he passes by the nurse’s station to give his mobile phone number and says,

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Please, if anything happens while I’m gone, call me immediately and I’ll be right here as fast as I can.”

As the applause continues, Muhammad steps onto the elevated platform and walks with quick steps toward the company owner who greets him with a firm handshake followed by a full embrace.

Noticing Muhammad’s untidy, exhausted condition, the man whispers into Muhammad’s ear in the worried tone of a loving father,

“What’s up with you? You don’t seem OK?”

Muhammad responds in a muted tone, with his eyes gazing down off to the side into an abyss,

“I’m ok, I’m ok.”

The owner pats him on the back one last time, and then walks off the platform, leaving Muhammad alone at the podium. Muhammad steps closer to the podium, facing the attendees who are still standing and applauding. He signals for everyone to sit down, then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out two items. One is his mobile phone, which a places on the podium. The other is a set of folded and torn papers that have notes scribbled on them. Muhammad looks up from the podium at his colleagues. He tightly clinches onto the papers as if his life depended on them. He stares down at the papers obviously deep in thought. A moment of silence dominates the hall for a few, long seconds, then begins his speech, talking, and talking, and talking.

From time to time, Muhammad glances on the podium to his phone to check for any missed call, which he never sees. So, he continues, in marvelous fashion without anyone knowing that he is dealing with a much bigger concern; something, someone far more important to him than the conference. In the middle of speech, he lifts up his notes and shows them to the attendees. Speaking in a strong voice Muhammad says what he really feels is the most important part of his entire speech,

“Now I want to share something personal, which I believe was the underlying reason for this professional success. Please recall with me my first words of this speech “the simplest solutions always solve the toughest problems.” This simple note has never left me, nor have I left it. In fact, this simple note had our antidote from bankruptcy and failure than anything else. We trained every worker and staff person to write down the bad they faced in performing their duties inside a small circle in the center of the page; and the good in a big circle, even the slightest good thing including a simple smile of hope. These in turn were put up all over the facility where everyone could see the thoughts and experiences of others. And after just six months everything started to change hundred eighty degree, it was beyond what even I had imagined.

This practice was open us to all sorts of innovative ideas. And they came from people that would never be taken seriously under normal circumstances; great ideas! After just six months, productivity rate jumped; first by double, then it tripled. Trust was restored between departments and finger pointing and petty arguing dried up. And, of course, it rippled outwards and touched everyone. Clients and stakeholders started believing us again. Now, after almost a year since the crisis hit, we can officially say that we achieved the best figures since the inauguration of this company.

Now, there is one person that all of this can be attributed to. Someone who exposed me to all this simple, but impactful thought processes, and this person is….”

Muhammad stops for a moment, while anticipation is building in the attendees who are squirming in their seats with curiosity. A favorite university professor? A religious leader? The company owner? Who could it be? Muhammad lifts the remote control to the projector and advances to the next slide. A large photo comes up on the giant projection screen. Muhammad’s voice slightly quivers and he says, fighting back tears,

“This person is my father….”

A rumble of ohs and ahs fills the hall out of the emotional impact audience felt, and after a few moments, the company owner stands up and he starts clapping. The applause grows and others stand to their feet as well. Soon the entire hall is vibrating. Muhammad looks to the owner and nods his head, then remembers his mobile. He darts over to the podium, picks up his mobile and notices he has just received a short message. He quickly reads it with a heart full of worry, and panic. He jets off the platform and runs out of the hall. Some are worried by his fast, untimely departure, while others keep applauding, still focused on the picture shown on the large screen. An old couch, a man setting on it, drawing circles, writing his notes and the little Muhammad is hanging around on his shoulders.

Meanwhile, Muhammad continues running, through the lobby out into the parking area. He gets into his car and heads back to the hospital, but traffic is really bad. After a few minutes, he gets out abandoning his car in the middle of the busy congested road, and he begins running at his maximum speed passing all the stopped cars at both sides of the road, and after couple of minutes he sees the hospital at the end of the long road. Muhammad hardly takes his breath, but he resists his fatigue and keeps running, and finally the hospital is right there at other side of the road, so he even runs faster crossing that road.

The pedestrians were stunned by the loud and sudden sound of the brakes of that fast car that did not make it to stop until it hit that guy who all of sudden crossed the road, but in an instant he jumps on the hood hitting the windshield and falling to the ground. Everybody stops to watch what happened, and the driver gets out to check up the guy, but before he does so, Muhammad stands up feeling tremendous pain but he runs again crossing the road, leaving the passers astonished for his tenacity.

Muhammad rushes into the hospital, bypasses the slow, crowded elevator and heads up the stairs. He reaches Intensive Care and heads to the end of the corridor, where his father is. Halfway down the corridor, he sees the nurse who sent him the message. The nurse lowers his head and tries to avoid Muhammad’s eyes. Muhammad nervously grabs him by both shoulders, demanding to know what happened to his father,

“What happened?!”

The nurse answers with sorrow in his voice,

“I’m so sorry…”

Before the nurse finishes the sentence, Muhammad releases him and rushes to his father’s room. Inside, he finds a small team of doctors standing around holding his father, trying to help him. Muhammad runs toward his father, pushing the aside and embraces his father. He still has faint signs of life in him. The father puts his hand into his son’s suit pocket and removes a blank notepad. Out from it he takes a pen with his fragile hands and draws a small circle,

-I tried a lot and I failed a lot.

Then he draws the big circle and writes,

-But Muhammad succeeded.

Finally, the notepad falls on the floor…

Muhammad silently leaves the room. He lowers his head, but he is done crying; his eyes are tearless, but his cheeks are still wet from all the previous tears. He walks back down the corridor, gazing at the nowhere, holding the note his father just wrote.

Muhammad lifts his head and looks through the window to the bright, shiny sky with sun rays striking his face. He shifts his focus to study his reflection in the glass. He notices a few white hairs beginning to appear on the sides of his head. He realizes that now he looks more like to his dad. He lifts the notepad and scribbles something. Next to him is an announcement board, which he rotates his body towards and places the freshly written note on it, next to many other papers. He places his hands into his pocket and admires his note with a look of tranquility. Inside the small circle it says,

-I’m late to work, car is in maintenance and I walked out of an important meeting.

The inside of the big circle says,

-I and Ahmed will stay the whole day together.

He then looks to who’s standing next to him, his little young son, he looks to him with great love in his eyes. His son writes a note of his own, and he follows his father’s example and places it on the announcement board. The small circle says,

- There is no way out today.

In the big circle it reads,

-I hope my dad is as happy being with me as much as I’m happy being with him.